And...a more cut down commuter rail

As I mentioned many metro station should be skipped on the prior idea. Here is a more cut down and 'proper' version.
This still isn't the most conservative version (knock out Spennymoor and a few of the extra commuter stops in smaller places for that, e.g. Blackhall) but there we go.

I wonder what the final outcome will be when Blyth and Ashington finally do get their train stations.
It seems likely that Leamside will be reopened in Washington giving it a mainline train station too (unfortunately) so perhaps a single route which avoids Chester-Le-Street and the ECML and instead runs through Washington then onwards to either Sunderland or Durham and finally Boro?

Commuter Rail

As I've mentioned in prior posts there is a lot of talk these days about giving Blyth and Ashington rail links to Newcastle. Many (primarily from Blyth and Ashington) would like this to be a metro link however the distance involved is just too great for this to be viable. On the other hand, the distance is too short and the route too well used for just a regular train service.

So, here we have it, North East Commuter Rail.
Not actually a metro system however branded like one and with services more regular than a standard train (though nowhere near metro frequencies).

The map as presented here is very much one of 'maximum extent'. Not even ideal world but a map of where the lines should go.
Ideal worldly I would not service so many metro stations, they get good enough service already from the metro afterall and its unlikely many people travelling from Ashington will want to go to Newcastle residential areas. Only one or two of these outer stations should be serviced with the priority instead being to get to the city centre as fast as possible.

In addition to the Ashington-Newcastle link it also seemed to make sense to me to have better service linking Chester-Le-Street to Newcastle...and if you're going that far why not Durham? And from there it balooned into a north east wide network, linking up the Tees Valley metro and the Tyne-Wear metro.

Generally this map follows existing lines- sorry Blyth, but your town is just too far away from them and I had to serve the rim- however one small exception was made south of Durham for the large and unfairly isolated town of Spennymoor.

As I've said this is largely ideal worldly however the government does seriously want to build stations in Blyth and Ashington (and Washington but...that conflicts with my prior ideas and I've already established I don't like it!) and this seems the best way to do so.

A semi-metro...the bastard child of metro and rail.

Small changes

So! Back to the Newcastle Metro!
This has been a long time in the making due to life commitments more important than my strange little interest.

There are very few changes to this map, just the addition of Ryton onto the blue line- whilst the blue line in general before was an 'easy extension' which just involved improving already existing railway tracks with a extra lane or two this addition involves a bit of actual new track. Though not much. Just a divergance from the Carlisle line to go closer to the town centre and give this large town access to the network.

Also planned for this edit was incorporating the local railway into the map.
I had the idea that local rail routes should be given far greater public attention, as things stand now its just as hard to get a train from Newcastle to Prudhoe as it is to go all the way down to London. These local routes should be given a unified branding and tied in very closely with the metro- all trains from Hexham, Pegswood and Ashington in should unquestionably be given this system. This would largely I'd imagine take the form of just better awareness and integrated pricing with the existing trains however for some routes a 'semi-metro' could be useful- with Ashington in particular I would lean this way, its a bit too far away for the proper metro however it does deserve regular service when it gets its railway connection opened.
In the south this link should go to Durham at the least however the government has made many rumblings recently about a better north east railway line connecting Teeside and Tyne and Wear- this sounds good to me so I would also integrate to a degree down to Middlesbrough on both the Durham-Darlington-Boro line and the Sunderland-Peterlee (which needs a station! That a town this big on a railway line doesn't is very odd)- Hartlepool-Boro line.