The SPACE for Gosforth group have, in recent articles such as this Environmental campaigners demand more answers on plans to dual A1 in Northumberland highlighted the numerous issues of dualling the A1 with regards to adding to road traffic, alongside the environmental costs of adding more greenhouse gas emissions at a time when targets for Net Zero have been set in the very near future.
In the article above, the Northumberland Line reopening is cited as ‘providing a reliable rail link between south east Northumberland and Newcastle’, of which ‘the greatest benefit of this is significant alleviation of car traffic into central Newcastle along key arterial roads, like the A189 [Spine Road]’
That surely means that upgrading capacity and improving rail services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) would have a similar effect on moving traffic away from roads and onto rail, especially if some funds were granted to schemes such as the Aln Valley Railway, which would reconnect popular tourist towns such as Alnwick (home to Alnwick Castle, The Alnwick Garden & Lilidorei, amongst many more) to the national network for similar money to dualling the A1, whilst being far greener?
With a £290m costing in 2014, the dualling would, in 2024 prices cost around £400m today, but should we as a nation spend such an amount of money on a scheme which worsens meeting Net Zero and drives up road traffic with negative consequences for road safety, or should it instead be invested in green transport that is far safer intrinsically?
The Northumberland Coast Loop would be a smaller, but still important part in the connectivity of the area, as would provide a second ‘reliable rail link’ between south east Northumberland, North Tyneside, and North Northumberland, with the potential for onward connections into Scotland.
This would use the existing line between Bedlington and Morpeth that passes through Choppington and Hepscott, and would allow direct travel towards Pegswood station using the Morpeth North Curve, that was opened as recently as April 1980 and aside from rare diversions and railtours, has rarely been used by passenger trains (last was potentially in 2017 with the ‘Bound for Craigy’ railtour using HST’s), but perhaps consitutes an overlooked piece of infrastructure that could play an important role in improving rail connections to, from and within Northumberland, which could very much be a ‘spine’ and interconnected with local buses for places not immediately next to railway stations.
As the issues in 2023 with Plessey Viaduct also showed, where the line was closed totally for a short period, and ran as a section of single line while repairs were undertaken; this route could be an important diversionary route, but to maintain driver knowledge, running regular services along the route could help keep train drivers and other crew familiar with the line alongside providing a service to the communities along it’s path.
If you support this idea, please take a look (and hopefully sign) the Northumberland Coast Loop petition.
Thanks, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 