The Anonymous Widower

The Creation Of The Tees Valley Metro

James Cook station is the first project that could be thought of as part of the proposal to create a Tees Valley Metro, which is described in Wikipedia like this.

The Tees Valley Metro is a project to upgrade the Tees Valley Line and sections of the Esk Valley Line and Durham Coast Line to provide a faster and more frequent service. In the initial phases the services will be heavy rail mostly along existing alignments. The later phase may introduce tram-trains to allow street running.

Tram-trains could be ideal for the line and perhaps if they ran past the Riverside stadium could be used to provide a stop there.

The proposed layout of the metro is powerful in that it links the East Coast Main Line at Darlington and the possibly soon-to-be-electrified Middlesbrough station to a number of both local heavy rail lines and a couple of heritage ones, opening up the area for all sorts of business, leisure and employment opportunities.

If Newton Aycliffe becomes a major train building centre as Hitachi hope, then surely that area could become an important destination on the Tees Valley Metro.

This Google Earth image shows the Tees Valley Line through Middlesbrough.

Middlesbrough

Note Middlesbrough station at the west (left) and South Bank station at the east, at the top of the image.

The current Tees Valley Line threads its way between the two stations, on the north side of the main A66 road, passing close to the Riverside stadium.

The Esk Valley Line to James Cook, Nunthorpe and Whitby  branches off from this line between Middlesbrough station and the stadium and goes off in a generally south-easterly direction alongside the A172 road.

March 15, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Travel | Middlesbrough, Tees Valley Metro, Trains, Tram-Trains