The success of the Northumberland Line keeps being proven: passenger numbers pass 1,000,000 since opening!
On Friday 23rd January 2026, an event was held at Blyth Bebside station to mark the millionth passenger journey on the Northumberland Line since opening just 405 days before on Sunday 15th December 2024, as shown in this article from the Northumberland Gazette.
Taking a simple average of dividing the million passengers by the number of days since opening (1,000,000 ÷ 405), the line has carried approximately 2,469 passengers/day over the route on average (rounded to nearest whole number).
This is very strong usage considering it was until recently a line only really used for railfreight, and so journeys have either switched from other modes of transport such as driving, or the line is generating totally new trips entirely.
The Northumberland Line may have cut 625,000 car journeys on the Spine Road in its first year?
Assuming a 100% driving to 100% rail switch, and using the national average for vehicle occupancy of 1.6 persons per vehicle (most vehicles having just the driver, with some vehicles having 2 or more), this may represent 1,543 fewer car trips per day, or 625,000 over the course of those 405 days.
This could mean that congested roads such as the A189 ‘Spine Road’, which runs on a very similar corridor the Northumberland Line from the Woodhorn Roundabout in Ashington, to the Redheugh Bridge in Newcastle.
Information from CIHT, shown below states that the A189 carries over 30,000 vehicles per day, so assuming a modal shift of around 1543 car trips by the Northumberland Line, this would represent around a 5% drop in road traffic. This will be helping to ease issues such as congestion, especially on roundabouts like Moor Farm; it would be interesting to see if data before and after the Northumberland Line shows a fall in road traffic at Moor Farm and on the A189 more broadly?
Northumberland Park station due to open on 22nd February 2026
This station is likely to be very busy right from the start, with it forming a key connection between the Northumberland Line and the North Tyneside Loop, which is the Yellow line of the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Starting at St James, the North Tyneside Loop runs along the north bank of the River Tyne to North Shields, curves north through Tynemouth, and Whitley Bay, then back east through Northumberland Park to South Gosforth, where it turns south towards Central Station and across into Gateshead and away towards Pelaw, and South Shields.
This new interchange will make transferring from rail to the Metro more attractive for a great many journeys, as it avoids the current requirement to travel all the way to Central Station to interchange between rail and Metro north of the Tyne, which will save significant time on many current journeys.
The Northumberland Coast Loop would offer direct rail links between Northumberland Park, Alnmouth, Berwick Upon Tweed, and Edinburgh.
If the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop service (petition link here) was to be implemented, Northumberland Park could be directly accessed from a much wider area of Northumberland; as the map below shows, it is possible for trains between Newcastle and Berwick/Edinburgh to take two different routes between Manors and Pegswood.
The current ‘mainline’ runs via Cramlington and Morpeth, but a second route, via Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval, and Northumberland Park is possible using existing track that is traversed regularly by railfreight; this would be a very modest expansion of the Northumberland Line that would also offer additional trains and seats on this busy line between Bedlington and Newcastle, easing current constrained capacity due to shortages of suitable units such as the Class 156/158 ‘Spinters’ used by Northern.
This latter route would make areas such as Cobalt Business Park, Silverlink, and North Tyneside generally much more accessible from North Northumberland and Scotland, which could promote both existing and new businesses to develop in North Tyneside, bringing more jobs and opportunities for local people.
Northumberland Park for Port of Tyne Passenger Links (DFDS Ferry and Cruise Terminals)?
Whilst not on the riverside itself, another important aspect of Northumberland Park would be it being potentially a much easier station to use to reach the Port of Tyne ferry terminal for the daily sailings to/from Amsterdam aboard DFDS ships King Seaways and Princess Seaways, with King having capacity for 1325 passengers, with the smaller Princess having capacity for 1250.
Presently, foot passengers (those travelling without a car), may currently use Central Station if travelling from places such as Scotland (for which Newcastle is the nearest port offering European ferry connections) as detailed in the video below from YouTuber Steve Marsh.
In the video, it shows that a good number of passengers were using the DFDS special bus from near Central Station to reach the Newcastle Terminal for the ferry (approx 3 min into the above video), and a similar service from Northumberland Park to the ferry terminal should be even easier given the shorter distances involved in doing so.
For Europeans visiting the North East or wider UK via the ferries Newcastle, a quick and easy connection onto a regional train at Northumberland Park could make accessing the region without a car much easier and more convenient.
Bergen Ferry
Newcastle could offer many more routes than just to Amsterdam, with recently renewed calls to reinstate the Newcastle to Bergen, Norway ferry service. Again, a link to/from Scotland more directly to the Port of Tyne surely would only assist in making this route a success?
Cruise passengers using Northumberland Park?
Cruises could similarly use Northumberland Park as ‘local’ mainline station for access to the North East more broadly; many, if not all cruises using the Port of Tyne in 2026 are calling for just a single day, presumably arriving early morning and departing in late evening, giving a limited ‘ashore time’ from departing the ship to getting back and boarding again bound for the next port of call.
Therefore, time spent travelling needs to ideally be minimised, and direct rail services from Northumberland Park could make a big difference; not just north into North Northumberland and even the Scottish Borders, but also west along the Tyne Valley, or south on the East Coast Main Line or down the Durham Coast.
For example, cruise passengers frequently visit attractions to the north such as Alnwick Castle, The Alnwick Garden, and Bamburgh Castle, and a rail journey from Northumberland Park to Alnmouth via Bedlington would likely be far faster than road coaches, with the option of using local coach operators for the ‘final mile’ for travel from railway stations such as Alnmouth to Alnwick.
Closer, smaller, and simpler station for easier connections?
Whilst Northumberland Park may first be advantageous from firstly being physically closer to the Port of Tyne terminals for both ferries and cruises, another factor could be its smaller size and simplicity being an advantage; with a single platform and smaller number of trains and routes (just the Northumberland Line at present, with Northumberland Coast Loop a potential second) it should be a far simpler station to use for those who perhaps are less familiar with rail travel or perhaps struggle in busy, noisy environments, especially those travelling ‘encumbered’ perhaps with luggage and/or children where simplicity and ease of use might assist using rail travel.
This compares well to the relative complexity of the twelve platforms at Newcastle Central and trains running on five different routes out of the city (ECML to Berwick, the Northumberland Line to Ashington, the Durham Coast to Sunderland, the ECML to the city of Durham, and the Tyne Valley Line to Hexham).
It is certainly possible that a Northumberland Coast Loop service may not terminate in Newcastle and could be extended on routes beyond the city, such as along the Tyne Valley (a precedent is the Northumberland Line trains now running direct to the MetroCentre on Sundays, with potential for Ashington to Hexham/Carlisle in the future perhaps?), but direct links onto the Durham Coast or ECML could be considered.
Northumberland Park for Newcastle Airport?
A long touted aspiration for change to the Tyne and Wear Metro has been a relatively simple one; to connect the Airport line to the North Tyneside Loop across South Gosforth Depot.
A triangular junction already exists at South Gosforth; there are the two main routes coming from the Airport and from Northumberland Park that both curve south and head towards Jesmond, and Central Station. The lesser known third side of this triangle of lines goes east-west across the northern edge of the depot; the Avoiding Line.
This east-west line allows a train departing from the Airport to travel easy directly to Whitley Bay, or vice versa go from the coast at Tynemouth through to the Airport directly. At present, this line is not in regular passenger use, but presumably could be with some relatively modest investment.
The main campaign calling for this is the SENRUG ‘Airport to Blyth Town Centre’, which would aim to rebuild the Blyth Branch into central Blyth, and then use Class 555 Metro vehicles from Newcastle Airport to Blyth Town Centre, presumably under battery power between Northumberland Park and Blyth.
In my view, wiring at the 1500v DC used by Metro on the Northumberland Line shouldn’t be done (as suggested in post below, hence the mention).
ONLY electrification at 25kV AC (mainline standard) should be carried out, which would allow a much wider variety of trains to operate over the route under electric power, and not constrain use of electric power to 1500v DC units such as T&W Metro Class 555’s.
In my own view, a branch into Blyth from Newsham is now highly unlikely to be rebuilt due to the three road crossings that this route would require, as well as massive disruption to active travel corridors linking several schools adjacent to the route. Rebuilding the railway would mean several foot crossings or bridges being needed to keep active travel routes crossing the old trackbed open and coupled to the major disruption to traffic that three level crossings in the town could cause both in building and in operation, I don’t think such a link is the correct course of action.
The Class 555 Metro units could, with sufficiently large batteries (or transformed into ‘Brian Johnson’ AC/DC dual voltage units with both 1500v DC ‘Metro’ (as currently, pardon the pun) + the addition of 25kV AC ‘Mainline’ power capability, if the line was wired to the 25kV AC standard of most other lines in the UK such as the ECML) work somewhere else on the former B&T routes, perhaps North Blyth/Cambois with a revival of the Blyth Ferry similar to the Shields Ferry on the Tyne, or maybe to/from Morpeth, but this would come with the drawback of using up limited line capacity that might be better placed being used by longer distance passenger services via Bedlington, or by railfreight if demand is required.
Keep the Metro’s on the Metty?
That being said, I fully back the proposal for the Airport to Northumberland Park connection, with my own suggestion being a new route being a direct St James to Airport via Tynemouth, which possibly could be a revival and extension of the Blue Metro line shown on old maps of the system back in the 1980’s (pre Airport line), which was done to highlight peak time shuttles on the St James to North Shields section of the North Tyneside Loop, but could easily wrap around Whitley Bay, then through Longbenton to Airport if this route becomes implemented?
With the relatively small change of a St James to Airport route, and with the Northumberland Coast Loop, Northumberland Park station could become an even more significant interchange between rail and Metro services, again offering a simpler connection than the present situation of either changing at Newcastle Central station, or changing Metro at South Gosforth station (with the need to cross the bridge there between platforms.
In summary, a new link on the Metro across the depot, plus the Northumberland Coast Loop could make Northumberland Park station a major connection in the rail network for access to international ferries, plus an easier link to Newcastle Airport?
The Northumberland Coast Loop 