A recent article in the Northumberland Gazette has mentioned that Alnwick, Northumberland has recently gained ‘Coach Friendly’ status, awarded by the Confederation of Passenger Transport.
The economic benefit to Alnwick fro. road going coaches is that they bring in around 150,000 visitors to the town, with about £4.5m worth of economic value as a result (an average of £30 per visitor).
This is great news for the town, and shows that a significant number of arrivals to the town come without a car, but could a better rail & bus connection to Alnwick bring an even greater benefit to the town?
The Lost Rail Connection
Alnwick lost its passenger rail connection to the East Coast Main Line at Alnmouth on the 29th January 1968, the route closing completely on 7th October 1968, reputedly orchestrated to make the A1 Alnwick Bypass cheaper to build. Had Alnwick station survived, it is highly likely to have been a thriving one now; especially during the peak of the ‘Harry Potter’, an arrival into Alnwick Station aboard a train would almost certainly have been a very atmospheric event, especially if it was on a steam hauled railtour, but sadly this wasn’t to be.
As of May 2025, the former Alnwick Station has instead long been home to the excellent and award winning Barter Books, and whilst truncated by the A1 Alnwick Bypass, the Alnwick Branch is steadily being resurrected by the Aln Valley Railway, running over around half of the surviving route between Lionheart Station (likely the new ‘Alnwick’ terminus of the line in the long-term due to development over the route into Alnwick proper), and Greenrigg Bridge, on the route to Alnmouth Station.
The Aln Valley Railway has achieved a great amount since starting construction of Lionheart station on 27th February 2012, and officially being opened on the 30th October 2013, not quite 12 years to get from quite literally a field, to a railway reaching halfway to Alnmouth is a great achievement.
That being said, while a rail connection into/near Alnmouth station towards Alnwick will always be welcome, it does stop on the edge of town on the eastern side of the A1, with Alnwick Town Centre being around a mile to the north west as the crow flies (Hotspur Tower to Lionheart Station using Google Maps measurement tool), and with it being a volunteer run heritage line is unlikely to be able to offer a year-round, seven day service from early morning to late evening.
In an ideal world, perhaps the Alnwick Branch would have seen a ‘Northumberland Line’ style of reopening, being reopened by Network Rail and operated by Northern, but that wasn’t to be. That being said, the Aln Valley Railway, perhaps with some financial support, could in the future offer a shuttle service to work alongside an Alnwick to Alnmouth & Amble bus shuttle as proposed below.
Rail + Bus to Alnwick (A Virtual Station like Keswick?)
A practical solution for Alnwick, as put forward in a previous post, could be a ‘virtual railway station’ as recently introduced in Keswick, Cumbria.
This would utilise the existing bus connections from Alnwick to Alnmouth Railway Station, alongside an additional dedicated shuttle service that could allow for a half-hourly shuttle service between Alnwick and Alnmouth, with the route perhaps logically also extended to Amble, so that both towns could benefit from a better integrated bus service.
In recent years, Alnwick ran an ‘Alnwick Attractions Bus’, that formed a free, circular route around Alnwick, and was sponsored by local businesses; but perhaps a shuttle to and from Alnmouth Railway Station into the heart of Alnwick could be similarly sponsored to allow rail passengers better access to major attractions?
A petition launched 99 days ago on 16th February 2025 for such a bus connection has already gained 436 signatures, and tomorrow marks the 100 days since launch, how many signatures will it reach by the end of the day?
If you would like to sign the petition, please do so here: https://chng.it/B4RwwtHnJc
The Northumberland Coast Loop 