The North Eastern Railway Association (NERA) has launched a free guidebook to coincide with the opening of the Northumberland Line later this month (15th December 2024).
It is an excellent small publication, being 20 pages in length, but it is packed full of key information and dates, well worth downloading (and printing off if you can) to take with you on a trip along the line once opened!
Early Railway Heavyweight
What the guidebook tells well is the strong early railway heritage of south east Northumberland, which while far from being the start of the story, being introduced to the area by Huntingdon Beaumont from Nottinghamshire in the early 1600’s (though this isn’t referenced in the guidebook*), rudimentary railways can trace roots back as far as the Diolkos in Ancient Greece, which operated for around 650 years starting in c.600 BC.
Bedlington, and the surrounding area has, however, played an important role in the development of the modern railway we’d more readily recognise today.
For example the Bedlington Ironworks went from a modest beginning producing nails in 1736 to the development by John Birkinshaw of the malleable iron rail, used successfully on the waggonway linking the ironworks to the Engine Pit near Choppington. This impressed the later famed George Stephenson, engineer of the Stockton and Darlington so much that he chose to use those rails for that railway, which celebrates it’s 200th anniversary in September 2025, being part of a nationwide ‘Railway200’.
Bedlington and Railway200
For this reason, I feel that Bedlington should be a key site for the Railway200 celebrations, and the Northumberland Coast Loop could form part of it for heritage railtours or cheduled trains taking in Bedlington en-route to Newcastle or Teesside for the Railway200 celebrations, with, fittingly the Hepscott Line reputedly using part of that 1819 waggonway route that saw the first use of the Birkinshaw rails.
With the Hepscott Line being an existing link between the East Coast Main Line at Morpeth and Bedlington on the soon to reopen for passengers Northumberland Line, this route surely makes abundant sense to open up in 2025 for at least some special trains, if not scheduled services, even if running non/few stops to showcase the area and bring greater awareness of it’s heritage. Weekend/Bank Holiday services alone would be a big advantage to the area and would hopefully attract some tourism benefits to the area.
Bedlington as an alternative East Coast route?
On page 15 of the above guidebook, it states that George Stephenson’s original 1839 plan was for Bedlington to be on his design for the East Coast Main Line, with Morpeth being served by a branch line. Thanks to the ‘Railway King’ George Hudson, later disgraced, and political pressure from the people of Morpeth, the line was quite literally bent to run through Morpeth, resulting in the Morpeth Curve (recently covered by the irreverent WTYP Podcast), which as resulted in four serious rail accidents due to the tightness of the curve.
Whilst the 1839 route would have been far superior to that existing today, the route via Morpeth, for the time being, remains the fastest route between Newcastle and Edinburgh, but the route via Bedlington, using the fairly newly built Morpeth North Curve, would allow a slower route, but would take in far bigger population centres; so any services running via this route (the Northumberland Coast Loop) would be likely to be immediately successful.
Conclusion
Given the historical importance of Bedlington and its close relationship with the Stockton and Darlington Railway right from the beginning in 1825, it should, in my view, play a key part in the Railway200 celebrations, and links from Morpeth, but also cities such as Edinburgh (a major tourism hotspot only approxiately 90mins from Bedlington by rail using the Hepscott Line) could be a major boost to raise awareness of this important historical site not just for the S&D, but also the major early locomotive building by R.B. Longridge at the site, with significant first loco’s for nations such as the Netherlands and Italy too.
The Northumberland Coast Loop would almost certainly have appeal as a tourist link to showcase and connect the Bedlington Ironworks site to the wider UK.
In the longer term, the Northumberland Coast Loop route would be sustainable rail link, connecting South East Northumberland and North Tyneside to North Northumberland and Scotland, a route not easily possible when the Hepscott Line lost its services in 1950, but radically different now with the Morpeth North Curve allowing direct access to the north.
*Huntingdon Beaumont is recorded on p. 19 of the December 2024 issue of The Railway Magazine, in an article by Bob Gwynne that ‘In 1609 he developed the first waggonways in the region at Bedlington, Bebside, and Cowpen.’
The Northumberland Coast Loop 