In a Facebook post today (16.10.25) from Northumberland County Council, council leader Glen Sanderson stood at Blyth Bebside, the next station due to open on the Northumberland Line, which will mark four of the six stations new completed and opened to passengers, showcasing what the completed station will look like ahead of opening.

In the same post, he also announced that 700,000 passengers had been reached in 10 months since the opening of the line on 15th December 2024, 306 days ago to be more precise.

A simple average of the total passenger volume (700,000) shared by the number of operating days (306) means an average per day of 2,288 passengers per day (rounded up to nearest whole number) using the line daily.

At that rate, a MILLION passengers on the line should be achieved in late 2025/early 2026, phenomenally beyond even the most optimistic expectations of the most optimistic people backing the project, and showing clearly the ‘build it, and they will come‘ analogy has rung very true with regards the Northumberland Line.

Next steps?

With such a roaring success comes an issue; the often two carriage Class 158/156 units are often struggling to carry all the passengers desiring to use the line, and there aren’t any easy options to get more similar carriages to make trains up to four on every train.

Our proposed solution is to redirect some current East Coast Main Line (ECML) services via Bedlington, possible along the existing route from Morpeth North Junction (w3w: ///insects.hamsters.issuer), curving off the mainline coming from Pegswood heading south, passing through Hepscott, then joining the Northumberland Line at Bedlington Junction.

Sending some trains, such as the Transpennine Express Nova 1 fleet (which is capable of running on either a diesel engine or from overhead wires, and can achieve 125mph when on the ECML) could be one solution: it would add valuable extra seats on the Northumberland Line to/from Newcastle if ran in addition to the Northern trains, but would also give direct northbound connections from towns like Blyth into North Northumberland (i.e. Blyth to Berwick Upon Tweed direct), or ideally into Edinburgh Waverley, linking the Scottish capital to Newcastle via south east Northumberland proper.

This would have the side benefit of developing diversionary route knowledge for train drivers; which potentially might have been needed during the issues with Plessey Viaduct in October 2023 and the ensuing repairs required had both lines been closed entirely.

Fortunately, the damaged viaduct remained partially open until repairs were completed, but driver knowledge of the diversionary route via Bedlington would certainly be of benefit in added resilience for rail services, and one of the best ways to achieve, and to maintain route knowledge is regular running of trains over the route.

Our petition for a Newcastle to Edinburgh via Bedlington service is steadily growing, standing at just under 1000 signatures so far, if you’d like to sign it too, please do so here: https://c.org/J8DxHqpWdf

Thanks for reading, RH.