A quick reminder of the railtour over the Northumberland Line is around noon tomorrow (12:00 Monday 25th August 2025), operated by West Coast Railways, and will take the proposed southbound Northumberland Coast Loop route (Edinburgh to Newcastle Upon Tyne via Bedlington).
Will be great to see photos/videos of this service if you can get out and catch it!
A railtour running via the proposed southbound Northumberland Coast Loop route (from Berwick Upon Tweed , through Pegswood and Bedlington, then to Newcastle Central) has just had timings released on Realtime Trains, please click the link below for further information:
Link to 1Z84 Dunbarton to Newcastle, 25.8.25 on Realtime Trains
This is a railtour operating southbound, so in the opposite direction to ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘ back in March, with the added bonus of running in broad daylight rather than darkness too.
This is part of a three day railtour operated by UK Railtours, as covered in a previous blog post.
The expected departure from Dunbarton is at 09:01, to begin the journey south.
The train is due to pass Alnmouth at around 11:47, the railtour will then leave the East Coast Main Line at Morpeth North Junction at approx 12:02, pass Bedlington at around 12:14, pass Newsham at around 12:20, then arrive in Newcastle Central at approximately 13:01. Please note these timings can be subject to change, the information shared here is only for those interested in potentially taking photos/video of the train as it passes.
If you do happen to capture it, I’d be delighted to share photo’s/links to videos (i.e. YouTube) on this blog, so please get in contact via our social media pages to arrange if you’d like to share your content.
For this campaign, a particularly interesting site for photographs/video/drone footage to be captured, if possible, would be the train traversing the Morpeth North Curve, which is the line passing from Temples Bridge (w3w: ///insects.hamsters.issuer), under the Coopies Lane bridge at (w3w: ///encloses.stowing.loosens), then under the A196 at (w3w: ///driftwood.clerk.pupils), to Hepscott Junction (w3w: ///worms.blending.cans). Again please share a link to your content if you manage to capture this! Similarly, along the route between Morpeth North Curve at Bedlington would also be much appreciated!
Whilst railtours over the route are very much a welcome sight, this campaign intends to see a regular service over the route these railtours are taking between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Bedlington; if you can, please support the petition by signing it on Change.org at: https://www.change.org/p/start-a-newcastle-edinburgh-rail-service-via-blyth-bebside-and-northumberland-park
Thanks, RH.
As of Tuesday 19th August 2025, the Northumberland Coast Loop petition to ‘Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park‘ has just reached 903 signatures, meaning the major landmark of one thousand is coming very close!
Thank you to all who have signed the petition so far, and a special thanks to the 21 of you who’ve helped to promote the petition, with £94 donated so far on Change.org to help the petition to reach more people!
However if you can’t chip in, please just share with friends and family, via WhatsApp, your own Facebook wall or any other means such as email if you can, it’s free, but goes a long way to highlighting the campaign to more people and hopefully seeing the service introduced!
As of late Sunday 17th August 2025, the petition to ‘Start a Newcastle – Edinburgh Rail Service via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park‘ stands at a fantastic 898 signatures so far.
This shows the continued and increasing support for the route to become established, which hopefully will come soon after the completion of stations in late 2025/early 2026.
The next major milestone for the petition will be 1000 signatures, which will hopefully be reached quite soon, but the petition will remain open until a service is started over the route.
On Monday 25th August, the ‘The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and Waverley Weekender‘ operated by UK Railtours is expected to run southbound along the Northumberland Coast Loop route.
Starting from Dunbarton, then running through Edinburgh Waverley, and down the East Coast Main Line (ECML), before curving off the mainline at Morpeth North Junction, heading towards Bedlington and then heading south along the Northumberland Line towards Newcastle.
The last railtour over the proposed N.C.L. route (on which I was a passenger), was ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘ operated by SRPS Railtours on 8th March 2025, with 171 days between these two railtours.
As of yet, exact timings and traction for the UK Railtours train on Monday 25th August is not known, but should be uploaded soon to websites such as Realtime Trains once released, and will also be shared here.
If you can, please try and grab a photograph/video of this railtour (please do so from a position of safety, NEVER trespass on the railway for any reason), and if you’d like them featured/shared on this blog/our social media, please send them via the Facebook page or via X (Twitter).
Thanks, RH.
For 37 years (1988-2025) the humble four wheeled PCA waggons have taken alumina (a powder created from Bauxite ore) from the Port of Blyth terminal to the smelter in Fort William, Scotland (and also whilst open, the smelter at Lynemouth).
Somewhat famously, these waggons were for a short time hauled by Deltic 55022 ‘Royal Scots Grey’, with a YouTube clip set to the theme music for the 1971 movie Get Carter (some scenes filmed in Port of Blyth) you can view here: https://youtu.be/qYimjSWXEHE?si=PFxSEqP6cJD9SuUC
Still known locally as the ‘Alcan train’ from the long-standing former operator of the Smelter and branding on these waggons for many years, under Alvance these small four-wheelers have finally met the end, and will be presumably mostly scrapped on Sunderland Docks in the near future, though hopefully one or two might be saved for preservation.
On a happier note, this isn’t due to the end of the Alumina traffic from Port of Blyth to Scotland, it is simply that the wagons are being replaced by more modern and larger wagons.
In those 37 years, the PCA fleet of waggons has covered in excess of 50 million miles, equivalent to 2000 laps of the globe, 105 return trips to the Moon, or getting halfway to Mars, so they’ve certainly earnt their keep!
Please take a look at this piece from GB Railfreight for more information, from which a lot of the information for this blog post has been drawn: FINAL JOURNEY MARKS THE END OF AN ERA FOR FORT WILLIAM ALUMINA WAGONS.
EDIT: Please also view this video from GB Railfreight as a ‘Goodbye to the PCA’ too
The route of the ‘Alcan’ train, leaving Port of Blyth, reversing in the Furnaceway sidings at Bedlington (on the Northumberland Line), before heading west, towards Hepscott, taking the Morpeth North Curve to join the East Coast Main Line, and passing through Pegswood, Alnmouth and Berwick bound for Scotland.
This freight route perhaps highlights the existing infrastructure that could provide an immediate uplift to the Northumberland Line in permitting a direct route to North Northumberland and into Scotland by using this lesser known rail route for passenger services?
This curve from Hepscott towards Pegswood direct has only existed for about 45 years, very modern in contrast to most of the rail network, and has been mostly, but not always, been used for railfreight as by that time, the ‘Blyth and Tyne’ hadn’t carried passengers routinely for 16 years (with stations such as Bedlington, Bebside, Newsham etc. closing in 1964).
The above photos show examples of diverted trains in the 1980’s/1990’s using the then freight only route, but this has also been done by a number of railtours too.
It is interesting to speculate that an alternative universe, and if stations had survived, it is probably highly likely that with the Morpeth North Curve being built, the area served by the Northumberland Line would likely now have the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop services up and running already.
With the Northumberland Line recently announcing 500,000 passengers, less than a year after opening, there is clearly a huge demand for rail travel in the area, and while Newcastle and destinations beyond is clearly a principal major flow, there is almost certainly a strong demand to head north into North Northumberland and Scotland, with places such as Alnwick, and Berwick being popular ‘day out’ destinations from towns like Blyth, as well as connections into Scotland.
Our petition for this route now stands at a strong 854 signatures since its launch in February, and 1000 signatures likely to be reached before Blyth Bebside station opens, lets hope that this potential expansion of passenger services can be considered as a ‘next step’ for the Northumberland Line?
If you’d like to support the petition, please sign here: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY
Thanks, RH
A recent announcement from Northumberland County Council puts the passenger use of the Northumberland Line at 500,000 since opening in December 2024.
This is fantastic news for the reopening scheme, which has achieved this half million passenger figure despite still only having three of the six planned stations open as of today, with Ashington, Newsham, and Seaton Delaval serving passengers, witb Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, and Northumberland Park yet to be completed and opened for traffic.
The next station due to be completed is Blyth Bebside station, an announcement on which will hopefully be made soon as opening is anticipated for late summer/early autumn 2025; Bedlington, and Northumberland Park are now not due to open until early 2026.
Seeing these stations completed will be fantastic for the Northumberland Line, but given the huge popularity and success of the route, thoughts should also be focussed on the next phases of the route to expand it and serve more places.
The Northumberland Coast Loop could be an obvious ‘next step’; unlike the proposal to head to Newbiggin, where track has been lifted for decades, the line from Bedlington to Pegswood via Choppington has been in regular use several times per week for the North Blyth to Fort William ‘Alcan’ freight train, as well as it’s past use for coal trains bound for Blyth Power Station/Port of Blyth until this traffic ceased, and for occasional diversions around Morpeth as and when required.
While this route has never before had a passenger service, due to only being completed in its present form c.1980, 16 years after passenger trains on the old ‘Blyth and Tyne Lines’ ceased in 1964, the reopening of stations has changed that situation dramatically, meaning a route between Newcastle and Berwick/Edinburgh via Bedlington would now have stations to call at.
This route would vastly improve public transport connectivity in Northumberland, giving faster, more direct rail connections between the large population centres in the south east of Northumberland and settlements/visitor attractions in the north of Northumberland.
A petition on Change.org to support this route now has 852 signatures, showing the high level of support this proposal has gained over the last couple of years that it has been put forward.
To sign this petition, please visit this link: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY
A recent article from The Chronicle ‘Upgrades to two notorious A19 roundabouts would cost up to £775m’ has shed some light on the vast costs of upgrading the Seaton Burn junction of the A1 and A19, alongside the A19 and A189 interchange at Moor Farm, with Option A (fully grade separated junctions) coming at a cost of approximately £775m. The cheaper option E (the only one with a positive benefit:cost ratio, meaning it would generate an economic return on investment, the others would be loss making), with altered kerb lines, better signage and road markings would cost £300m, about the same as it cost to reopen the 18 miles of track for the Northumberland Line and open six stations along its length, and had a clear positive benefit:cost ratio of 1.5 (meaning for every £1 spent, £1.50 in economic gain is expected in return).
Together with the long proposed dualling of the A1 between Morpeth and Ellingham, recently costed at £500m, means that an expected spend on just two roundabouts and 13 miles of dualling in Northumberland could cost between £800m and £1,275m for both schemes (A1 dualling and A19 roundabouts) combined.
Roads are, however, only one mode of transport, and surely the alternatives to road transport should also be considered, especially as these schemes are near to existing passenger railways that are already busy and popular routes, which would certainly benefit from further enhancements, so could the money be better placed by improving the railway and leaving the roads as they are now?
The A19 north of the Tyne and its connection to the A1 is largely mirrored by the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop (N.C.L.) which passes below the A19 at Holystone, with Northumberland Park station almost inmediately adjacent to this road, and Seaton Delaval station close-by to Moor Farm Roundabout.
The connection of the N.C.L. back onto the East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Morpeth mirrors the connection of the A19 and A1 at Seaton Burn, with the option to head both north and south using Morpeth North Junction and Morpeth Junction (crossing Coopies Lane near Morpeth station respectively).
With a very similar rail and road layout, there is perhaps a unique opportunity to compare them side by side for relative cost vs benefit.
Please note that these are simplistic approximations based on the overall cost of the Northumberland Line at £298.5m, at 18 miles in length, with six new stations, hence decimal values for stations.
At the low end figure of £800m (A1 dualling + Option E), that would be equivalent to 2.6x the Northumberland Line, or a similar freight railway 48.6 miles in length being reopened for passenger traffic with 15.6 stations along its length.
The high end figure of £1,275m (A1 + Option A) would be equivalent to 4.2x the Northumberland Line, upgrading a 75.6 mile long freight line with 25.2 stations along its length.
As can be seen from the above calculations, every £1 spent on rail gives you more than the same £1 spent on roads, especially considering almost all rail projects have a far stronger benefit:cost ratio compared to road schemes that tend to be loss-making.
The Northumberland Coast Loop route could be a good alternative to the proposals for both the A1 dualling and the A19 roundabout rebuilds, as it would offer a better rail connection between North Tyneside and south east Northumberland with Scotland, and if the route was extended south beyond Newcastle, specifically along the Durham Coast, it would provide a parallel rail route to the A19 almost along its length.
Let’s assume that a budget of £300m (Option E for the two A19 Roundabouts) was allocated to rail improvements instead.
The line linking Bedlington to Pegswood is only around 5 miles in length, and largely single track; a similar upgrade to the Northumberland Line which had a £298.5m cost ÷ 18 miles of track = £16.6m per mile inc stations, would give an approximate cost of c.£83m, which would cover doubling sections of the route (perhaps almost in entirety given the very rural nature for the most part), and may even allow for rebuild of Choppington station alongside the line), and could allow level crossing upgrades/replacement by a bridge if required for the A1068 at Choppington too.
If Choppington station wasn’t initially included, then this cost may fall from c.£83m to c.£73m (assuming single track station at c.£10m cost), or to c.£63m (assuming two track station at c.£20m).
The replacement of Newsham level crossing with a bridge for the A1061 cost a reported £33m, so assuming the level crossing on the A1068 was to remain at Choppington might further reduce the cost to around c.£30m to improve this line to a similar standard to the recently Northumberland Line, in terms of additional double tracking and linespeed enhancements (allowing trains to travel faster).
In a worst case scenario, a £100m budget (assuming full doubling of the line, building of a two track station at Choppington, and replacement of the A1068 level crossing at Choppington with a grade separation) would seem to be a reasonable figure.
All of the above would need to be professionally costed and assessed of course, but it seems a likely estimate based on nearby, recent rail infrastructure works for the Northumberland Line.
Wider work to both the Northumberland Line and East Coast Main Line (ECML) might also be required to enable more rail services, for example the Newcastle Central Station to Bedlington Junction stretch of line might require some further capacity enhancement, as might the ECML from Morpeth North Junction to Edinburgh Waverley.
Assuming an overall budget of £300m for the route between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Bedlington, and between £30m-£100m being spent on the Bedlington Junction to Morpeth North Junction section, that would, depending on costs, leave between £270m (assuming approx £30m to improve Bedlington Junction to Morpeth North Junction), and £200m in a ‘worst case’ scenario.
For example, would relocating some stations on the ECML such as Alnmouth onto the loops at Wooden, which would allow stopping trains to be overtaken by fast, through expresses offer a good capacity increase for relatively low cost (approx £20m assumed cost for new station to be built whilst current Alnmouth Station remains open)?
Similarly, the reopening of Belford station, again proposed to be on the loops there rather than against the mainlines, could allow slower stopping trains (both semi-fast and local) to be overtaken by faster through expresses, again at a cost of c.£20m, which together with Alnmouth could still leave a potential budget of £160m to £230m assuming the modest overall investment of £300m into the ECML/Northumberland Coast Loop rail routes between Newcastle and Edinburgh. This assuming a low budget of £300m (similar to the spend on the Northumberland Line).
In contrast, if the amount of money that many advocate to spend on roads such as the dualling of the A1 and roundabout rebuilds on the A19 (c.£1,275m in total) was instead invested into the these two rail routes between Newcastle and Edinburgh, the results could be truly transformational.
Spending a billion pounds or more on rail in Northumberland and southern Scotland could truly transform services not only within the region, but also nationally, giving better Edinburgh – London connectivity to compete more effectively with domestic air travel, begin moving an increasing share of freight by rail, as well as decarbonisation of rail travel through more and better electrification schemes.
The Northumberland Line has proven that rail investment in Northumberland is money well spent, and as a region with a rich railway history, dating back to Beaumont at Bedlington in 1609 with early waggonways, wouldn’t it be a wonderful way to recognise that railway heritage by reviving rail as front and centre of transport in the 21st Century?
As of today, 28th July 2025, the petition for a new rail service from Newcastle to Edinburgh via Bedlington and Pegswood has gained a huge amount of support since its launch on 13th February 2025, with 832 signatures gained so far.
This represents a signing rate of about five persons per day, and if that rate continues, it’ll reach 1000 signatures on or about 200 days since launch; the 31st August 2025.
This date also happens to coincide with the potential opening of Blyth Bebside station, which based on the Northumberland Line webpage, is due around the same time (late August/early September).
Of the five current stations open/under construction on the ‘Loop’ part of the route using the majority of the Northumberland Line (all of them except Ashington due to the route and track layout), the stations at Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park are perhaps the most likely stations to see a semi-fast service stop.
Why Blyth Bebside?
This station is sited very close to the A193 Cowpen Road, the key northern access into the town of Blyth, Northumberland.
This route is point of concentration for several important bus routes (1, 2, & X9), it is also sat almost adjacent to the junction of the A189 Spine Road and A193, and finally is also located near to many active travel routes (walking, cycling etc) that link Blyth, Bedlington and Cramlington together, such as the National Cycle Network Route 1, which is a 1264 mile/2034 km route from Dover to the Highlands of Scotland, that higs the East Coast along much of its length.
Blyth Bebside is also connected by much more local routes such as Hathery Lane, which, with some modest work, could provide an excellent connection to Cramlington for walkers and cyclists.
Blyth Bebside is a potentially much less constrained station compared to that at Bedlington, which perhaps is the more obvious station due to the junction, but is constrained by the junction being at one end, and a level crossing at the other, meaning that longer trains would likely have to overhang either the junction (most likely scenario) or the level crossing (less likely to be permitted).
A longer train standing at Blyth Bebside, especially with the new location is unlikely to be foul of the level crossing at Bebside, allowing traffic to flow, and there are no railway junctions there to worry about either.
Blyth Bebside is also preferred over Newsham as it is more readily accessible from other towns, such as Bedlington, Ashington and more; as well as avoiding as much as possible the ‘wrong way’ travel of going south along the Northumberland Line from a station such as Ashington, through Bedlington and Blyth Bebside, to then change to another service and head north again through Blyth Bebside and Bedlington again en-route to Pegswood, or vice versa.
Why Northumberland Park?
The station at Northumberland Park is likely, once open, to become a major interchange for the Tyne and Wear Metro system, allowing faster trips to places like Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, and Tynemouth, as well as serving major business parks like Cobalt, and the wider area of North Tyneside, and once open, it will become the only National Rail station within North Tyneside itself.
This station could also improve connections to the international ferry terminal with daily sailings between Newcastle and Ijmuiden by DFDS, and the highly successful cruise terminal at the Port of Tyne, with 2023 being recorded as record breaking year with 61 vessels bringing 164,000 passengers into the Tyne, and with a quick, easy rail connection via Northumberland Park by rail into North Northumberland, or through Newcastle onto the Tyne Valley Line, or down either the Durham Coast or the ECML into Durham, a service calling there could prove highly popular to take tourists around Northumberland, Durham and beyond?
If you haven’t already, but would like to, please sign the Northumberland Coast Loop petition for this rail service here: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY
Thanks, RH.
The petition for better bus services linking Alnwick, Alnmouth Railway Station, and Amble has now gained 790 signatures.
With this petition having launched on 16th February 2025, 161 days ago, it gives an average signature rate of 4.9 signatures per day.
A special thanks go to the 13 promoters of the petition who together have put forward a total of £113 towards promoting the petition on change.org, thank you!
If you’d like to sign this petition, please do so here: https://www.change.org/AlnwickAlnmouthAmbleBusMeetsTrainCampaign
The petition to start a new rail service between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Blyth Bebside and Northumberland Park has now reached a fantastic 825 signatures today!
This is in just 164 days since the petition was launched on 13th February 2025, meaning a daily average of just over five people per day signing the petition. Thanks everyone for your support and clear demand for this route to be established.
A special thank you to the 20 promoters of the petition who have donated £78 in total too.
Please keep sharing this petition with friends and family to keep the momentum up!
To sign it, please click here: https://chng.it/zThXj8HBpY
Yours, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop