On Sunday 19th October 2025, the fourth Northumberland Line station, Blyth Bebside, is due to open to passengers, which is great news for the line, which despite only having three of the six stations open at present (Ashington, Newsham, and Seaton Delaval), has carried over 500,000 passengers since the line opened in December 2024.
The two remaining stations at Bedlington, and Northumberland Park will sadly not be expected to open until early 2026.
In other positive news, the Northumberland Line is also due a few service upgrades:
Later trains on the route will start running, allowing more people to travel back from Newcastle in the evening by train.
Direct trains to the MetroCentre will also run on Sundays only.
The steady completion of stations on the route is most welcome, as is the addition of arguably ‘better’ services by them running daily into much later evenings, as well as a new direct route to the MetroCentre on a Sunday.
The huge passenger figures for the line show what a great investment the line has turned out to be, and how it was long overdue taking place, hopefully further expansions to the line will happen far sooner!
Problems of being popular!
On social media, there have been some concerns raised about the crowding on trains due to short two-car Class 158 multiple units being used, and that with the opening of Blyth Bebside, this problem may become worse, as more stations opening will add more passengers into already quite crowded trains.
In many ways, the crowding of the trains is a sign of how popular the line is proving to be, but it is a victim of its own success with the ageing Class 156 & Class 158 DMU’s unable to cope with peak demands.
Hitachi 80x fleet via Blyth?
One solution to this might be to use the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop route (Newcastle to Bedlington, then Pegswood, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, and on to Edinburgh) and using bi-mode trains such as the LNER/TPE 80x fleet to augment the Newcastle – Ashington diesel trains.
Being bi-mode trains, the lack of wires on the Northumberland Line wouldn’t present a problem, as the trains have an on-board diesel engine to cope with unwired routes. The training of more drivers over this potentially important diversionary route would give more operational flexibility for trains to keep running in event of a line closure between Benton Junction and Morpeth, with damage to Plessey Viaduct in October 2023 a good example of the potential use of the line.
Even if calling at just some stations, the additional seats provided by running extra trains via the Loop would ease the crowding on other services, whilst also creating a new northward connection to North Northumberland and into Scotland, something that the area has never seen, but would almost undoubtedly prove popular, with Scotland and the borders being a popular destination from SE Northumberland.
Sunday Services to Scotland?
Perhaps a good way to trial this might be a Sunday service, similar to the MetroCentre one, allowing people to take a day out in North Northumberland or Scotland on a Sunday? Longer term, it is potentially a route that could run 7 days a week, 364 days a year (no trains on Christmas Day typically), but a Sunday service, similar to the Ashington – MetroCentre service would be a great start!
Indeed, the petition for such a service now stands at over 920 signatures, and using the loop route would also help to build a case for a seventh station at Choppington too, a station that could serve a large part of Bedlington, Choppington, Guide Post, and Stakeford.
If you would like to see a Newcastle – Blyth – Berwick – Edinburgh rail service, please support the petition here: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY
Thanks, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 