As of 12th February 2026, one thousand, one hundred people have signed the Northumberland Coast Loop petition for a rail service from Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park.
This is just shy of its first anniversary as a petition, it being launched a year ago tomorrow on 13th February 2025.
This compares well with the 2008 SENRUG petition to 10 Downing Street to reopen the Ashington, Blyth, and Tyne Line (the scheme later rebranded as the ‘Northumberland Line’, which had 1092 signatures according to their June 2008 newsletter, a line that has now carried over a million rail passengers since it opened in mid December 2024.
This demonstrates the clear desire for such a link to be established for the first time; it never being a link before 1964 when the line originally closed to passengers, ALTHOUGH this nearly did happen in the Victorian era due to the North British, and the Blyth and Tyne Railway’s attempt to set up a Newcastle to Edinburgh route via Bedlington, then through Morpeth, Scots Gap, Reedsmouth Junction (which would have been built differently to be direct north to east, not east to south as actually built), then through Kielder, and on to the Waverley Line at Riccarton Junction to reach Edinburgh via Tweedbank!
This latter route never happened as the North British gained the Border Counties route from Riccarton to Hexham and onto Newcastle ahead of the route via Scots Gap and Morpeth.
Today, the Border Counties and ‘Wannie Line’ from Morpeth to Reedsmouth Junction are long gone and extremely unlikely to ever return (Kielder Water is now in the way for example), BUT leaving Newcastle, there are two potential routes as far as Pegswood; the existing ECML via Morpeth and Cramlington, and the newly reopened Northumberland Line as far as Bedlington, then the link via Choppington to rejoin the ECML heading north, which forms the Northumberland Coast Loop (NCL)
This second route, taking in Northumberland Park, Seaton Delaval, Newsham, Blyth Bebside, and Bedlington would serve a large population north and east of Newcastle; Northumberland Park for example will be the only ‘mainline’ station in the North Tyneside area since the late 1970’s, and Blyth Bebside will serve the largest town in Northumberland (Blyth) directly, whilst also offering easier links to other major local towns like Cramlington, Ashington, and Bedlington, easily accessed by a range of modes of transport, such as walking, cycling, buses, rail, or driving, and much easier in many ways than travelling to Morpeth to use the station there.
Again to compare the petition success with later results, the 1092 people who signed the SENRUG petition were highly vindicated by the success of the Northumberland Line opening 16½ years later and carrying close to a million after just a year of operation; hopefully the N.C.L. route will be far faster to become a reality than needing to wait 16½ years, as it is a far more modest proposal to simply use an existing and working railfreight link between two busy and well used passenger lines to provide a new long-distance through service?
As ever, more petition supporters are always welcomed, and please do so by clicking the link here: https://www.change.org/p/start-a-newcastle-edinburgh-rail-service-via-blyth-bebside-and-northumberland-park/exp/cl_/cl_sharecopy_490421148_en-GB/10/679068674?recruiter=679068674&recruited_by_id=f8c66ca0-ee1b-11e6-b726-5dfd818fd527&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_490421148_en-GB%3A10
The Northumberland Coast Loop 