The last few days marks a few important pieces of news from the Northumberland Line project, with an expansion of the line to Newbiggin By The Sea proposed yesterday, and opening of Newsham Station in March announced today; each piece has important relevance to the Northumberland Coast Loop campaign, and will be outlined separately below.
Northumberland Line to Newbiggin By The Sea
A welcome announcement late yesterday evening by The Chronicle was for an expansion of the Northumberland Line beyond Ashington to Newbiggin By The Sea, making use mostly of existing track (currently used to serve Lynemouth Power Station beyond the newly reopened station at Ashington), with presumably a new junction built near Woodhorn Museum, and a short section of track needing to be built toward the town.
This would go a long way to recreating the full extent of the former ‘Newbiggin Branch’ from Bedlington to Newbiggin through Ashington.
For the Northumberland Coast Loop, this would make the Newbiggin Branch a multi-station branchline leading off the proposed Newcastle to Berwick & Edinburgh via Bedlington through route, with interchange between services serving the Newbiggin Branch stations happening at either Bedlington or at Blyth Bebside.
Blackstone and other Blyth Valley/North Tyneside businesses to benefit from the N.C.L?
The above article makes clear link between payments made from Blackstone, developers behind the potentially £10billion (yes, BILLION), data centre campus at Cambois, to Northumberland County Council (NCC), and the development of the line towards Newbiggin, a good use of the funds to promote better transport links within Northumberland and particularly to this former mining and seaside town.
With such a large investment being made into Cambois, could some of the Blackstone funds also be spent on developing the Northumberland Coast Loop route?
This route could allow stations at Bedlington, but especially Blyth Bebside to offer much improved connections to Edinburgh and the wiser Scottish Central belt, a very important economic area in it’s own right, and for a major international business like Blackstone, such links would likely hugely improve the value of a site such as Cambois, as well as benefitting other businesses, large or small operating in and around the Blyth Valley.
This route would substantially reduce journey times, making rail a far faster option than driving (beating the journey time by perhaps an hour or more).
The petition for Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside rail services is gaining a good head of steam, and builds upon the previous one with 742 signatures; let’s hope that NCC might also consider investigating the Northumberland Coast Loop, and using some of the Blackstone funding to do so?
Newsham Station Opening Announcement
Today, Friday 21st also marks an announcement on the opening of Newsham station on the Northumberland Line during March 2025 (the precise date as yet unspecified), and that over 110,000 passengers have been carried since the line opened, with just two stations on December 15th 2024.
This is a welcome step forward in the continuing opening up of the Northumberland Line, Newsham being opened means that half of the stations on the route will be completed, with Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, and Northumberland Park to come later in 2025.
This figure is based on the success of effectively a shuttle service between Ashington and Newcastle, but like all railway stations, the benefits of having a station are multiplied by having a wider range of services calling there,
Morpeth is a great example of this, where direct services link this small station, sited within a fairly small market town, which has only a fraction of the population of Blyth, to places as diverse as London, Edinburgh, Penzance, York, Aberdeen and many more; why can’t Blyth, a far larger industrial town, home to many major businesses and a thriving port town have a similar range of services now it has had the investment made into the Northumberland Line?
The stations are being built and nearing completion, the line of route already exists, all it needs is the services to run via the Northumberland Coast Loop…
…let’s hope that NCC and others take the idea forwards!
If you haven’t already, please sign the current petition for Newcastle – Edinburgh via Blyth rail services.
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The Northumberland Coast Loop 