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The Northumberland Coast Loop: ‘Connecting Coast, Castles, and Coalfield Communities’ by rail.

Starting at Newcastle Central, this proposed ‘Northumberland Coast Loop (N.C.L.) rail route would share highly successful Northumberland Line between Newcastle and Bedlington, before diverging from this line to pass via Hepscott, and rejoin the East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Morpeth North Junction.

The route would then go through Pegswood station, and continue north towards Alnmouth, Berwick-Upon-Tweed and on to Edinburgh.

Two services are proposed via this route:

An N.C.L. Semi-fast service would call at a limited number of stations between Newcastle and Edinburgh running via Blyth Bebside, and in North Tyneside and Northumberland, those stations are likely to be: Northumberland Park, Blyth Bebside, Pegswood, Alnmouth, and Berwick Upon Tweed.

An N.C.L. local rail service (all stations), running between Newcastle and Berwick via Blyth Bebside.

This route uses an existing rail alignment, with most of it in regular use for both passengers and freight (ECML and Northumberland Line), with only the Bedlington to Morpeth North Junction section, c.5 miles in length currently in freight only use, but used twice weekly by the ‘Alcan’ service between Port of Blyth and Fort William.

Route map of the Northumberland Coast Loop

The use of this route could drastically reduce journey times from SE Northumberland into North Northumberland and Scotland, with approximate an approximate journey time of around 50mins mins direct from Blyth Bebside to Berwick-Upon-Tweed, compared to the current rail journey via Newcastle Central of at least 1hr 30mins, a saving of c.40 minutes on this connection.

This also compares favourably to driving time, with an estimated journey time of 1hr 6mins to drive between Blyth Bebside to Berwick Upon Tweed stations, a time saving of at least 16 minutes compared to the car.

Estimated journey times on the Northumberland Coast Loop

KEY LINKS

Support the Northumberland Coast Loop via Ko-fi

Sign our new petition for an Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park

Tel: 01665 808 456

History

The first proposal for the route was made in February 2023; then referred to as the Northumberland Loop Line.

A change.org petition titled ‘Create the ‘Northumberland Loop’ – Rail services from Berwick to Newcastle via Blyth‘ was launched in October 2023 and was closed a year later in October 2024, after gaining 741 signatures.

In December 2023, the proposal was renamed to the Northumberland Coast Loop, to better detail the proposed area that the route would cover, largely hugging the Northumberland Coastline from the Berwick and the River Tweed on the Scottish Border, down to the River Tyne at Newcastle.

On 13th February 2025, a new petition was launched, titled ‘Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park‘ reflecting the evolution of the campaign to form a new InterCity route between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Bedlington. As of the start of December 2025, this petition has attracted 1037 signatures, and is continuing to grow! If you can, please sign the petition.

Proposal

The proposal would centre around using the existing, but less well known rail route between Newcastle and Berwick, where, south of Pegswood, would take the alternative route via Bedlington, rather than the more established route via Morpeth and Cramlington. 

This would work to enhance the connectivity between the densely populated South East of Northumberland, and the more rural North Northumberland, as well as creating direct rail links into Scotland.

The pattern for Northumberland Coast Loop services could be modest initially, with four local services and four semi-fast services in each direction per day, this giving a total of sixteen trains per day in total.

These would be evenly spread across a wide service span of approx 6am to 10pm, giving a frequency of a service every two hours or so at semi-fast stations, and every 4-5 at local only stations.

This would be in conjunction with any other services running on the East Coast Main Line (ECML), the Northumberland Line or the section between Pegswood and Bedlington.

Learn More

Please visit our About the Northumberland Coast Loop page to find out more details.

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