Go North East Buses- Strike Action

During the Strikes an emergency AD122 service is being run, under contract to Northumberland County Council, by a company called Rural Link, as well as other services in the Hexham area- scroll down to the timetable at the bottom of this link- https://images-gonortheast.passenger-website.com/downloads/GNE%20Industrial%20Action%20-%20Special%20Timetables%20%28Hexham%20Area%29%20PUBLIC.pdf

As an aside these emergency services also mark a return, after many years, of Howard Snaith of Otterburn, to running scheduled bus services.

There is now a further up date on this, in that the Unite union has now called an indefinite strike commencing on 28 October.

Rats, I'm planning to see Hadrians wall around the 18th and 19th. I'll be in York before that. I guess I'll hire/rent a car in Durham or Hexham (would like to avoid driving in New Castle if possible). Any advice on which of these would be the best place to rent a car? Sorry if that seems too basic a question, it's just that I don't know the areas, so perhaps there is some reason to get a car in a specific place.

There is an Enterprise depot in Hexham. Which would keep you on your circular line of route. Hire the car for your days on the wall, return it at Hexham, then continue on your circuit by train. Or from Hexham the #685, run by Stagecoach, will be running per normal between Carlisle, Hexham and Newcastle- but may be very busy.

Train York to Hexham- around 2 hours, including the change in Newcastle.

Thank you very much for the advice!

Well, I followed your excellent advice and just finished the day -Wednesday - at Hadrian's wall. I was thinking of Friday, but the weather forecast called for heavy rain starting Thursday so I changed my schedule, took the very early train from York to Hexham, rented/hired a car from enterprise and zipped out to Rick Steve's 3 recommended museums and archeological sites as well as the lung busting up and down hike along the wall from steel rig to Homesteads fort. Would like to make it two days but if the forecast is correct Thursday would be a write off. Staying the night in Hexham then returning the car in the morning and taking the train to see Durham.
Thanks again for the heads up about the buses being on strike. It sure was nice to have a car again, even if only for a day.

I think Thursday might be passing showers but windy. Friday looks bad.

Have a walk around Newcastle for a couple of hours.

Glad to have been of use. The forecast for Thursday and Friday has changed markedly since I looked it up this morning. At that stage the storm was shooting over the Lake District/ the wall overnight.

I think it could do anything tomorrow.

A case where flexibility is key.

UPDATE-

We can confirm that Go North East and Unite the Union have reached an agreement on our latest pay offer today and Unite will now take this offer to our colleagues for ballot. It is expected results from this ballot will be made available on Friday 27 October and we will update our customers on the outcome as soon as possible. Whilst the ballot is ongoing Unite have not postponed strike action. At present there will be no Go North East buses from Saturday 28 October, with the exception of contracted school services, until further notice.

The strike is now going ahead for up to 12 weeks, until 22 December (that clock started at the first strike on 30 September), after the deal was rejected. Under the law after 22 December the staff can be dismissed, en bloc to bring an end to this issue.

The County Council is unable to fund any emergency bus services for such a long period, so the Hadrian's Wall bus AD122 and all other Go North East services across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham are now cancelled until further notice.

The Stagecoach 685 Newcastle to Carlisle via Hexham and all Arriva services in Northumberland are not affected.

I can advise that there is an emergency AD122 Hadrians Wall service running, but not the timetable.
Neither the County Council or Go North East admit it is running. But I was standing outside Hexham Railway Station at 0830 today, waiting for a railway relief coach after a fatality on the line when the AD122 turned up. He couldnt believe his eyes when he saw 20 people waiting, none for him!
I'm only 125 minutes late which is good going in the circumstances.

125 minutes late. I hope you got to your destination somewhere near an acceptable time.

Greg,

I was on my way home, so it just turned a 25 hour journey into 27 hours.

What wasn't good was that there were no station staff on duty, and we had been given scant information when turfed off at Hexham, just told a bus would turn up "soon". So I had had to emerge from my shell and co-ordinate a difficult situation- to use live train tracking to know where the incident was (at Low Row). So when the bus turned up eventually to take us to Haltwhistle I had to tell the driver to contact Manchester control for authority to extend to Carlisle, otherwise I'd have been another 2 hours late.
In the meantime 2 other trains had turned up to terminate- on each of those times I had got the guard to phone control to track the bus, so as to keep the crowd reasonably happy. I have seen such situations spiral downwards fast without staff or information.

Everyone was pretty satisfied at the end of the day, which was a result.

I would have to say that the bus provided was ancient- it is years since I have seen a UK bus with ash trays!

Ashtrays! Wow.

The strike continues. After two further rounds of talks the union is now balloting to extend the strike to April 2024.

Further negotiations are due tomorrow, 27 November.

Very gradually very limited services are being re-introduced on Monday to Friday on a few routes in Tyneside and County Durham- between about 9.30 am and 2 pm only.

The strike is over.

All services resume on 2 December

All Go North East tickets are free until 8 December.