the guardian – comment is free – north-crossrail-conservative-northern-rail-chris-grayling

A little out of date now that item, but i’ll update the post with my own angle to this..

A lot of words have been said over the past couple of years about ‘Northern’ rail projects, when what is meant by this, as in also ‘Northen Powerhouse’ *, is what i would call the Northern ‘belt’ across England centred roughly on a line from the Mersey to Humber estuaries…

So once again, as as has been the case for years when ‘southerners’ talk about ‘the North’ , they essentially mean Lancashire and Yorkshire, indisputably the biggest previous ‘powerhouse’ of industrial England, which has undoubtedly suffered from the decline in ‘tradtional’ industries ( whatever caused that ), but nevertheless this ‘belt’ across England is a large area which has not yet suffered the additional indignity – on top of industrial decline – of being forgotten, or at least left out of national political discourse ( or what passes for it right now )

Which is what the North-East of England has been subjected to over the years that i’ve lived there, including being mentioned as a minor afterthought in recent talk of any ‘northern’ rail projects.

When is the North-East of England going to have Trains properly going AROUND and across it, instead of mainly just through it on a North-South axis ?