It might seem odd the claim that Northumberland, a county that HS2 has never been planned to pass through (the original, full proposal ended at Newcastle Upon Tyne) needs High Speed 2, but it arguably does.
There has been a long running issue for many years of London – Newcastle – Edinburgh expresses being the major focus of operators, with this recent BBC article (”Levelling down’ fears over new rail timetable’) highlighting the potential of cuts to smaller stations on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick in Northumberland, amongst many others.
This is all in aid of speeding up long distance trains using the existing railway; the more stops a train does, the slower it is, but on the exisiting network that also slows down the train behind (a bit like being in your car and getting stuck behind a bus calling at bus stops would slow you down if it doesn’t pull into a layby type stop, a stopping train will slow following trains if it doesn’t use a loop).
Therefore, it means a constant timetabling conflict between running the fast, almost non-stop ‘intercity’ service between the major cities mentioned, and slower services that call at more minor stations such as Berwick, Alnmouth or Morpeth, and for the Northumberland Coast the lesser used stations between the ‘Big Three’ which includes Cramlington, Pegswood and more.
So where does HS2 fit within this?
Before its heavy cut-backs, HS2 would have sent more of the London – Scotland expresses up the West Coast Main Line (WCML), which would have reduced the pressure on the ECML timetable greatly and allowed many more semi-fast (calling at likes of Morpeth, Alnmouth and Berwick), local services (all stations), and more railfreight which runs at a more limited overall speed but on average fits well with stopping passenger trains.
This is highlighted numerous times by rail engineer Gareth Dennis in this RailNatter series on YouTube and has advocated for HS2 in Parliament and on major news channels too, but also by groups like Greens4HS2 which reference the same article. For full disclosure I (RH) am a member of Greens4HS2.
The decision to ‘make do’ with the existing network and not to more fully build out HS2 prolongs this conflict in the timetable, and means that services to smaller stations are always under threat, and capacity being available for a new route like the Northumberland Coast Loop will be restricted.
If you want better local services along the Northumberland Coast, you need HS2 to work properly and be built.
Please lobby your MP’s and other elected representatives to fix this issue by building HS2 in full.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 