Esk Valley Rail Links to be 'Largely Destroyed' by December Timetable Changes, Warns Campaigner

Upcoming rail timetable changes, set to be introduced in December 2025, will see most direct train services from Whitby to Newcastle withdrawn, sparking concern that the line's recent growth will be reversed.

Alan Williams, Chair of the Esk Valley Railway Development Company (EVRDC), has expressed his deep disappointment, claiming the usefulness of local services will be "largely destroyed".

The changes are part of a major revision of the East Coast Main Line (ECML) timetable, one of the most complex on record, which affects services across eastern and north-eastern England. According to the EVRDC, the government has chosen to provide additional paths for private 'open access' operators on the ECML at the expense of local services. Mr Williams stated, "Open Access was meant to encourage use of spare capacity on the rail network, not to push local services aside in favour of private sector long distance operators".

Currently, there are five services each way between Whitby and Middlesbrough, with two of these extending along the Durham coast to Sunderland and Newcastle. These through services, introduced in 2018, have contributed to a 9% annual increase in ridership on the line.

Under the new timetable, a new early morning commuter service from Whitby to Newcastle will be introduced, something the EVRDC has consistently pressed for. This would have potentially brought the total number of through services to five. However, it has been revealed that three of the four existing daily through services are to be withdrawn, reducing the number to just two: the new early morning train to Newcastle and one return service.

For all other journeys, passengers will have to change trains at Middlesbrough. Mr Williams has voiced significant concern over the quality of these new connections.

"Our trains at the moment go all the way to Hexham, and we've always said there aren't that many people in Whitby who want to go to Hexham every day, but there certainly are a lot of people who want to go to Newcastle, our figures show that, and along the Durham coast to Sunderland and Hartlepool and places like that.

And all of those people will in future, with the one exception of the new early morning service, have to get off at Middlesbrough and change onto another train.

They may have to change to another platform and some of the connections are frankly, quite ludicrous.

One of the connections, you wait on the platform for 57 minutes for your connection, and another one is just six minutes and if you miss that connection, you've then got a four hour wait for the next Whitby train when at the moment it's a through train and you don't have to worry at all.

Things like that are not going to encourage growth of passengers on the line, people won't do that more than once, they'll find another way of doing it."

The EVRDC argues that forcing passengers to change trains acts as a major barrier to travel.

"The growth on the line has definitely been driven by all the additional connections.

Our line is semi-detached from the rest of the rail network because people have to change and all the research shows that people hate changing because it disrupts them and they worry about missing connections and of course it inevitably extends the journey time.

And all those things are now going to happen as a result of this, and I'm very disappointed .

It's going to be Basically return to a shuttle service between Whitby and Middlesbrough, and you have to connect with the rest of the national network there rather than being able to catch a train all the way through, to Newcastle or to Hartlepool or Sunderland. "

Sunday Services and James Cook Hospital Impact

The impact on Sunday services is set to be even more severe. The EVRDC claims that all six existing through services between Whitby and Newcastle, which have proven popular for day trips, will be withdrawn. The replacement connections at Middlesbrough will require waits of up to 57 minutes. Mr Williams questioned the logic of this, asking, "Will passengers tolerate that?".

There are also concerns for James Cook University Hospital station. Mr Williams fears passengers heading to the hospital from the other side of Middlesbrough will find other ways to complete the short four-minute journey from the city rather than waiting long periods of time for connecting services, causing a decline in the line's overall ridership.

"At the moment, James Cook has been remarkably successful it's the most recent station opened in 2014 I think it was, and it's gone from nothing to being the second busiest station on the line after Whitby itself.

Now, if they cut the supply of passengers as it were from Middlesbrough and it's only four minutes from Middlesbrough, people are not going to hang around for the best part of an hour or Middlesbrough station just to do a four minute trip for the last bit of the journey to get to James Cook.

They're going to find other ways of doing it, and the ridership of the line overall will decline. "

Alan Williams says the EVRDC's suggestions made during a 2022 public consultation have been ignored. He also suggested the changes run contrary to the stated ambitions of the York and North Yorkshire Mayor. 

"There hasn't been, in my memory, a change on this scale for many years.

It basically stops local trains, including ours, that at the moment cross the east coast mainline

So as a result of that, wherever, local trains get in the way of trains on the East coast main line they have just been pushed aside.

One of our concerns is that they've simply ignored all our suggestions. Because of-course we pointed out that losing these connections was going to destroy what we'd already established and they've just ignored the lot.

This certainly goes quite against what, for instance, the mayor is saying.

The mayor keeps saying he wants to see more rail services to the Yorkshire coast in particular. But these cut will mean the exact opposite happens. "

The EVRDC claims that hundreds of passengers will be disadvantaged every day from December and is pressing for improvements to be made as soon as possible.