The bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway can give us pause to reflect on what the next 200 years can bring for transport in Teesside. And it can be a bright future.
Crazy Horses
The great car experiment of the past 60 years has failed. It’s left us with noise and air pollution, and traffic jams, including the infamous ‘Marton Crawl’. New ‘garden villages’ swallowing up countryside. They’re 100% car dependent, and they’re an environmental disaster. Car infrastructure, in the form of roads and car parks, has been allowed to swamp our town centres.
Free for all
Car owners can set their vehicles down at will, regardless of other citizens, and with complete impunity. Middlesbrough, for example, has one of the worst pavement parking problems in the UK.
What’s the solution?
Well, locally, Middlesbrough mayor Chris Cooke could choose to apply the law, and stop pavement parking overnight. On a wider scale, councils need to refuse any further planning applications for garden villages. But we also need to provide would-be car drivers with an alternative. Something that every major conurbation in the UK, except the Tees Valley, has got.
On the Buses
Try the bus? I wouldn’t bother right now. Frequently cancelled services, cramped seating, failing aircon, no Wi-fi, a baffling stone age ticketing system, buses fighting for road-space with inconsiderate drivers and people who park anywhere they like. So, as soon as the TVCA has been replaced by a competent organisation, its successor could roll out a reliable bus system. Then a unified ticketing system covering all transport systems, with daily and weekly price caps.
A cycle network?
Sure, but it’s slow progress. Network builders continue to fight a losing battle with a road lobby that won’t give up its space. Some great segregated routes that run out just when you need them most. And we mustn’t repeat the mistake of putting new cycle routes into the hands of bungling amateurs such as Andy Preston.
Tees Metro
Then we need a turn-up-and-go rail network. The previous proposal for a Tees Metro was half-hearted, promising a small network would only have served a small proportion of the population. It was finally abandoned as part of austerity measures introduced in 2010. The details can be found here.
Be Bold
Right now, the Tees Valley has the oldest rolling stock in the country, and is the only major conurbation in the UK not to have electrified any of its services. We need to fix this with clean, quiet, frequent trains. Services every ten minutes on all routes, or every five minutes on the core routes, so that you don’t need timetables. First of all, a map of the proposed Tees Metro and its four lines:
Familiar, but yet different
All of the proposed stations are shown on the above map, but not all have been labelled for the purpose of clarity. Full details are provided on the following four maps. Anybody who is familiar with railways in Teesside will recognise some of the stations and the routes. But 18 of the 43 stations, and many of the routes, don’t exist right now. They’re either brand new, or they are reopenings of former infrastructure. Much of it disappeared during the ‘Beeching’ era of the mid 1960s. Or so you may have thought. Actually, most of it is still there.
The four lines of the Tees Metro
A description of the four individual lines will follow. This includes details of the major challenges which would be required to reinstate existing routes, and to build some new short stretches of track.
Line 1 – Bishop Auckland to Loftus
Line 1 would be the key Tees Metro route, allowing interchange with all of the other three lines. The line would utilise the existing Bishop Auckland to Saltburn Line, extended through to Loftus. The latter section is sometimes referred to as the ‘East Cleveland Line’
Work required
First of all, reinstatement of double track between Bishop Auckland and Darlington Bank Top stations. A flyover would need to be built north of the latter station to avoid conflicts between the Tees Metro and the East Coast Main line. Due to a penny-pinching decision by the TVCA, only one of the two new platforms being constructed here will be a through platform. Platform 6, currently being built as a terminus platform, would need to be upgraded. This is the disappointing new layout at Darlington, courtesy of Modern Railways magazine:
New stations
There would be new stations at Morton Palms, Teesside Park, Newport and Middlehaven on the existing line. Saltburn station would be relocated, making it a through station instead of a terminus. North Skelton, Brotton, Skinningrove and Loftus would be reopened. I’ve discussed these improvements as part of wider proposals to extend services along the coast to Whitby and Scarborough. You can read these proposals here.
Line 2 – South Circle
Line 2 would be a circular route as shown below. The route would start and finish at Middlesbrough, with two new dedicated platforms being built south of the existing Platforms 1 and 2, using land currently occupied by a car park. Details of the work that would be required to restore this route can be found here.
Line 3 – North Circle
Line 3 would be a circular route as shown below. This part of the Tees Metro would include the largest infrastructure project, the Tees Tunnel. This tunnel would begin east of Port Clarence, then follow a 180° curve before surfacing south of the existing Middlesbrough to Saltburn railway line. Former stations would be reopened as follows: Port Clarence, Belasis Avenue (formerly Belasis Lane), Billingham West (the former Billingham station, closed in 1966), Norton and Newport (just west of Newport Bridge).
New stations
Stockton Parkway station would be a ‘Park + Ride’ built next to the ‘Blue Bridge’ over the A1027. Teesside Park station has already been proposed by the TVCA. Middlehaven station would serve the eponymous business park and the Riverside Stadium.
Line 4 – Darlington to Hartlepool
Line 4 would run on the same tracks as Lines 1 and 3 for part of the route, permitting interchange at the relevant stations. Greatham station would be reopened, and would also serve the nearby Queens Meadow Business Park. The existing Billingham station would be renamed as Billingham East to avoid confusion with the former Billingham station, now reopened and renamed as Billingham West. Morton Palms would serve the nearby business park of the same name.
Eaglescliffe improvements
The second island platform at Eaglescliffe would be reinstated, allowing the construction of two extra platforms. This would allow the existing platforms to be dedicated to Tees Metro services. The newer platforms would serve Grand Central and Trans Pennine trains. Freight services would also be routed via these lines.
Technical details
The Tees Metro would be electrified using 25kV OHLE and would use an ETCS signalling and control system.
Long distance Services
Northern Rail services from Middlesbrough to Newcastle would utilise the eastern part Metro Line 3 before using a newly-built north to east chord between Belasis Avenue and Billingham East stations. This would reduce the journey time by approximately ten minutes. So, for example, the journey between Hartlepool and Middlesbrough would take 15 minutes instead of 25. Services towards Whitby from Newcastle would continue by reversing at Middlesbrough.
Grand Central Services
Due to improved acceleration of the newly ordered tri-mode trains, services between Sunderland and King’s Cross would call at Billingham West and Stockton in addition to Hartlepool and Eaglescliffe.
Freight services
The quadruple track section between Tees Dock and Eaglescliffe would be reinstated to allow separation of freight and passenger services. This would restore a dedicated freight railway through Teesside that existed from the end of the 19th Century until the Beeching era. Some four-track sections have survived, for example through Middlesbrough station.
Who would deliver the Tees Metro?
Certainly not the TVCA or Network Rail. Neither of these organisations is fit for purpose. It will have to be done by the newly formed Great British Railways (GBR). But not the half-baked GBR being proposed by Secretary of State Heidi Alexander. This would include “An ongoing role for the private sector”. We’ve been there and got the T-Shirt with nearly 30 years of railway privatisation. It doesn’t work, and the UK Government will need to go back to the drawing board.
Can we afford the Tees Metro?
First, let’s have a look at where some of our money has been spaffed away in the past 15 years: HS2? We won’t get much change out of £80bn while, incredibly, not reaching any of the destinations that it was proposed to serve. Hinckley Point nuclear power station? Another £46bn down the tubes. And the UK Government is about to sign off on another nuclear power station, Sizewell C.
Don’t do it, Keir
Keir Starmer is claiming a starting budget of £20bn for Sizewell C, but that’s ridiculous. We know that they’ll come back for more than double that. They always do. Unproven science fiction carbon capture? That’ll be £22bn please. Corrupt PPE contracts? £4bn, a mere bagatelle. We may be looking at £10bn for Tees Metro. In the context of all of the above, we can afford it, and Teesside deserves it.
Further Reading
Tees Valley Rail: Beyond 2024 – 30 May 2023
Available here
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