On Wednesday 17th June, the SRPS is operating a one-way special train over the ECML behind 45118 ‘The Royal Artilleryman’ for its attendance at the KWVR Diesel Gala that weekend.
Peak over the ECML (Linlithgow to Keithley via Newcastle)
Mini Switzerland for Northumberland?
A very interesting video from transport campaigner and rail engineer Gareth Dennis on the ‘Mini Switzerland’ trial in the Hope Valley, UK.
Much of the same lessons can be applied to Northumberland, using existing railway stations and buses, but operating them as a cohesive, intergrated system and not as a bus system that is separate to the rail system as is currently done (the obvious example of this being the new Newsham station on the Northumberland Line, but also the long standing problem of running co-ordinated buses and trains to stations such as Alnmouth, Morpeth and many more.
Lots of lessons to be learnt from this ‘Mini Switzerland’, and of course the Swiss nation more generally and applied here in Northumberland, North Tyneside and Newcastle more generally.
Something we once had a glimpse of under the Tyne and Wear PTE; but needed much more broadly now.
EDIT: Green Signals Interview on Episode 132
Please see video below for the interview with Thomas Abelman of the ‘Mini Switzerland’ trial in the Hope Valley below.
Again a lot more information on the trial and definately one to watch develop!
Green Signals episode 131: Integrated public transport and Northumberland Line extra carriages
Some interesting items in this weeks Green signals episode (No. 131), with comments on the new Integrated Transport Strategy, as well as new carriages for the Northumberland Line.
Please watch the video below for more!
Thoughts on this will be shared in a later blog post.
Northumberland Branch of NEPTUG: Campaigning together for better bus, rail, and active travel routes and services in Northumberland.
On Wednesday 1st April 2026 at 18:30, the first ordinary meeting of the Northumberland Branch of NEPTUG took place following the founding AGM on 4th March 2026. Please read below for more information about the meetings and what the group intends to do, but if you’d like to get involved, please feel welcome to join using the information below!
The speaker at the meeting, Geoff Wade, Community Bus Engagement Lead at the North East Combined Authority (NECA) gave a presentation on the work NECA is doing primarily on the bus network that carries around 70 million people each year to make the system better such as realtime information systems that are so good, you can see a bus negotiate a roundabout such is the clarity of the data, and making major improvements to thing such as bus stops too.
Public Transport and Active Travel as a holistic system, not just one mode in isolation.
As a wider organisation intending to cover the whole of the North East, ‘NEPTUG campaigns for an integrated, sustainable, publicly-accountable transport system connecting Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham.
It also supports walking, wheeling and cycling.
The Northumberland Branch of NEPTUG, at the last meeting on Wednesday 1st April 2026, decided to take forward a list of projects which included a mix of rail and bus proposals, with a few examples below:
Rail campaigns included but were not limited to:
- Improved services to Chathill Station.
- Local rail service on the ECML.
- Development of the new N.C.L. rail route (Newcastle to Berwick/Edinburgh via Bedlington).
Bus campaigns included but were not limited to:
- Improved bus rail integration at railway stations.
- Improving reliability of buses across Northumberland.
- Support the roll-out of real-time information for bus passengers.
- Meeting with the Northumberland Local Bus Board.
These campaigns dovetail nicely into existing ones such as this campaign for the new Northumberland Coast Loop north-south rail route along the Northumberland Coast and into North Tyneside, but also the campaign to improve bus services between Alnwick, Alnmouth Station, Warkworth, and Amble.
Want to get involved?
If you’d like to get yourself involved with the work of the Northumberland Branch (or indeed other North East Branches!) membership is FREE, and can be done via the Join NEPTUG page on their website.
At present, the group intends to meet monthly, with meetings held on the first Wednesday of the month as a general rule. Meetings are a proposed to be a mix of online and in-person, with the next meeting on Wednesday 6th May 2026 proposed to be online via Zoom, then the next one on Wednesday 3rd June 2026 proposed as an in-person meeting (location yet to be set).
Hope to see you soon!
Bedlington Station opening: The end of the beginning?
Yesterday evening, Sunday 29th March, I travelled down to Bedlington station to see the final Northumberland Line station for myself, and one close to my heart as a born and bred Bedlingtonian!
It is fantastic to see the town I grew up in once again reconnected to national network, but as the title suggests, I and many others feel that this is the ‘end of the beginning’ for the Northumberland Line; with further expansions already publically tabled by NCC and others, including this campaign for the Northumberland Coast Loop.
Bedlington, a brief history.
Bedlington station, closed on 2nd November 1964, was reopened on Sunday 29th March 2026, after a hiatus of 22,427 days, and 64,157 days (175 years, 7 months, and 27 days) since it originally opened on 3rd August 1850.
This means for a little over ⅓ of its life that the station has existed as a structure, it has been closed to passengers.
Happily that closure has now been fully reversed, and the station also has a much different layout than it did originally.
The original station was just a single platform, where platform 1 is now, as the opposite side of the line was a junction amd sidings for the two of the many collieries in Bedlington at the time, the ‘Doctor Pit’ located roughly where the current Bedlington Police Station is now, and the ‘A’ pit, a short distance SW of the railway station.
These pits closed after the railway went to freight only operation, the Doctor Pit closing in 1968, and the ‘A’ pit closing in 1971, with the sidings and junctions likely to have disappeared not long afterwards, so the new Platform 2 had to be built completely from scratch.
The station is quite a functional and utilitarian design, but unlike other stations on the Northumberland Line, there is quite a lot of railway heritage surviving at Bedlington giving it perhaps a bit more atmosphere than many of the totally new stations on the line where little, if any historic fabric survived at all, and sole stations are also on new sites entirely (for example Newsham).
The 1850 era station building has been saved, and hopefully will be repurposed soon to become an attractive part of the revived station, and the signalboxes (Bedlington North at the junction end, and Bedlington South near to the Clayton pub) are also likely to remain part of the station scene for many years to come.
Bedlington station: Opening Day
Below are a few photos of Bedlington station from my visit yesterday, which marks the completion of the first phase of the Northumberland Line.
The line to the right here heads to Ashington, and could be extended to Woodhorn, Newbiggin and Lynemouth in the future, whilst the line to the left heads towards the former station at Choppington, then Hepscott, where another junction spilts the line again.
The left branch at Hepscott takes trains towards Morpeth Station, and back towards Newcastle Upon Tyne, whilst the right branch at Hepscott heads north towards Pegswood, Berwick Upon Tweed and Edinburgh
With the line having already carried 1.4m passengers in just 15 months (an average of 2,978 passengers per day, every day as a simple average of 1.4m ÷ 470 days (15.12.24 to 29.3.26), there is a clear case to expand the line further, with plans already announced for funding to explore expansion to Newbiggin by the Sea in the late 2020’s.
The Next Chapters
As stated above, the end-on expansion of the Northumberland Line towards Newbiggin by the Sea is already a clear contender, and one that this campaign supports, but there is a route that I strongly feel is being overlooked by local politicians and other rail campaigners, and is seen clearly in the photo below; the route from Bedlington, through Choppington to Pegswood, then north up the East Coast Main Line (ECML) to Edinburgh… The Northumberland Coast Loop.
Three routes between Newcastle and Edinburgh by rail
As can be seen from this map below, which shows some (not all) potential rail expansions in the North East of England, with Newcastle Central station in the centre, there are two existing routes that can be taken today between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and a third as yet unbuilt route proposed by SENRUG.
The current ECML route via Morpeth
The long established East Coast Main Line (ECML) route runs out of Newcastle, through Cramlington and Morpeth, then Pegswood, Alnmouth and Berwick Upon Tweed towards Edinburgh; dozens of trains per day and has been an established passenger route for well over a century.
The Northumberland Coast Loop route via Bedlington
As can again be seen on the above map, following the same path north from Newcastle, the alternative option via the Northumberland Line is clearly shown, passing through Northumberland Park, Seaton Delaval, Newsham, Blyth Bebside, and Bedlington, then cuts across westwards, back to rejoin the ECML, with one route into Morpeth and back to Newcastle, the other curving north to Pegswood, Alnmouth, Berwick Upon Tweed and Edinburgh.
This route has existed since 1980, when the Morpeth North Curve, first touted in 1882 was finally opened to traffic, built to avoid coal trains bound for Blyth Power Station and the Port of Blyth needing to reverse within Morpeth Station.
‘The Seven Counties Rambler’: Riding the Northumberland Coast Loop on the 8th March 2025
I have actually travelled by train on this proposed route just over a year ago on an SRPS railtour called ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘ which ran on Saturday 8th March 2025 as circular tour of southern Scotland and Northern England, with the final leg of the tour from Newcastle Central to Linlithgow going via Bedlington, rather than Morpeth.
A more geographically true to layout map was included with the souvenir brochure of the trip, as can be seen below.
The route map below shows the stations in the order that they would be passed through by a service working the route; Ashington and Morpeth stations do not feature as they are not possible to serve via this route, but Pegswood is substituted in lieu of a call at Morpeth or Ashington.
Using this route would bring a wider range of trains, added capacity and new connections onto the ‘core’ section of the Northumberland Line; for example, if a TPE ‘Nova 1’ bi-mode was to work alongside the current Class 156 and 158 units, it would add extra seating capacity to/from Newcastle to stations such as Northumberland Park and Blyth Bebside; helping carry the many thousands of people using the line, but it would also offer a direct link to places in North Northumberland and Scotland.
The SENRUG route: Newcastle to Alnmouth and beyond via Ashington
The SENRUG campaign for Ashington – Butterwell – Alnmouth is very similar to that of the Northumberland Coast Loop, indeed the southern section from Newcastle Central Station to Bedlington Junction, and the northern section from Widdrington Station to Alnmouth (and possibly as far as Edinburgh) are both identical.
The fundamental difference between the two proposed routes is just the section between the stations at Bedlington and Widdrington, the N.C.L. route using the working and long established route via Morpeth North Curve, and SENRUG proposing a new line to connect Ashington to Widdrington directly.
This new line would likely use some of the former ‘Butterwell Line’ which dates in parts back to the 1890’s and the Ashington Colliery Railway system, parts of it actually having colliery operated miners passenger trains between Hirst station (not far from current Ashington station but separate from the mainline), and Linton Colliery.
That being said, the northern end of the line would need to be substantially new; as the curves would need to be realigned to get sufficiently good speeds, but also a new alignment is needed to create a new north-south connection, as the present link curves south towards Pegswood only, it has never had a direct northward link.
The building of this new link could have a few significant, but not insurmountable hurdles to overcome, which would make such a route likely to be both significantly expensive but also very time consuming to build.
Use the existing network better before new build lines?
The N.C.L. campaign was started as the above Ashington to Alnmouth connection would require a very substantial upfront investment to make it happen; whereas the very similar and already existing route from Bedlington to Pegswood achieves many of the same direct connections (i.e. Blyth Bebside to Berwick Upon Tweed, or Northumberland Park to Edinburgh Waverley) as the new route via Ashington would provide.
In the short-term, using the Bedlington to Pegswood route could allow the benefits of direct long-distance services to be brought to the area sooner as the route already exists and just needs to utilised.
In the longer-term, the route via Ashington could be built and services diverted over it, but using the existing link is perhaps the more pragmatic option, and also allows the market for such services to build up over time.
Bedlington to Alnmouth: via Newcastle (for now).
When I visited yesterday, a purchased a ticket from the Platform 1 ticket machine from Bedlington to Alnmouth, which can be seen to be clearly worded as ‘Valid only via Newcastle’.
At present, that is the only possible route by rail between the two stations, BUT, given that just over a year ago ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ took the direct route, perhaps now is the time to implement a regular timetabled service making these connections more direct?
As outlined above, the route is possible to take a train over today, and has been since 1980; and with 1.4m passenger journeys on the Northumberland Line so far, it is likely that a very substantial number of people would also use direct services heading into North Northumberland and Scotland too, given the opportunity to do so.
At the time of writing, the petition to ‘Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park‘ stands at an astonishing 1,159 signatures, hopefully this route can also be considered alongside the expansions to Newbiggin by the Sea, and implemented sooner rather than later?
Northumberland Line nearing completion; lets see Newbiggin, the N.C.L., and Choppington station next!
On Sunday coming (29th March 2026), the final Northumberland Line station at Bedlington will finally open to passengers and mark the completion of this hugely successful but unfortunately much delayed project.
The opening date of 15th December 2024 was much revised from original forecasts, and only two stations (Ashington, and Seaton Delaval) opened on that date, joined progressively by Newsham (17th March 2025), Blyth Bebside (19th October 2025), and Northumberland Park (22nd February 2026).
Despite only opening with two stations, passenger numbers started very strong, and jumped significantly with each successive station opening; to the point where reputedly people cannot board at stations such as Seaton Delaval as the trains are full upon leaving towns such as Blyth.
There have even been some extraordinary remarks made that stations such as Bedlington ‘shouldn’t be opened until more carriages come’ due to how busy the line is!
As a lifelong advocate for the line to be reopened, I’ll freely admit to feeling full of joy, and doing a James May style ‘victory dance’ at how successful the line has been over the last 15 months!
Anyway, back to trains!
With this astounding start, it is clearly a good time to build on this success and deliver even more:
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea extension
Extending the Northumberland Line north beyond Ashington, and around to Woodhorn and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea has been announced multiple times by Northumberland County Council as their intended next phase, subject to a feasibility study, planning permission, and funding and is much welcomed by myself.
I personally feel that rebuilding the branch into Newbiggin itself might be less preferable than a station at the Church of St. Mary, Woodhorn (where the existing line to Lynemouth Power Station crosses the A197), as this could allow for a terminus station within Lynefield Park (former smelter site) serving this growing business park, as well as a future extension to Lynemouth itself when the power station ceases operation at some point in the future, and a new station could be built nearby to the Lynemouth Miners Welfare Institute, which would serve Lynemouth directly, but also offer a fair connection for Ellington and Cresswell too.
Those are just my own thoughts on the extension, and a feasibility study process might identify which option is the better one.
The Northumberland Coast Loop
This campaign began around nine years ago; long before the Northumberland Line opened in 2024, but was inspired by the long running campaign to reopen the then ‘Ashington, Blyth, and Tyne Line’, coupled with the 2017 ‘Bound for Craigy’ railtour which ran on 18th March 2017 operated by Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) and the Branch Line Society (BLS) for the 40th anniversary of the Class 43 HST sets, and raised £50,000 for The Railway Children charity.
Led by power car 43300, and with 43082 on the rear, this tour took the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop route from Newcastle towards Edinburgh via Bedlington, I took the photo below of it passing Barrington Road, which is between Bedlington railway station and the site of Choppington station.
Over the ensuing years, and with the Northumberland Line scheme clearly making progress, the Northumberland Coast Loop proposal started to take shape, as it showed the benefit of using the route to connect SE Northumberland to North Northumberland in a way that wasn’t possible until the 1980’s, well after the stations had closed in 1964.
I travelled the route personally just shy of eight years later aboard ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ on 8th March 2025.
Morpeth North Curve: A century too late?
What is now known as the Morpeth North Curve was noted by C.R. Warn (1976 p. 35 & 36 in his book ‘Main Line Railways of Northumberland’, where it was authorised in 1882 ‘to avoid reversing coal trains travelling from Widdrington to Blyth‘ but strangely was not built until almost a century later despite the vast growth of Blyth as a coal shipping port driven by the NER itself, becoming one of the busiest coal exporting ports in Europe in the 1960’s.
Had this curve opened pre-WW1, I would speculate that Blyth, as an important industrial town with coal mining and shipbuilding would almost certainly have commanded a long-distance service to serve the town, and possibly would have retained it even through through the postwar era through to today.
Similarly, areas such as North Tyneside, another thriving industrial area, and the coast from Whitley Bay to Tynemouth as a once major tourism hotspot would similarly have likely commanded enough of a market for long-distance services for passenger trains to have survived and possibly thrived again.
Whitley Bay to Glasgow
An example such as this 1962 special train from Whitley Bay to Glasgow Queen Street might have survived longer if the direct connection from Bedlington towards Scotland had then existed, avoiding the awkward reversal at Morpeth and therefore the potential need for two locomotives (steam & diesel), and thus the reduced costs and operational complexity involved.
Sadly, history didn’t happen that way; the curve wasn’t opened until 1980, long after most of the stations on the potential route had closed and been demolished (only Bedlington remained intact) so the opportunities of what might have been were unfortunately lost.
Still an opportunity today.
Blyth does howver, remain as an important industrial town; as despite closures of mines and shipyards, a new future as a major centre for green energy infrastructure beckons; businesses like JDR cables in Cambois for example supplying cables for offshore wind farms for example.
Similarly, while Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, and Tynemouth may not be the ‘resort’ that they once were bring hordes of Glaswegians to the area, they are still popular places to visit from far and wide.
The route map below shows the potential of connections along this route; Northumberland Park, now open as an interchange between trains and the Tunr and Wear Metro is ideally placed to distribute people around North Tyneside wherever their intended final destination is.
Blyth Bebside would give easy access by rail, bus, car, bike or walking to a wide area of SE Northumberland, boosting the local economy by making access to education, training, employment and leisure easier.
For example, students from Berwick wishing to access Ashington College would only need to change train at Blyth Bebside and travel up to Ashington then have a short walk to campus, whereas currently it is a bus transfer from Morpeth (with notable problems of reliability on the 35 bus), or travelling into Newcastle and back again which adds unnecessary time to journeys when a shorter link is possible.
Leisure opportuntities are also significant; year round attractions like Seaton Delaval Hall or seasonal ones like Blyth Battery (World War 1 and 2 coastal fortification) have significant tourist draw, and major but short events such as the highly successful Tall Ships Regatta of 2016, which brought an estimated 500,000 visitors to the town, and £13.5m boost to the local economy could be made even greater with a long distance rail link to make reaching Blyth even easier should the event be repeated or something similar be hosted again in the port.
All of the above is a strong economic case to go beyond ‘just’ the Northumberland Line as it stands today, and use the existing link from Bedlington back to the East Coast Main Line (ECML) as soon as possible.
At the time of writing, the petition to support a rail service between Newcastle to Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park stands at 1,149 signatures.
Choppington Station: A clear candidate for reopening
With the huge success of the Northumberland Line, a clear candidate to be reopened would be Choppington station, which sits on two potential routes; the Northumberland Coast Loop route between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Bedlington, as well as the Bedlington to Newcastle via Morpeth route as advocated for by SENRUG.
As stated on the SENRUG page, the route appears to be already cleared for passenger use, and rolling stock such as the LNER Azumas for diversionary purposes, so the barriers to both the InterCity N.C.L. route and Newcastle to Bedlington local trains would appear to be minimal.
A new station at Choppington, if sited close to the A1068 would provide a great interchange between rail and local buses using that road, and is within easy walking/cycling distance from large parts of Bedlington, Scotland Gate, Guide Post, and Choppington.
If you can, please support both the N.C.L route plus the new station at Choppington by signing both petitions!
NEWS: NEPTUG Northumberland Branch meeting on 1st April 2026
Please click this link: https://neptug.org.uk/nlandapr26/ for full information on how to join the meeting.
The Forth, Blyth and Tyne rail route update 21.3.26
A little update on the campaign to date!
Petition progress to date
As of 21.3.26, the petition for the route (Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park on Change.org) now stands at an amazing 1,142 signatures, and steadily continues to grow. Please click the link above if you haven’t already done so.
The above petition is now well ahead of the 2008 SENRUG petition for the passenger reopening of the ‘Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line’ submitted to 10 Downing Street which attracted 1094 signatures. Whilst now styled as the ‘Northumberland Line’, this route has to date seen over 1.2million passenger journeys, meaning one signature on a rail petition may represent around 1000 real railway journeys (1094×1000=1.09m).
Email correspondence with Cllr Glen Sanderson, Leader of Northumberland County Council
On New Years Eve 2025 (31.12.25) I again wrote to Cllr H.G.H Sanderson, following a previous email on 8th October 2024 which I received a same day response from, with both emails putting forward the progressing campaign for the Northumberland Coast Loop.
To date, I have unfortunately not yet received a reply from my email that was sent on the 31st December 2025, but with Bedlington station due to open on the 29th March 2026, marking the completion of the current scheme, I will once again raise the Northumberland Coast Loop with Cllr Sanderson with a few to taking the proposal forward.
Extra carriages and Newbiggin by the Sea extension announcement?
In a recent video shared on Facebook by Cllr Daniel Carr, Leader of NCC Cllr Glen Sanderson referred to a recent North East Combined Authority (NECA) cabinet meeting that long-sought-after extra carriages were to arrive ‘very soon’ on the Northumberland Line (no actual date confirmed in video clip) and that £450,000 has been made available for a feasibility study into an extension to the Northumberland Line, and that a planning application could be submitted in 2028. It doesn’t refer specifically to Newbiggin by the Sea, but presumably this is the extension being referred to?
That is unless the feasibility study looks into both the Northumberland Coast Loop and Newbiggin by the Sea routes for expansion?
Confirmation on this would be good to see, but the Northumberland Coast Loop has a clear advantage in being a working, but fairly little used freight line through Hepscott connecting two very busy passenger railways (Northumberland Line and the ECML (East Coast Main Line) between Newcastle and Edinburgh together from Bedlington at the east end on the Northumberland Line to Morpeth and Pegswood on the ECML. This line has existed in the current layout since c.1980 when Morpeth North Curve was completed.
In contrast, the Newbiggin extension presumably relies on rebuilding a section of railway into the village, with a branch off the current line to Lynemouth Power Station in the region of where this line passes over the A189; this would need fairly significant earthworks to bring the old alignment to a suitable height to join the existing railway east of the A189 bridge, or even more so to clear the road (including a new bridge span) if the rail junction is placed on the west side of the A189 nearer to Woodhorn Museum?
As stated in many previous blog posts, trains have run on the Northumberland Coast Loop route for decades (as diversions or as railtours, with the last to my knowledge being ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ to successfully run the route on 8th March 2025, just over a year ago.
To me, using ‘the loop’ route first to boost train capacity, and also to give new direct links perhaps makes the most sense over extending the line beyond Ashington; more trains on the ‘core’ section from Bedlington to Newcastle would add more seating capacity both in absolute terms, of the seats in each direction per hour, but also in terms of released capacity; a passenger starting from Ashington could transfer onto a northbound train via Hepscott at Blyth Bebside, which would then free up the seat on the route into Newcastle. Similarly, a person bound for Blyth on the ‘loop’ train would alight at Blyth Bebside, their seat being taken by the passenger from Ashington heading north.
Lets use the existing network to full advantage alongside the reopening long closed routes?
Thanks for reading, RH.
Please note: Header image created by GeminiAI, not a real locomotive/rolling stock/location.
NEWS: CRAG proposes more trains to stop at Chathill.
An article today in the Northumberland Gazette: ‘North Northumberland rail campaign group proposes solution to tackle transport poverty‘ discusses the proposal put forward by the Chathill Rail Action Group (CRAG) to help ease the transport poverty problem in North Northumberland, many residents of which don’t have access to a private car, but also places many at a huge connectivity disadvantage, which is covered in a separate article by the Northumberland Gazette below.
The currently underused station at Chathill only sees four trains each day, made up of two in each direction; comprising a morning and evening service, which comes from and returns to Newcastle Central operated by Northern, locally nicknamed the ‘Chathill Flyer’.
There are some hurdles (though not impossible ones) to overcome for a true local service (all stations between Newcastle and Berwick), but a potentially quick fix is put forward by CRAG to use other services.
The CRAG proposals centre around stopping some of the TransPennine Express services that currently race through the station to give Chathill a more frequent and fast service, and serve this area of Northumberland which is located quite a distance from the other stations at Alnmouth and Berwick with a faster rail connection to both Newcastle, but also presumably all the way to Edinburgh too; reinstating a long lost northward connection from Chathill.
Small change for a big reward
The approach by CRAG is a reasonable one; using a small timetable alteration to an existing service to massively upgrade the service pattern at Chathill.
This service would be relatively modest compared to the services calling at Alnmouth or Berwick, but would put Chathill into a similar service pattern that is seen at Reston station just over the border in Scotland, and due to this better rail service, Reston station had 29,896 recorded passenger journeys in the 2024/25 ticketing year, compared to Chathill which in the same time period had just 1,580 passengers, 5.3% of the number travelling to and from Reston.
Reston railway station reopened in May 2022 after a £20m investment on the Scottish side of the border, but on the English side, a station open since 29th March 1847 (almost 179 years at time of writing) and never closed sees far fewer trains each day, despite being an asset that is arguably worth tens of millions of pounds when considered against a new station being built elsewhere, and being better utilised could be a massive economic boost to the North Northumberland economy.
Lets hope that CRAG sees success with their campaign, and TPE begins to call at Chathill sooner rather than later?
North Northumberland Students struggling financially to get to Newcastle by rail
In a very similar vein to the CRAG post above, is this one from January 2026 and calls by Cllr Georgina Hill of Berwick for greater support for Northumbrian post-16 students in Berwick to have support to reach Newcastle to study.
Like the CRAG post above it highlights the important part the ECML plays in getting students (most of whom are too young to drive, and even if holding a licence are inexperienced and at higher risk than other drivers) to colleges such as those in Newcastle and to a lesser extent Ashington given the large distances involved in this very large county.
At Berwick, the issue is more financially based due to the wider range of potential rail services already available, the issue being railcards changing from a larger discount of 50% to only ⅓ off after the students 18th birthday, meaning a much larger financial gap needing to be made up by parents or the students themselves.
In an ideal world, the brilliant value of the Northumberland Line fares might be extended onto other routes; this has already been called for along the Tyne Valley Line by Cllr Derek Kennedy of Hexham West Ward, but could also be extended north to Berwick along the ECML too.
Northumberland Coast Loop to reach College or University?
The issue of reaching colleges is also one that the Northumberland Coast Loop route could contribute to making easier; a direct link from Berwick, Chathill, and Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside would put Ashington within very easy reach by a short train trip from Blyth Bebside to Ashington, just one change of train and a much shorter journey.
In addition, colleges such as Tyne Metropolitan College in Wallsend could perhaps be more easily reached from Northumberland Park, as could Coach Lane campus of Northumbria University.
Better and cheaper rail connections for Northumberland
Taken together, it can be seen that Northumberland as a whole would clearly benefit from both a wide range of rail services into Newcastle direct, but also taking in the proposed ‘loop’ route via Blyth, which if extended beyond Newcastle onto the Tyne Valley Line to Hexham or beyond could offer an excellent ‘colleges connection’ service linking not only to Newcastle, but also those in North Tyneside and Ashington too.
As of 17th March 2026, the petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop stands at 1,137 signatures, but it is still open for even more signatures if you’d like to add yours!
NEWS: Arriva Service 3 starting soon!
Please note that the new Blyth Bus Station to Blyth Bebside Railway Station direct bus service 3 starts on 22nd March 2026.
For more information, please click here: https://www.arrivabus.co.uk/latest-news/service-improvements-in-northumberland-%26-tyne-and-wear?fbclid=IwdGRzaAQl2o1jbGNrBCXaeGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHrcX9SZWtZYRjpg_At_LExalDEHG8X70h5TJMVq-9usTz-PvrR8ZbIEgCgYT_aem_5BbwtB-Nw-mdU7sspZPuiA
The Northumberland Coast Loop 