It is important to note that these cab ride videos pre-date the Northumberland Line project by a significant margin, and show the line as it was before the works to enable the reintroduction of passenger services began such as building new stations or closure of the level crossings at Chase Meadows or on the A1061.
These videos have simply been found on YouTube; all copyright belongs to the original uploader and ownership is theirs entirely, these links are posted for you to view them if you would wish to!
Despite the phased opening of the stations; with Ashington, and Seaton Delaval being open on 15th December 2024, joined by Newsham on the 17th March 2025, and Blyth Bebside on 19th October 2025, the Northumberland Line has been a huge success, with the line rapidly approaching a million passengers, having carried at least 920,000 people by the first anniversary of opening on 15th December 2025.
Expansion to Newbiggin by the Sea; warmly welcomed but as yet, no mention of the Northumberland Coast Loopto expand the Northumberland Line.
Another interesting snippet in the above Chronicle article is the mention of extension to Newbiggin, with Cllr Sanderson quoted as saying “The next big step is to get some more carriages and I have written to the secretary of state asking for that. Secondly, we want to move the line further north to Newbiggin.That is something I have been talking to the mayor about and she is very supportive of the idea. Hopefully, we will see an even bigger Northumberland Line in the not too distant future.”
Whilst the extension to Newbiggin is warmly welcomed, the need for extra carriages could be met by the suggested Northumberland Coast Loop route being adopted, as it would put additional trains over the Northumberland Line between Bedlington and Newcastle Upon Tyne, providing much needed additional seats to/from Newcastle to towns such as Blyth, as well as providing a direct route northwards into North Northumberland and Scotland from North Tyneside and SE Northumberland, saving a significant amount of journey time compared to travelling via Newcastle Central to make connections.
With the line already in existence and regularly used for railfreight; unlike the long-lifted line to Newbiggin, could we see trains on the NorthumberlandCoast Loop as early as 2026?
With the route completely in existence, and used regularly for freight between the Port of Blyth and Scotland (mostly the North Blyth to Fort William Alumina trains running multiple times per week), this route should be one capable of being brought into use swiftly, and would work to ease the crowding seen on the Northumberland Line by adding extra trains, as well as significantly cut journey times by using the existing direct rail route from Bedlington to Pegswood.
Monday 22nd December 2025 – Alnmouth to Ashingtonvia Newcastle
Take for example my trip from Alnmouth (for Alnwick) to Ashington on Monday 22nd December, which took 1hr 34mins, starting at 06:26, arriving at Ashington at 08:00.
With a direct link from Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside, this journey time could be cut to comfortably under an hour, using the existing line connecting Pegswood to Bedlington station and the northern end of the Northumberland Line, as will be explored below.
Tickets for travel from Alnmouth to Ashington via Newcastle, Monday 22nd December 2025My train, LNER Azuma 801201 approaches Alnmouth and passes the ‘Chathill Flyer’ heading north on Monday 22nd December 2025Details of 1Y07 Berwick Upon Tweed to London Kings Cross
Had a direct semi-fast train existed from Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside, the trip between those two stations would be approximately just29 minutes by an estimate from existing timetables, and using the Seven Counties Rambler timings for Pegswood to Bedlington (11 mins from Alnmouth to Pegswood, 2 mins dwell at Pegswood, then c.13 mins from Pegswood to Bedlington, and finally 3 mins from Bedlington to Blyth Bebside).
Alnmouth to Newcastle, a 28min minute trip by train (06:26 to 06:54) on 1Y07, Monday 22/12/25
As can be seen above, 1Y07 passed Pegswood at 06:39 on Monday 22nd December, yet I was not to reach Blyth Bebside until 07:51 on 2T09, a full 72 minutes later, despite the two stations only being 13 minutes apart by the direct rail route, a potential saving of 59 minutes of travel and connecting time at Newcastle Central in this case.
2T09 from Newcastle to Ashington worked by 156496 on Monday 22nd December 2025156496 to work 2T09 standing at Platform 1, Newcastle Central on Monday 22nd December 2025. 156496 having worked 2T09 stands at Ashington on Monday 22nd December 2025 at 8am.
From Blyth Bebside, the travel time to Ashington is a modest 9 minutes, as taken from the timetable of the train I was aboard on Monday 22nd December.
Journey of 2T09 from Blyth Bebside to Ashington on Monday 22nd December 2025
Therefore it can be concluded that a trip from Alnmouth (for Alnwick) to Ashington via Blyth Bebside would be in the ballpark of a 1 hour trip; 29 mins from Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside on a direct rail service (allowing for an intermediate stop at Pegswood, and generous timing from Pegswood to Blyth Bebside), and 9 mins from Blyth Bebside to Ashington accounting for 38 minutes of rail travel, and a generous 22 minute connection time at Blyth Bebside to change trains.
There is scope that if the line from Morpeth North Junction (where the route to Bedlington diverges/converges from the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in a southbound or northbound direction respectively) to Bedlington was to have similar line speed upgrades to the rest of the old ‘Blyth and Tyne’ lines, now part of the Northumberland Line, the 13 minute journey time could be further reduced with trains able to run faster along that stretch of line.
As stated above, a direct rail service from Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside could have saved 59 minutes of travel and waiting time between trains at Newcastle, compared to my actual trip on Monday 22nd December 2025.
Significantly reduce journey times from SE Northumberland and North Tyneside into North Northumberland and Scotland, by using the direct rail link that already exists from Bedlington to the ECML at Morpeth North Junction near Pegswood Viaduct.
Add extra trains onto the Northumberland Line, easing the significant overcrowding seen on this very popular line, meaning it can transport more people by clean, green, and much safer rail travel.
Add to the positive economic impact of reopened stations in SE Northumberland by providing direct links to North Northumberland and Scotland, and putting large towns such as Blyth onto the InterCity rail network between Edinburgh and Newcastle, making the area even more attractive for investment, and giving local residents even better access to the rest of the UK.
In the next few days, I will be again writing to Cllr Sanderson at Northumberland County Council, as I did in October 2024, to again raise the Northumberland Coast Loop as an option for expansion of the Northumberland Line in 2026.
Thank you all for your amazing support so far, and if you can, please also email or speak your local elected respresentatives (Parish and Town Councillors, County Councillors, your local MP, Mayor Kim McGuinness etc) to give this proposed route as much support as you can.
First of all, I’d like to wish all readers of the blog a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, it has been a busy one lately with work and family commitments but starting to catch back up now!
Sensational Stats
The release of passenger figures in recent weeks has shown a tremendous number of people travelling by train to, from, and within Northumberland; from Berwick Upon Tweed having over 707,000 passengers per year, to even seeing modest, but still significant growth on stations only served by the ‘Chathill Flyer’.
Table of passenger station figures for N.C.L. stations.
The amazing success of the Ashington – Newcastle ‘Northumberland Line’ is still fae beyond even the most optimistic expectations; on its anniversary back in the 15th December, it was announced to have had over 920,000 passengers since it opened a year before in December 2024!
Even for this campaign, the progress it has made this year is astonishing, with 18,378 visitors since 1st January 2025 viewing the website and blog posts 21,710 times as of 23.12.25.
Petitions Progress
Northumberland Coast Loop: Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth Rail Service
The need for this route to be implemented ASAP is clear from announcements such as that made on 20th December 2025, where high passenger numbers were expected to lead to very busy trains; a way to alleviate it relatively quickly could be to use the through route made possible by the Bedlington to Pegswood line to run some diesel or bi-mode trains currently used on the ECML between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Cramlington to instead run via Blyth.
As can be seen from the huge success of the line to date, the extension of Sunday trains to MetroCentre, and talk of future expansion to Newbiggin by the Sea, we don’t need to await the completion of the line to implement the Northumberland Coast Loop route, and possibly it could be put in place by May 2026?
Alnwick, Alnmouth Station, and Amble ‘Bus Meets Train’ Bus Service
Today, Monday 15th December marks the first full year of the Northumberland Line, running from Ashington, Northumberland to Newcastle Upon Tyne, which opened on Sunday 15th December 2024.
On that day, only two stations of the six stations were opened, Ashington as the terminus of the line, and Seaton Delaval, with Newsham opening a few months later on Monday, 17th March 2025, and later joined by Blyth Bebside on Sunday 19th October 2025.
As of today, there is still not an official announcement for the opening of either Bedlington, or Northumberland Park stations.
Whilst the line is still not fully completed with two stations remaining to be opened, the Northumberland Line has proven to be a HUGE success story in terms of ridership, with many hundreds of thousands of passengers having used the line since it opened, with the total figures quickly heading towards one million; hopefully a precise number may be released later today or in the coming days to show exactly how many have made use of the line in this first year?
If anything, the line is something of a victim of its own success, as due to shortages of rolling stock, some trains are only made up of two carriages, resulting in far more people trying to use the line than there is capacity available
Our solution for this is the Northumberland Coast Loop, which would expand the types of train running via a large part of the route (Newcastle to Bedlington, therefore only omitting Ashington station), by running additional rail services from Newcastle to Berwick/Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park, which would provide additional seats towards Newcastle, but importantly also give direct links north from SE Northumberland into North Northumberland and Scotland, further increasing the estimated £450m economic gain the line has brought to the area.
As of this morning, our petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop route, from Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park has reached 1,043 signatures; showing a strong demand for such a service to be at least trialled, and bearing in mind the SENRUG petition in 2007/8 gained 1098 signatures to reopen the Northumberland Line as a whole (then called the Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line), then hopefully the Northumberland Coast Loop can be given strong consideration as a solution to both the crowding problems on the Northumberland Line, as well as offering a new rail link connecting the highly successful Northumberland Line to North Northumberland and Scotland?
As we start the second year of the Northumberland Line, lets look forward to it’s continued success, and also how services could be expanded to meet the huge demand for trains to serve the area!
Headline from the Northumberland Gazette, 9th December 2025Table of passenger figures for the stations open in March 2025 (Bedlington, Blyth Bebside (opened October 2025), and Northumberland Park excluded as data as yet unavailable), Newcastle Central also excluded to avoid skewing of data.
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.
Hathery Lane near Blyth Bebside station.
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.
Between April 2024 and March 2025, the Office for Rail and Road (ORR) has recorded 1,580 passengers using the station, an increase of about 25% on the previous year, 2023/24, which saw 1,264 passengers using the station.
Route of the 0918 bus operated to Chathill Station by Borders Buses
This is a clear example of how proper bus and rail integration can work successfully, despite the very infrequent rail service that Chathill presently receives (only the twice daily ‘Chathill Flyer’).
The Chathill Rail Action Group (CRAG) states that this increase in passenger numbers, whilst modest shows the latent demand for a better rail service calling at Chathill station, and that stopping other trains at the station, that presently fly through would work to improve connections to this station.
The ‘Chathill Flyer’ has been busier at almost all stations on its route too
Looking at the wider picture of the Chathill Flyer, it has actually seen a significant rise in overall use looking at the figures, with increased passenger loadings at Chathill, Acklington and Widdrington stations compared to the preceding years (see below), with the only station noting a small fall being Pegswood.
The larger stations on the route of the Chathill Flyer, those at Alnmouth for Alnwick, Morpeth, Cramlington and Manors have been omitted as data does not specify the exact train, whilst these stations are only served by the ‘Flyer’, so it can easily be determined that these trains are busier.
Chathill Station: 1,264 passengers in 2023/24, rising to 1,580 in 2024/25.
Widdrington Station: 2,270 passengers in 2023/24 rising to 2,652 in 2024/25, making it the most popular small station in Northumberland.
Pegswood Station: 1,500 passengers in 2023/24, falling modestly to 1,468 in 2024/25
Together in 2023/24, these four small stations accounted for 5,584 passenger entries and exits based on the above figures, this growing to 6,556 passengers in 2024/25; almost a thousand extra passengers using these smaller ECML stations, and not counting potential use of the train to and from the larger stations such as Almmouth, Morpeth, Cramlington, and Manors.
Again, this data indicates a latent demand for a better rail service at these smaller stations; perhaps operating the ‘Chathill Flyer’ three, maybe four times per day is one option, or as CRAG suggests, stopping other services at these smaller stations to give them a wider range of trains to choose from is another solution?
In a presentation ‘Councillors from across the North East were presented with an update on the success of the Northumberland Line, ranging from a new influx of Ashington pupils now attending Newcastle College to the carbon emissions saved with fewer car journeys. In addition, elected members at Monday morning’s North East Combined Authority scrutiny committee were informed about a huge surge in interest from developers since the line’s first year in operation.‘
This shows how the Northumberland Line has worked well to take people to education and work, reducing the number of car journeys (and therefore surely easing the issues on junctions such as Moor Farm Roundabout etc if people are taking the train rather than driving), and that land around the Northumberland Line is now primed for development opportunities with such a good rail link being provided, with the planning department having ‘the phone ringing off the hook’, implying a surge in demand for developments in the area.
‘The line is also expected to unlock around £450m in economic benefits through boosting employment and connecting the South East of Northumberland to Newcastle, and vice versa.‘
For an investment of £336.4m to date, the expected unlocking of £450m in economic benefits represents a longer term ‘profit’ from the route of £113.6m, a very sound return on the investment made, and suggests a benefit:cost ratio BCR of around 1.34, weaker than an earlier expectation of around 1.5, but perhaps unavoidable due to the difficulties and delays in opening the route, with stations at Bedlington, and Northumberland Park, whilst largely complete, still awaiting their opening dates.
That being said, by almost every metric of use, the Northumberland Line has been an enormous success, passenger numbers have been HUGE for the line compared to forecasts, with trains struggling to cope with passenger loadings, and happily proving the projects critics wrong by a huge margin.
When the next stations at Bedlington, but especially Northumberland Park open, the line is likely to see another surge in use, as the interchange with the Tyne and Wear Metro is highly likely to prove very useful for passengers travelling to and from places in North Tyneside via Northumberland Park.
Edinburgh link from SE Northumberland for even bigger economic benefits?
While the Northumberland Line is a sure success as a route plying to and from Newcastle Upon Tyne, it could also be, as this campaign has long set out, a secondary route between Newcastle and the Scottish city of Edinburgh if the existing link from Bedlington towards Pegswood was brought into use, presently only used for a handful of railfreight services, but bringing into passenger use could be a relatively low-cost boost to the region?
The ‘loop’ via Northumberland Park and Blyth Bebside could work as a secondary route between Newcastle and Edinburgh with perhaps minor upgrades between Bedlington and Pegswood?
If some stopping trains running between Edinburgh and Newcastle were to be diverted over a large portion of the Northumberland Line (Bedlington to Newcastle, so only omitting Ashington), this could be a further major boost to communities along the line of route.
Towns such as Blyth, which is the largest in Northumberland could then boast of direct rail connectivity to Edinburgh, making it much more attractive for business investment into the town, thereby creating more jobs and wealth, working towards lifting the area out from being one of the most economically deprived in the county of Northumberland.
Services to Morpeth in the above article were described by Cllr Richard Wearmouth as “Punctual, fast and cost effective, they are such an asset for our town.”, and arguably a service using the Northumberland Coast Loop would give similar benefits to towns such as Blyth, as well as areas such as North Tyneside? Maybe in the near future, councillors from towns such as Blyth may be able to make similar statements?
If you’d like to see Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park gain a direct rail link to Edinburgh, please sign the petition here to show our local leaders how strongly such a service is desired, with 1040 at the time of writing, but more always welcome to sign it!
A recent article in The Northern Echo ‘Acklington among Britain’s quietest train stations in UK‘, shows that whilst still in the 50 least used stations in the UK, with just 856 entries and exits in the 2024/25 railway ticketing year, this was a major increase on the previous year, which had 550 in 2023/24.
Headline of The Northern Echo newspaper
This growth is significant as the services to/from Acklington would be considered by very many as ‘poor’, the station having a total of three trains per day Monday to Saturday, and no Sunday services at all.
These comprise entirely of the ‘Chathill Flyer’, which calls once heading southbound in the morning, and in the evening calls northbound, then southbound again on its way back to Newcastle.
Considerations of closure?
A concerning statement at the bottom of the article reads: ‘However, like many rural stops, it faces increasing pressure as operators and government bodies consider the viability of extremely low-usage stations, a topic that regularly resurfaces whenever ORR data is published.‘
This ‘viability of low-usage stations’ is a veiled threat of total closure, and it is a genuine concern for many smaller stations, where services have been reduced to pretty minimal levels for decades, resulting in very low passenger figures; not just at Acklington, but other small stations like Pegswood, Chathill, and Widdrington, all smaller stops between the more major ones at Morpeth, Alnmouth, Berwick Upon Tweed.
Closure of rural stations like Acklington would, however likely prove a backward step, when opening of new stations such as Belford are being proposed elsewhere on the East Coast Main Line (ECML), and the recent reopenings of stations such as East Linton, and Reston in Scotland have proven highly successful.
What is instead needed is an uplift in the services that call at the smaller stations such as Chathill, Acklington, Widdrington, and Pegswood.
The recent rise in passenger volumes at Acklington is an encouraging sign of more people using rail, but the phrase ‘use it, or lose it’ is clearly apt for the situation seen here; a station carrying less than 1000 passengers per annum, year after year, will always have an axe looming above it.
Save the Stations: Travel by Train
Therefore, to help keep these stations, and to help push smaller ones like Acklington out of the ‘least used 50’, a simple solution is to go out and travel by train to or from that station; it might not be the most convenient way to go somewhere, or get back, but the only way to prove that these stations are wanted by the community is for the community to use them.
When you can, travel to/from Chathill, Acklington, Widdrington, and Pegswoodby train.
With the 2025/26 year already several months in, try and travel to/from or between from these stations by train as soon as you can, invite friends and family to travel with you too, every trip makes a difference with such small numbers, so hop on the train (with your tickets of course), and help save the stations.
In addition, write to your local councillors, and your local MP (David Smith MP for North Northumberland covers all stations between Morpeth and Berwick, so if you live in his constituency, please write to him), to help make the case to keep the stations we already have, as well as get more trains serving them, and even opening more new stations at places like Belford, and Beal.
So as part of your Christmas 2025, and New Year 2026, please travel by train and write to your local elected representatives!
Let’s hope that enough people can take part to push the small stations like Acklington over 1000 passengers a year for the next round of data, so please jump on the train as soon as you can, even if just for a jolly!
The maps below illustrate the wider context of the rail routes through Northumberland, with the Newcastle to Berwick (and on to Edinburgh) section shown in purple on the top right of the map below.
Route map of rail and Metro in North East England
Zooming into the top right quarter of the map, it can be seen that the current Ashington to Newcastle ‘Northumberland Line’ has been extended to Newbiggin as a potential ‘future network’ diagram, but also shows the existing link west from Bedlington towards Morpeth, but also the Morpeth North Curve that offers a direct Bedlington to Pegswood route too.
The North Tyneside/Northumberland Coast routes
This latter link is what enables the Northumberland Coast Loop, so a train from Newcastle to Edinburgh could run up the Northumberland Line route as far as Bedlington, before turning west and running along the route parallel to Barrington Road, over the level crossing at the former White Swan pub at Choppington on the A1068 and heading to Hepscott, the line splits in two at Hepscott Junction (shown below), where the left hand line heads to Morpeth Station, whilst the right hand line is the Morpeth North Curve towards Pegswood.
Once back on the East Coast Main Line, trains would use the same route as all other mainline trains between Newcastle and Edinburgh already do, but the modest ‘loop’ taking trains nearer the Northumberland coastal towns like Blyth gives the route its name, and could serve the many major settlements in that area well, giving them a direct route to Edinburgh alongside the highly successful route to Newcastle already in operation for nearly a year.
Image from Google Maps, showing Coopies Lane industrial estate sitting within the triangle of lines at Morpeth. The Morpeth North Junction, where the ECML (left hand side) is joined by the Morpeth North Curve, to head over the Pegswood Viaduct to Pegswood and the north.The Morpeth North Curve looking east towards Hepscott and route to Bedlington, with the ECML running left to right across the bottom of the image. Morpeth Railway Station is to the right Image showing Morpeth Railway Station (centre), with the Morpeth North Curve coming off the ECML at the bottom right corner, and curving east to leave near the lower left.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 