A recent Chronicle article outlined how railway ticket company Trainsplit has listed Alnwick Castle as one of the UK’s Top 5 filming locations within easy access by rail.
It is great to see sustainable modes of travel to fantastic attractions such as Alnwick Castle being promoted; people need and should have access to travel to places like this, but cleaner and greener public transport access opens the option to more people to visit towns such as Alnwick without many of the drawbacks of visiting by car.
Tourism by train has virtually no downsides; the tourists come, but only bringing footfall, not road traffic. They contribute to businesses, but not congestion.
The Trainsplit blog goes even further, with four reasons why rail access to these film locations possibly being the ‘best’ way to visit:
- Scenic Journeys
- Convenience and Comfort
- Eco-friendly travel
- Time to plan and unwind
On all of these, a trip to Alnmouth (for Alnwick) can fit the bill; the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in Northumberland is a beautiful stretch of railway by any measure, the train is a comfortable way to travel long distances, and has the convenience factor of no car to park. There is the potential to do the vast majority of the trip by electric train, resulting in much lower emissions than driving, and on a train, you can sit back and relax, far better than you can in your own car.
Good stuff, but room for improvement?
As the extract below from the Trainsplit website describes ‘the castle is a short bus ride from Alnmouth train station’. However, many locals have raised that the bus links to/from Alnwick to Alnmouth Station just aren’t good enough. However, one of the campaigns I am putting forward as part of the wider Northumberland Coast Loop campaign seeks to make that short bus trip better!
I have recently launched a petition to ‘Start a dedicated ‘Bus Meets Train’ shuttle bus between Alnwick, Alnmouth Station & Amble‘, which is aiming to massively improve the connection between the town of Alnwick (home to Alnwick Castle, but also many other major attractions), as well as Amble (a key town on the Northumberland Coast). At the time of writing this, it has attracted 227 signatures since it’s launch on the 16th February 2025 (eight days ago).
The advantage of dedicated buses on this short route would be the ability to better serve the ‘station to town’ market for both tourists coming into Alnwick for a day trip or longer stay, but also for residents to have better access to the railway station for onward travel.
With hundreds of thousands of rail users at Alnmouth annually, and similar figures at attractions like Alnwick Castle (350,000 per year from the Northumberland Estates website), a simple, dedicated bus service linking both is almost certainly a success waiting to happen, cutting down on heavy road traffic, whilst bringing tourists right into the heart of Alnwick, Warkworth and Amble.
If you’d like to support a better bus connection, please sign the petition above!
Wider Northumberland Coast access by Rail and Buses needs improvements.
While Alnwick Castle is in fairly easy reach by rail, many places in Northumberland are poorly served by comparison, for example the beautiful castle at Bamburgh is very poorly connected by public transport, despite the ECML running quite close by, with Chathill Station well placed to serve a good number of visitors to Bamburgh, if it had a decent daily service pattern.
Unfortunately for Chathill station, it is one of many in Northumberland that has a very poor rail service, only seeing two trains in each direction per day from Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday services at all.
This campaign is not alone in wanting to see an improved service, with organisations such as Railfuture (of which this campaign has recently joined as a member), campaigning for an improved local service between Newcastle and Berwick, which like the above petition for better bus links to & from Alnmouth Station, would benefit both locals and tourists alike.
Going a step further, there are more attractions along the southern part of the Northumberland Coast that would be better served by the Northumberland Line stations between Bedlington and Newcastle; examples include the National Trust’s Seaton Delaval Hall (around two miles from Seaton Delaval station)
It would be great to see a similar ‘tea and train‘ offer as that from Lapworth Station in Warwickshire, which allows visitors to Baddessley Clinton and Packwood House arriving by train and short walk to enjoy a free hot drink for taking the sustainable way to reach these site, to be implemented at Seaton Delaval Hall.
Similarly, other attractions would include Blyth Battery, a 1.5 mile walk from soon to open Newsham Station (due to open mid-March 2025), again not an unreasonable distance to walk, but also clearly an ideal train + bus option too.
The Northumberland Coast Loop is a proposal for a new rail service running the entire length of the Northumberland Coast from Berwick, through Alnmouth (for Alnwick) then direct to Newsham, through Seaton Delaval to then reach Newcastle.
This service would give easier access to the whole Northumberland Coast by running the whole length of it, from Berwick on the Scottish Border, down to the River Tyne at Newcastle, but as much as possible hugging the coast throughout.
This would likely be part of a longer distance Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth route, the benefit of this route in having two major tourist cities at each end, with a multitide of attractions between would clearly make this stretch of coast either side of the Scottish Border far easier to access by public transport.
If you’d like to give your support to the Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth rail service, please sign our petition, which at time of writing stands at 119 signatures.
If you’d like to support me via Ko-fi, please feel welcome to!
The Northumberland Coast Loop 