Almost One Million Rail Passengers Using Railway Stations Between Pegswood and Berwick Upon Tweed in 2023/24

This Northumberland Gazette article ‘The most and least used train stations in Northumberland as new rail passenger numbers revealed‘ details the most and least used stations in Northumberland as a whole, from Acklington at 17th place, to Berwick Upon Tweed at the top. This is based on figures from April to March each year, so April 2022/March 2023 and April 2023/March 2024 respectively is referred to here.

For the Northumberland Coast Loop route, only the stations between Pegswood and Berwick Upon Tweed are relevant for the campaign, so those along the Tyne Valley Line have been excluded entirely, whilst Morpeth and Cramlington have been separated from the other stations but remain included to see the ECML route as a whole.

Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Alnmouth (for Alnwick) dominate North Northumberland Rail Usage.

As can be seen from the above table, the stations at Berwick and Alnmouth (first and fourth place for overall usage in Northumberland respectively), make up the vast majority of the 988,782 passenger entries and exits on this section of the ECML along the Northumberland Coast, in 2022/23, this figure was 898,846 persons, increasing by 84,352 for the most recent year to 983,198 entries and exits.

The ‘Chathill Flyer’ Isn’t Good Enough.

The smaller stations at Chathill, Acklington, Widdrington, and Pegswood contributed an additional 5886 passengers in 2022/23, falling by 302 overall (Acklington had modestly increased ridership by 116 users), with additional 5,584 users in the 2023/24 year.

It is worth noting that the ONLY service to call at these smaller stations is the twice daily ‘Chathill Flyer’, which doesn’t run on Sundays and makes the usefulness of these stations fairly limited, meaning ridership figures are unlikely to improve without a rail service improvement.

Campaigns like that of CRAG (Chathill Rail User Group), alongside that of Railfuture, to campaign for better services at these smaller stations could have the potential to lift these user numbers significantly.

One Million or More in 2024/25?

This gives a total for the most recent year (2023/24) across these six stations of 988,782 entries and exits, meaning only 11,218 additional rail passengers are needed to make this a one million entry/exit section of line; not even accounting for the vast majority of rail passengers who’ll simply pass through Northumberland on longer trips.

If Berwick and Alnmouth see improvements to services, it is almost undoubtedly going to result in even greater ridership figures at these two busy stations (seeing 0.63m and 0.35m each respectively in most recent figures). Especially for Alnmouth, better bus connections to towns such as Alnwick and Amble, as well as villages like Rothbury and Wooler (by extending buses terminating at Alnwick Bus Station onto Alnmouth Railway Station?) could make rail travel much more viable for the local area, especially for those who don’t drive or wish to not take the car to the station.

The biggest potential gains to be made, however, is arguably at stations like Chathill, which is well positioned to serve the so-called ‘rail desert’ between Berwick and Alnmouth, and could serve major attractions like Bamburgh Castle, the Farne Islands and maybe even the Lindisfarne/Holy Island market (about 800,000 per year visiting Lindisfarne according to this BBC article, so even a 10% shift to rail via Chathill would be 80,000, a significant lift in usage from recent 1,264 using the station!). Stations like Acklington, Widdrington, and Pegswood would similarly benefit from an uplift in rail services too; serving the more urban areas in the former Northumberland Coalfield areas, as well as beautiful stretches of coast like Druridge Bay, or developing attractions like Northumberland Zoo near Felton.

Let’s hope that in the Railway200 year that is fast approaching, we can give all of the nation’s rail network a renewed focus on developing the rail network by both reopening lines such as the soon to reopen Northumberland Line (first phase due to open December 2024, with stations opening progressively through 2025), but also better service patterns at smaller stations such as Chathill.

A further hope for the future is that this ‘million user’ stretch between Pegswood and Berwick could be linked to the potentially highly successful Northumberland Line in the near future too, proof will be in the figures over coming years, but other station openings have proven generally highly successful, so watch this space!

#NorthumberlandByRail