Newcastle – Bedlington – Pegswood – Edinburgh Rail Service Petition at 100 Days

It is now 100 days since the Change.org petition titled ‘Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park‘ was launched, and tp date, it has attracted an 367 signatures of support, showing a large appetite for such as service to be launched.

The map below, taken from the SRPS Railtours operated ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘ souvenir brochure shows the route through Northumberland from Newcastle to Berwick, illustrating how ready the route is to enable such a service, with the header image of an HST showing the BLS organised ‘Bound for Craigy’ railtour on 8th March 2017, which inspired this campaign.

If you haven’t already, please sign the petition to help bring this route into passenger use, some of the advantages of which are:

Local Services: Making ‘within Northumberland’ trips such as Bedlington to Berwick Upon Tweed easier by providing a direct rail connection.

Regional Sevices: The above route would like major regional centres such as Blyth, home to major renewable energy businesses more easily accessible from other places within the region by rail, for example offering a direct link to Edinburgh and the wider Scottish Central Belt.

National Services: Giving areas like Blyth a comparable national service like Morpeth has long enjoyed would drive investment into Blyth, and be a major support to significant events returning such as the highly successful Tall Ships of 2016. It would also, via Northumberland Park, provide better rail connections to and from the international ferry terminal/cruise terminal at Port of Tyne.

Please sign the petition here: https://chng.it/dBRgQrKwbV

If you live along the line of this route, please also write to your local county councillors, and MP’s in support of the Northumberland Coast Loop; the more support it gains, the more likely it is to come to fruition!