In the late evening of the 8th March 2025, ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ operated by SRPS Railtours and hauled by Class 37’s 37409 ‘Loch Awe’ and 37043 ‘Isle of Mull’ departed Newcastle Central Station on the final leg of an epic tour of southern Scotland and Northern England, bound for Edinburgh and finally Linlithgow, where the tour would finish after an early start that morning.
This leg of the tour was of particular interest, as it took the entirety of the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop route from Newcastle to Edinburgh via Bedlington.
The map below shows this section of the route.
The above route is largely special due to a fairly short section of ‘rare track’; the Newcastle to Bedlington section of the route is now open daily to passenger trains since the opening of the Northumberland Line in December 2024, and the East Coast Main Line (ECML) has always been open for passenger trains. The rarely available section was from Bedlington Junction to Morpeth North Junction, a distance of about five miles, which links the Northumberland Line to the ECML.
The upper map shows the overall route, leaving the Northumberland Line at Bedlington, the route heads in a west/north west direction towards and through the village of Hepscott, then curving towards the north east and rejoining the ECML.
Just after Hepscott, and as more clearly shown on the lower map, there is a second split at Hepscott Junction (near to Airspeed Vapour Blasting, bottom right of image), the N.C.L. route bears off to the right here, heading around the Morpeth North Curve (shown by the orange dots) joining the ECML near to Temples Bridge (top centre of the lower image).
The left hand direction would head towards Morpeth Station, which unfortunately, like Ashington cannot be served by the proposed N.C.L. route due to the track layout; as it would necessitate complicated operation of trains, and would reduce the benefits of the proposed direct route by lengthening journey times.
Petition Progress
In other news, the Northumberland Coast Loop petition for a Newcastle – Bedlington – Edinburgh rail service is now standing at 360 signatures since being started 99 days ago on the 13th February 2025, an average of 3-4 signatures per day!
Tomorrow, Friday 23rd May 2025, will mark 100 days of the petition, so let’s see how much it progresses over the course of today.
If you haven’t already, please sign the petition here: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY and give our social media a like or follow!
The Northumberland Coast Loop 