North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, alongside MP’s Ian Lavery, and Emma Foody, have published on Facebook an open letter yesterday to Ellie Burrows, Regional Managing Director, Eastern of Network Rail to request the earliest possible opening of the last two stations under construction on the Northumberland Line scheme, those at Bedlington, and Northumberland Park, with Blyth Bebside due to open in just over a week on Sunday 19th October 2025.
Whilst it is important to have these stations up and running as soon as possible, it must also be done safely and not unduly rushed despite the delays of potentially a year or more since the opening of the line on 15th December 2024, which itself was a slipped deadline from the original ‘Summer 2023’ opening of the line.
Crowding and More Carriages Comments, and TPE via the Northumberland Coast Loop route a solution?
Of note on the Facebook post was the comments calling for more carriages to be provided on the Northumberland Line due to issues of crowding being experienced due to the high popularity of the route, some examples are shown below (anonymised)
The problem is that the Northern units (Class 156/158) that are used on the Northumberland Line are around 30 year old British Rail trains, and are thinly stretched across all of the Northern routes; pulling a unit from one route would make another one short of trains – very much ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.
There simply isn’t anywhere to get new units of the same design, and whilst new trains for Northern are in the pipeline, it’ll be quite some time until they are seen on the network.
Transpennine Express (TPE) via Blyth?
What I would propose is a re-routing of some Transpennine Express (TPE) units (the Nova 1 bi-mode fleet), which are short, 5-car trains which currently run Newcastle to Edinburgh via Morpeth and Cramlington to alternatively run via Blyth and Northumberland Park. These could add around 320+ seats, with some in First Class to the route.
As a bi-mode train, they can run on both the overhead electric wires, but also have an onboard diesel engines, which would allow them to come off the East Coast Main Line at Morpeth North Junction (https://w3w.co/insects.hamsters.issuer), then travel through Hepscott, over Choppington Level Crossing, and join the Northumberland Line at Bedlington, and could augment the Northern operated Northumberland Line trains by providing more trains, and thus more seats to/from Newcastle, but also to give a connection northwards to places like Alnmouth, Berwick Upon Tweed, and Edinburgh direct.
Alternative operators could also serve the route if TPE is unable to; CrossCountry for example uses diesel ‘Voyagers’ (Class 220) in four car sets, which could run via Blyth rather than via Morpeth and Cramlington.
A further example could be Grand Central trains extending their current London – Sunderland ‘North Eastern’ route through Newcastle and to Edinburgh via Blyth, again providing more seats, but also offering a new direct link between the Scotland and the Northumberland Coast onto the Durham Coast and Teesside.
Indeed a combination of different operators would be possible, but any additional trains running via the Northumberland Coast Loop and serving the stations would ease the crowding experienced on some services, whilst also offering new northward connections.
As of today, the petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop currently stands at near 1000 signatures, suggesting a strong demand for the route exists, so hopefully Mayot Kim McGuinness, and MP’s Ian Lavery and Emma Foody might put forward this route to help ease the crowding on the Northumberland Line, and give these new stations even better connections to the rest of the UK?
The Northumberland Coast Loop 