With the recent publication of passenger figures for all of the existing railway stations in Northumberland in the Northumberland Gazette, a little analysis reveals the current and potential volumes of passengers who use these twelve stations between Berwick and Manors.
The table above shows the stations on the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop from Berwick Upon Tweed to Manors, and station entry/exit data from April 2024 to March 2025; with the stations at Seaton Delaval, and Newsham opening during this ‘ticketing year’, they represent only partial figures, as they were only open for 107 and 15 days respectively during this data period.
Blyth Bebside, opened in October 2025 does not feature in this data set, though from other announcements is proving to be very busy; a partial data set will not be available until the 2025/26 ticketing year. Bedlington and Northumberland Park will hopefully open before March 2026, and allow a similar comparison to above to be made in December 2026, but if they open in April 2026 or later, similar data won’t be available until December 2027.
To help make a more fair comparison between the stations a very rudimentary ‘average per day (passenger total ÷ number of days open during the 2024/25 ticketing year) gives a relative comparison, with Newsham almost exactly as busy as Alnmouth station as an example of this. This isn’t a perfect measure as no stations get services 365 days per year (i.e. Christmas Day), and some do not receive a service 7 days per week either (for example those only served by the Chathill Flyer).
To extrapolate this further, a simple prediction of 2025/26 data is a multiplication of this average by 365, thus allowing stations like Newsham and Seaton Delaval to be compared to other stations more directly in potential total numbers by December 2026, and is based on an assumption of all stations simply carrying on as they are now, but will all except Pegswood having seen passenger growth this year, it is most likely that these numbers will be underestimated and be below the real numbers in December 2026.
Ranking 2024/25
Berwick Upon Tweed takes a very clear first place with 707,310 passengers in 2024/25. It is followed by Alnmouth in second with 378,954, third place is taken by Seaton Delaval, which despite being only open 107 days, was used by 73,076 passengers.
Manors takes fourth place with 63,914 passengers but is a near doubling of the 35,892 carried the previous year 2023/24, likely due to the Northumberland Line having increased the service frequency to this station significantly.
Newsham takes fifth place with 15,576, but an important caveat is that the station was only open for 15 days at that point.
Sixth place goes to Widdrington with 2,652, seventh to Chathill with 1,580, eighth to Pegswood with 1,468, and in last place is Acklington with just 856 passengers, the final three, Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, and Northumberland Park take joint last place with zero passengers as they were not open during that time period.
In total, the nine stations open within this ticketing year, with two only open for part of the year, saw 1,245,386 entries and exits together, and averaged out, represented 5,582 passengers per day, every day across all nine stations.
Predicting 2025/26
From the above table, and extrapolating the potential for the future of these nine stations, the ranking would change significantly.
Berwick would remain number one, but Newsham is likely to just get the number two spot with a predicted 379,016 passengers, pushing Alnmouth into third, Seaton Delaval would then take fourth place with a predicted 249,277 passengers, with Manors in fifth.
Based on the predicted volumes, the total passenger loads from these nine stations would rise by 539,641 passengers, to give a total of 1,785,027 per year up from the 2024/25 total of 1,245,386. This again is likely to be an underestimate as passenger use has been growing at almost all of these stations, so figure could well be above two million by December 2026, especially considering that Blyth Bebside numbers are not featured at all, even an estimate, and by then Bedlington and Northumberland Park may also be contributing passengers significantly too.
The data for Blyth Bebside, though not released yet is likely to be very strong, and could potentially exceed Manors for even a partial year, meaning it may take fifth place on the route, and possibly even fourth from Seaton Delaval, but only time will tell in December 2026.
Bedlington, serving not only the town of Bedlington itself but also other communities like Choppington, Guide Post, Stakeford, Cambois etc is likely to have a higher passenger total than Seaton Delaval, though only time will tell on this.
The station that might in the longer term take second place, and possibly even first could be Northumberland Park, which will provide an easy interchange between the Tyne and Wear Metro and national rail services, with Heworth, in Gateshead seeing 1.1m passengers a year.
If the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop (N.C.L.) was implemented, Northumberland Park would then mirror Heworth in Gateshead, in giving easier access along the Northumberland Coast, with places like Alnmouth, Berwick, and perhaps even Edinburgh directly connected from N’land Park. Even without the proposed N.C.L. route, Northumberland Park is still likely to prove to be an immensely busy station, but with it, it could almost certainly be a rival to Heworth.
The smaller stations of Widdrington, Chathill, Pegswood and Acklington are likely to remain at the lower end of the list unless future timetable changes allow more services to call at these stations.
The case for the Northumberland Coast Loop
As can be seen above, both actual recorded use, as well as the huge potential usage of the new Northumberland Line stations easily puts them on a par with some of the busiest stations in the whole of Northumberland, with Morpeth station having 622,614 passengers, and Hexham having 431,278.
What is worthy of note is that the four busiest stations are all on ‘InterCity’ routes, Berwick, Morpeth, and Alnmouth are all on the ECML that links multiple cities from London to Aberdeen, whilst Hexham is on the Tyne Valley Line that links Carlisle to Newcastle.
These four stations all have rail services linking at least two cities either side of them calling there, which is likely why the passenger figures dominate the tables, a clear example of a station linked really to only one city directly is Cramlington, which saw 183,856 passengers in the 2024/25 year, which based on the predictions above, would see it fall behind Seaton Delaval in passenger usage assuming no changes in the timetable.
Blyth Bebside as an interchange for SE Northumberland?
Blyth Bebside is selected as the major station for Blyth, the largest town in Northumberland, due to its strategic location just off Cowpen Road, a major bus route into Blyth, as well as the closest station to many major businesses there, whereas Newsham is situated in the much more residential area of South Blyth, further away from its commercial and business areas.
The challenge of Cramlington station is that InterCity services are unlikely to call at both Cramlington and Morpeth, so a choice has to be made of one or the other; with Morpeth tending to be seen as the main stop of the two.
That being said, the settlement of Cramlington more broadly could be better served by a combination of both Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park acting as InterCity stations alongside Morpeth, as these two new stations are sited with much easier access to them, for example Blyth Bebside is sited near a main bus route between Blyth and Cramlington (Arriva X9 running via Front St, Bebside), which runs approximately half hourly.
The close proximity of the A189 Spine Road also makes access by taxi, getting a lift from friends/family, or driving easy, and even from an active travel perspective, Hathery Lane connects the former Three Horseshoes pub, just off Horton Road to Front Street at Bebside as a low traffic route, and a shortcut to Errington Street at Bebside via the ‘Little Wood’ could make this route even better.
Blyth Bebside is also ideally suited to serving Bedlington (which also is connected by rail as well, just one stop along the Northumberland Line), but again shares easy links by bus, car or active travel (both over the Kitty Brewster Bridge, or via Furnace Bank).
Whilst further away, Ashington, and the proposed extension to Woodhorn and Newbiggin stations, would respectively be only 2, 3, and 4 stops away from Blyth Bebside too, and again easy existing or new bus links, as well as easy access from the A189 makes this station very easy to reach.
Northumberland Park as a hub for North Tyneside?
As mentioned above, Northumberland Park has the potential, given the proposed N.C.L. service being implemented, to become a major interchange similar to Heworth, which has usage of over one million passengers a year.
Heworth has relatively long distance services calling there that travel directly to places such as Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, even as far as Whitby, as well heading west to places like Hexham too.
With a direct link into North Northumberland, and perhaps as far as Edinburgh, it is highly likely that this would become an incredibly well used interchange for services.
If you support this expansion of services, please support the petition for a Newcastle to Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park, which now has 1042 signatures.
Thanks, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 