The petition for a better bus service running between the Northumberland Towns of Alnwick, via Alnmouth Railway Station, to Amble is gaining serious momentum, with 700 signatures now reached as of 8.7.25, with that number steadily growing day by day.
If you’d like to sign it, please do so here: https://www.change.org/AlnwickAlnmouthAmbleBusMeetsTrainCampaign
So what could such a service look like in practice?
Route
The route would follow that of the existing X20 service operated by Arriva, which mostly follows the A1068 from Amble to Alnwick Bus Station, with a small detour to serve Alnmouth Railway Station (Curly Lane), this route is accessible by all buses, and commonly operated using double deckers, so should not present any issues for more services or different bus operators serving the route.
There is no issue with this route, so if this service is either improved, or an additional service was to run on this route, it would present no objections.
Service Span Problem
*The first bus is too late in the morning to meet early morning trains.*
One of the two key problems with the existing bus provision is the service span (time of the first bus until the last bus).
At present, the northbound bus from Amble only reaches Curly lane at 07:04, too late for many of the early morning trains that leave Alnmouth, with the first as early as 06:22 headed towards Newcastle.
The 07:04 bus from Curly Lane then runs to Alnwick, and forms the return service southwards, meaning that from Alnwick, the first bus across to Alnmouth doesn’t arrive until 07:41, over 79mins (1hr 19min) after the first departing train.
This means that, by bus, it is impossible to reach a large number of rail services, which are outlined below.
Service Span Solution: Earlier First Buses from Amble AND Alnwick
A simple solution to this problem is to run the first X20 bus around 1 hour earlier from Amble, so that it would arrive at Curly Lane at around 06:04, allowing ample time to meet the 06:22 service towards Newcastle and London.
At the Alnwick end of the route, a first bus should leave Alnwick no later than 06:00 (ideally around 05:55) so that by the time it arrives in Alnmouth around 15minutes later (06:10 – 06:15) it allows plenty of time to meet the first southbound train at 06:22.
In short, an X20 route bus leaving Amble at 05:55 and another at 05:55 leaving Alnwick would meet the first train quite happily.
The last buses to serve Alnmouth Station are OK, as they run long after the last trains have arrived at Alnmouth, however they follow the often meandering route of the X18, not the express X20, so extending the X20 into late evening alongside the X18 would perhaps be preferable.
Frequency is Freedom
The second key issue for buses to and from Alnmouth Station from Alnwick and Amble is their frequency, which is not quite hourly (as can be seen from the timetable, the services ‘drift’ on mins after the hour over the course of the day, meaning that there is a gap of more than an hour between some buses.
To resolve this, a fixing of times to ‘xx mins past the hour’ throughout the day for the existing service would be preferred, to ensure an hourly clockface departure/arrival time throughout the day.
In addition, a second service set exactly 30mins (yy mins past the hour) later would mean than in a worst-case scenario of a ‘just missed’ bus, the next one will be along in 30 minutes.
Conclusion
Therefore the fix for the A, A, & A ‘Bus Meets Train’ service is a simple one, run the first buses earlier, and run two buses per hour on the route of the X20 rather than one during peak hours (06:00 to 19:30). Nothing needing to be built, just running buses better to improve connectivity.
Perhaps the use of branded buses for local attractions, such as Arriva 7542 (YX17 NNT) in ‘The Poison Garden’ livery could be great moving ambassadors for the route too, and perhaps, if Alnwick follows Keswick with a ‘virtual railway station’, then maybe a rail operator such as LNER, TPE, CrossCountry etc could similarly brand one or more of their trains?
The Northumberland Coast Loop 