Published at 09:09, Monday, 16 January 2012

I HAVE some pertinent comments regarding the attempts to add a carriage to the 7.42am Hexham to Newcastle train.

This runs as an empty train from Newcastle, so if there is a freight train heading west, there is no harm in holding the empty train at Norwood Junction where freight trains join the Tyne Valley line. Providing the empty train arrives at Hexham by 7.35am it will still leave for Newcastle on time.

Even if the empty train has got to get into the siding at Hexham, the distance between the centre doors of the train is at most 10 feet and the train driver has a powerful hand lamp to walk this 10 feet along the side of the unlit siding.

I am one of the few remaining who worked the Tyne Valley line when stations were paraffin or gas lit and have started both passenger and freight trains with nothing more than a paraffin hand lamp.

ROY BELL,

Hexham

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