Today, Sunday 22nd February 2026 marked the opening of the long awaited Northumberland Park station, heavily delayed but here at last!
To visit the station on opening day to take a look, especially considering its potential importance to the Northumberland Coast Loop, I took a train from my local station at Alnmouth to Northumberland Park via Newcastle.
Northumberland Park would be a potential semi-fast service stop, meaning that trains serving this station may skip some other stops and roll straight through; this reason why would be done is that some fast long-distance trains are not designed to do stop-start ‘all stations’ duties, and instead would be better driven for several miles even at relatively low speeds to avoid mechanical issues developing, but the route would allow places to be directly served, cutting overall journey times and avoiding the present awkward ‘back-track’ currently occuring when going via Newcastle.
You wouldn’t take the bus to Haymarket to go from Alnwick to Blyth, or drive via the Tyne Bridge, so why expect it with rail services when a potential route exists?
Petition progressing positively!
A quick petition update before recounting todays travels is that the Northumberland Coast Loop petition for a Newcastle to Edinburgh rail service via Northumberland Park and Blyth Bebside now stands at 1102 signatures as of today (22/02/26). Please sign the petition if you’d like to see this new rail route, using the existing route from Bedlington to Pegswood via Hepscott become a reality. Please visit the link here: https://www.change.org/p/start-a-newcastle-edinburgh-rail-service-via-blyth-bebside-and-northumberland-park
The more who sign, the more support is demonstrated, and builds the political will to make it happen.
The route has wide potential benefits;
- It would create new, direct rail routes between most of the settlements on the Northumberland Line like North Tyneside, Blyth, Bedlington and more to North Northumberland and Scotland. This would at Northumberland Park create a more direct route into sites such as Cobalt Business Park, or links to the Port of Tyne for ferries to Europe and cruises using the Port of Tyne to visit attractions in North East England.
- Adding dditional trains, alongside the Northumberland Line units, would provide additional and much needed seating capacity between Blyth and Newcastle, where presently the Northern units are struggling to cope at peak times, and would avoid those travelling to/from North Northumberland or Scotland to occupy seats headed towards Newcastle entirely, releasing that capacity for other rail users.
- Regular use by planned passenger trains would mean that a wider pool of units and drivers would be route cleared in the event the route was needed for diversions (for example if further issues were to arise with Plessey Viaduct as happened in October 2023 when diversions via Blyth were discussed as a possibility.
If you can, please write to your local Councillor(s), and your Member of Parliament (MP) to express your support for the ‘Northumberland Coast Loop’.
The trip to Northumberland Park
Tickets were purchased well in advance online due to the advantages of lower fares on the ECML if booked early.
Embarking from Alnmouth
A canny day for it, and TPE 802210 was the traction for the first leg!
Changing at The Toon
As can be seen above, the planned outward travel time from Alnmouth to Northumberland Park (T&W) of 88 minutes meant a significant wait at Newcastle Central for the connection, a strong argument in favour of the more direct route via Pegswood and Bedlington which eliminates the need to change trains at all, and would make this trip significantly faster.
An estimate of a direct journey time from Alnmouth to Northumberland Park via Bedlington would be in region of 45 minutes (13 mins from Alnmouth to Pegswood, c. 15 mins from Pegswood to Bedlington, then 18 mins Bedlington to Northumberland Park (T&W))
For the observant, this very close to the return journey time expected from Northumberland Park back to Alnmouth, but as events today unfolded, it illustrated the problems with reliance on changing at Newcastle.
The first train, the TPE from Alnmouth to Newcastle ran to time, and all was so far well with the day trip, but the second leg from Newcastle Central to Northumberland Park was less smooth today, with a faulty Northumberland Line train from MetroCentre (2T13, made up of 158817 and 156489) getting more and more delayed, as can be seen below.
In the end, only 156489 went on to Ashington, after some shunting around in Platform 1 at Central station to take the defective 158817 off the service.
Arrival at Northumberland Park
Looking around the new station
The station is, like all the others on the Northumberland Line a neat and functional station, not unpleasant in any way but a basic and hopefully hard-wearing design, especially given the likely bustle that this single platform will experience as an interchange between the ‘mainline’ trains and the Tyne and Wear Metro system.
There has been some recent debates about the numbering of this new platform, which currently is number 1; whilst it is effectively parallel to the Metro, the high level of integration between the two systems in terms of the Pop card system, and here the physical closeness of the stations has meant that some have suggested that to avoid confusion (as there are two ‘Platform 1’ platforms in close proximity); that the new platform should have taken number 3 rather than 1, but that is a seperate issue.
A good foundation for building a bigger station?
All in all, this station will suit perfectly the intended design of four car trains calling at a suitable platform, and it is well placed to interconnect to the T&W Metro system serving the North Tyneside area, as well as local buses and much more.
There is, however, also a lot of apparent scope in my my view to make this station ideally placed for long-distance services; with ample room headed west under the A186 towards the A19 to extend the platforms for longer trains to call here, an extra 200m+ should be comfortably available before reaching the tight A19 bridge taking the road over the line.
As a temporary solution, systems like Selective Door Opening (SDO) could be employed to safely use the shorter length platform that is currently available.
Return to Toon
The unfortunately still late running 156489 returned for the trip back to Newcastle, and was VERY well loaded on the way into Newcastle, I elected to stand rather than even try looking for a seat, again showing the potential for the Northumberland Coast Loop as a solution to cope with more riders than available seats.
The late-running of third leg of the trip meant that my planned connection onto the 13:02 TPE service back to Alnmouth was missed by a good margin, passing me near Benton on the way into Newcastle aboard the Sprinter.
In the end, the fourth leg of the trip was completed aboard 1S39, the itself late-running CrossCountry service from Birmingham New Street to Edinburgh, which arrived at Newcastle around 13:55, nearly a full hour after my planned trains.
I would like to give a special shout-out to the station staff at Newcastle, particularly the lady who spoke to me for a while on Platform 2 to check my tickets and reassured me they’d be valid for travel aboard the CrossCountry train, before having a lovely natter during a quieter spell – splendid customer service and a lovely chat!
In quick summary, it is great to see the Northumberland Line drawing closer to completion, now with only Bedlington station left to go (the closest to my childhood home), which itself opens on Sunday 29th March 2026, and again is very likely to be another venture out by rail to visit.
Whilst the Ashington to Newcastle/MetroCentre on Sunday service is proving massively popular (almost TOO popular!), I strongly feel that the next logical step is to introduce a long distance service that better links this newly reopened passenger line more broadly, and whilst doing so adding capacity and resilience to the network.
With a generally quieter Sunday on the railway and a less intense timetable, perhaps the Northumberland Coast Loop route could be a Sunday service to start with and develop from there? There are more potential paths available, and leisure travel on a Sunday is a potentially strong market, can our railway people make it happen?
As ever, please sign the petition if you agree with the proposal, and please share with friends and family too! The link is here for the petition: https://www.change.org/p/start-a-newcastle-edinburgh-rail-service-via-blyth-bebside-and-northumberland-park
Toodle pip! RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 