On the 31st October 2024, myself as dad (writing), mum (Mrs N.C.L), and two under ten’s, travelled from home to York for the day.

Whilst the Northumberland Coast Loop campaign is mostly focussed on the route via Blyth, Northumberland, it is also here to advocate for better services in Northumberland more generally too, especially in North Northumberland (between Pegswood and Berwick), where for destinations beyond Newcastle, the existing East Coast Main Line via Cramlington (and possibly enhanced in future by the Morpeth Diversion) is the more optimal route in most cases.

Booking the Trains

Tickets were booked through the LNER app on the 28th October, meaning it was quite short-notice before travel. With a Family and Friends Railcard, the price for two adults and two children came to £119 return, one of the cheaper fares available at the time.

A short car trip got us all to Alnmouth, with a £1.50 charge for 24hrs parking at the station, with car park quite well filled by that point. Ideally, I’d have preferred to use the bus, but integration between buses and rail at Alnmouth is fairly poor, meaning a quite excessive additional time is added if you use buses to link to the station. Hopefully this can change if/when the Aln Valley Railway also reaches Alnmouth, as proposals have long stood for a shuttle service between Lionheart and Alnmouth.

Having arrived in good time for our train, so we waited in the small but reasonably comfortable waiting room, until our trip towards York on 1V56, the 10:09 from Alnmouth with CrossCountry Voyager 220033, which left Alnmouth a modest minute late (10:10), already quite well loaded, and in Coach C, had almost every seat full on departure from Newcastle, arriving in York at 11:45 (8mins late).

Aside from the fairly tiny delay, the journey was otherwise great, for a Voyager there was no noticeable odours in the cabin, or even the loo, a known problem with these trains on occasion, and the staff on board were very friendly and helpful, with plenty of information on how the service was running etc.

We then spent an enjoyable day around York, finishing off with a quick visit to the Railway Museum to be close to the station for our return trip.

While walking to the station, the LNER app informed us, rightly, that our expected train (the 16:32) was delayed, with at the worst point, it expected to leave York at 17:59. This prompted us to visit the ticket office at York, and the staff there were excellent, informing us that our ticket would be accepted on the 17:36 LNER service if we wished to travel earlier rather than on the then heavily delayed CrossCountry service. 

In the end though, CrossCountry, to their great credit mananged to provide a train only minutes later than the planned, meaning a quick dash to Platform 10 from our position near the ticket office, but in the end getting us home only a few minutes later than we’d planned aboard CrossCountry Voyager 220018 on 1S47.

Summary

Being with Mrs N.C.L. and the kids, gave quite a good perspective as critical friends giving their honest feedback.

Booking:

Very easy, useful to be able to sit together and look at times/fares at home when kids were settled and calm, and payment via PayPal made it a very easy process to have tickets etc ready.

Price:

Of all the things on the whole trip, the price was probably the biggest factor of concern from Mrs N.C.L., who asked for comparison to driving (both of us can drive and have a good family car).

To drive the 234mi with a petrol car getting about 35-40mpg would be in range of £35 to £45 in fuel cost, plus York P&R, the main driver against this being the much longer journey time and the need to make regular stops for children to use toilets, compared to be able to do on ‘on the move’ with rail travel, whilst also getting there faster.

In the words of the Mrs: ‘If trains were a lot cheaper, I’d do it a lot more’. I would certainly agree with her on that, as even with a RailCard (which arguably shouldn’t be needed at all; as everyone should get an equally good price in my view), £119 is a fairly big as for a family of four, which could have been seven had fares been cheaper as another family had thoughts of joining us and were put off by the price.

Hopefully rail fare reforms can make train fares equal to, or even below driving costs to make this a non-issue going forwards.

Station & Train Experience:

Both Alnmouth and York stations were clean, tidy and pleasant to use, Alnmouth station footbridge is getting quite shabby though with rust and spalling of the concrete structure so is in need of repair or replacement soon.

Alnmouth could also probably do with a similarly sized waiting room being added to the Northbound platform, as can be seen from the photo below, a substantial number of people were waiting to head north as we made our way to the waiting room. Having easier access to toilets on the platforms would be another good improvement.

In an ideal world, this current council car park might be improved by conversion into a bus/rail interchange (by treating Alnmouth station as a transport ‘hub’ for Alnwick, Amble, and the surrounding area), which means that waiting facilities on this side could be shared by bus/rail passengers, and the present ticket office could perhaps be relocated into such a building, with the old one forming an expanded waiting room?

Canopies could also be added at Alnmouth to provide a greater level of shelter too, as from experience, Alnmouth can be a wet and windy place while awaiting a train!

Both trains were clean, comfortable and free of odours, which as stated was a known problem on Voyagers for a long time, sometimes being quite unpleasant on previous trips but CrossCountry must have changed something for the better, as Mrs N.C.L., and the kids, all with a with keen sense of smell never mentioned anything!

Journey Time, Punctuality and Reliability:

The journey time of 1hr 27/28mins in each direction with just three intermediate stops (Newcastle, Durham, and Darlington) is very good; and possibly highlights the potential of the Morpeth Diversion to improve this further, as since this train didn’t stop at Morpeth, not passing through it would improve on train journey times, improve capacity at Morpeth itself, as well as freeing up capacity for trains travelling to/from Bedlington either on the N.C.L. route or towards Newcastle via Morpeth too.

Punctuality wasn’t a major factor for us as a family on a day out, where timings were very relaxed and delays wouldn’t have mattered immensely to us, but for others on that train, delays of 8 minutes or more could have meant missed connections or being late to a meeting etc. This was something beyond the control of CrossCountry, and the indicated cause was a points failure, which happens within such complex systems.

Reliability was good on the day, even if we had to get a later train, I was confident we’d at least get home at a reasonable hour, and a big shout-out to the ticket office staff at York for being there for reassurance, as even when fairly familiar with the network, at times of disruption it can be comforting to speak to a member of staff to ensure tickets are valid on other trains etc.

Synopsis

Overall, it is a day out I would certainly like to do again, and was a good test for a longer trip we plan to do in the future with the kids, but I’d happily see the current Government reverse the decision to increase rail and bus fares, and hopefully introduce something along lines of a ‘Climate Ticket’.

Longer term, stations such as Alnmouth need investment in maintenance (such as repair/replacement of the footbridge soon), and perhaps seeing stations such as this a part of wider integrated transport, by integrating buses at near platform level with a good, shared waiting area.

Today is Budget Day 2024 (30th October), and with it comes the news that the A1 Dualling has been scrapped as ‘unaffordable’, which analysis by Transport Action Network identified some time ago, giving the scheme an adjusted Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) of just 0.8, meaning for every £1 invested, a return of just 80p could be expected, a ‘poor value for money’ scheme, and given a likely price tag of around £400m accounting for inflation, that is around and £80m loss to the economy.

That doesn’t mean that the Northumberland Coast between Newcastle and Berwick should still not recieve investment into it’s transport network, but that it should be the rail network instead of roads.

This is best exemplified by the Invest East Coast consortium of councils, whose report that researched the benefits of ECML investments gives a typical BCR figure of 2.73, meaning for every £1 in, £2.73 comes back in economic benefits, a win-win of economic benefit from greener, cleaner transport.

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) in Northumberland has long been identified as needing upgrades, both in line capacity (nunber of trains it can handle per hour) as well as electrical infrastructure (not enough electrical supply to the overhead wires to support more long & heavier electric trains, meaning some trains running on diesel under the wires). Upgrading this route would have immediate major benefits for existing trains (i.e. some units/railfreight running on diesel could switch to all electric operation).

A further scheme would be to upgrade the Hepscott Line, which is the link line that the Northumberland Coast Loop would utilise for the proposed Newcastle – Blyth – Berwick route.

While a public costing for this work is not available, an estimate can be deduced from the nearby Northumberland Line scheme. At eighteen miles in length, with major track, signalling, and level crossing upgrades, new bridges, and six new stations, it has cost around £298.5m, around £130m more than forecast, but is still expected to achieve a BCR of 1.5, meaning for every £1 spent, a return of £1.50 is anticipated.

With the Northumberland Line nearing completion (December 2024 for partial reopening), and the ECML a regularly used passenger route; the likely ‘worst case scenario’ costs of upgrading the approximately four miles of the Hepscott Line from Morpeth North Junction to Bedlington Junction would be fairly modest, probably in the ballpark of £80m-£100m (estimate of £20-25m per mile to relay track and double track additional sections/relay track, upgrade of signalling and level crossings or replacement (potentially needed at A1068 Choppington?).

New stations wouldn’t be required for the scheme, as it would use existing stations on the Northumberland Line and ECML, but the route would give more impetus to a new  station at Choppington, as well as those proposed in North Northumberland such as Belford.

In addition, the cost of these upgrades would be largely shared with other planned services for the Hepscott Line, such as extension of the current Newcastle to Morpeth service on to Bedlington, meaning only the Morpeth North Curve between Hepscott Junction and Morpeth North Junction is uniquely used by this proposal.

However, this option could also be seen as Jeff Bezos’ ‘two way door’, as it is an existing, presently freight only route, but having seen fairly recent railtours (2017), and being a recognised diversionary route, there might be an option to trial services without needing to commit to upgrades immediately? 

Assuming a fairly modest BCR value of 1.5, that would effectively give a net economic gain of £50m, very favourable compared to the £80m loss associated with dualling the A1?

With favourable feedback from local politicians, and broad support of the Northumberland Coast Loop petition (742 signatures), perhaps the Northumberland Coast Loop and wider East Coast Main Line might see major investment instead of the A1?

This article from The Guardian seems to infer a reference to the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop while talking about the soon to open Northumberland Line, could we see it in 2025 with just a modest further investment?

‘North of Blyth, the line forks with one branch heading west to Morpeth’ is a great recognition of the Hepscott Line and its connectivity back onto the East Coast Main Line (ECML).

Articles such as this almost immediately sell the case for the Northumberland Line to be extended towards Morpeth and destinations north by using this existing route, but it is important to note that the Northumberland Coast Loop route wouldn’t offer a direct connection into Morpeth station itself.

This is due to the line having a second fork at Hepscott if coming from Blyth, with the left hand route going to Morpeth station and then back to Newcastle, while the right hand route would skirt the north eastern edge of Coopies Lane industrial estate and join the ECML facing Pegswood and Berwick Upon Tweed (see image below).

To give access to Morpeth for places like Morpeth Chantry, the proposal would see services stop at Pegswood, a station positioned between Morpeth and Ashington,  which would allow access to places like Morpeth Chantry or Woodhorn Museum for services taking a Newcastle to Berwick via Blyth route, which would offer a ‘coastal route’ for trains using the existing infrastructure mentioned in the above article.

The possibilities of such as route are potentially huge from a tourism perspective; spending time at destinations in South East Northumberland and North Tyneside such as Seaton Delaval Hall (National Trust), Blyth Battery, Woodhorn Musuem and the Stephenson Steam Railway, then heading north to places such as Alnwick Castle, The Alnwick Garden and Lilidorei, Bamburgh Castle and many more, as well as offering a good route for commuters and leisure travellers within Northumberland itself.

In correspondence with Councillor H.G.H. Sanderson, Leader of Northumberland County Council, and the office of Kim McGuinness, North East Mayor, this proposed route has recieved a warm welcome, the track and stations either already exist or are well underway, so could we see this route in time for Railway200, even if just a few trains per day?

It might require some additional work beyond that undertaken for the Northumberland Line, but given the opportunities, could it be a quick win?

In a recent Northumberland Gazette article, David Smith MP for North Northumberland pressed for dualling the A1 yet again, but there is a clear argument that this is a poor investment for the future on a number of fronts; why not instead put the investment into the proven alternative of the ECML, and possibly also into the Northumberland Coast Loop, the latter being a northern connection between the Northumberland Line and the ECML headed north through Pegswood.

Can’t ignore A1 emissions.

As Space4Gosforth has also fairly recently commented in the Northumberland Gazette (April 2024), dualling would be ‘environmentally ruinous’ with 1.44m tonnes of CO2 attached to the scheme. These emissions contribute to ongoing worsening of climate change, the effect of which can be clearly seen in recent events such as a month’s worth of rainfall in Blyth just a few days ago, alongside the Hurricanes Helene and Milton that have hammered the USA with almost unprecedented effects.

So from a climate change mitigation and Net  Zero standpoint, dualling of the A1 makes zero sense to carry out, as it simply worsens the issues of climate change.

To cut emissions, making better use of the parallel, fully electrified ECML surely makes the most sense? Moving people and goods by electric trains rather than petrol and diesel cars (which still make up the majority of road vehicles).

This will require an uprating of the electrical supply to the ECML, to allow longer, and heavier trains, as well as swapping some diesel trains for electric ones, especially to provide an improved local service, but many trains, such as Class 156/158’s are near end of life anyway and due replacement.

Better solutions to road safety for the A1 and other routes.

The article above by Space4Gosforth also sets out clearly that simpler, more effective, cheaper and more rapidly deployable safety measures could be applied to the A1 to make it safer, reducing speed limits on particularly accident-prone stretches, coupled with average speed cameras have proven highly effective on many other routes to reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities. Read more here from Space4Gosforth.

There is also the benefits of modal shift, as travel by active travel and public transport is far safer than travelling within a car, either by bus or by rail. Reducing road traffic via modal shift to more sustainable modes will improve ALL roads, so the investment into routes such as the ECML will have benefits far beyond just the railway itself.

Again, rail investment as part of improving public transport makes far more sense as a road safety measure than dualling the A1, as the road scheme is only likely to increase traffic both on the A1 itself, as well as other routes, leading to more accidents and more fatalities.

Flawed economic case for dualling the A1 and rail is a better economic investment.

In the article from David Smith MP, he quotes a highly outdated figure of £290m for dualling; thiswas the price in 2014, a decade of inflation now puts the price at £390m or more.

Moreover, the ‘big picture’ costs linked to dualling, such as effects of increased emissions, could amount to as much as -£1.2bn of economic damage.

Groups such as Transport Action Network have identified that the A1 Dualling between Morpeth and Ellingham is now rated as ‘poor’ value for money, with a quoted Benefit to Cost Ratio of just 0.8, meaning for every £1 invested, just 80p would be returned in economic gain, based on the most optimistic outlook and discounting the potential for huge losses when wider costs resulting from emissions are taken into account.

By comparison, even though the Northumberland Line scheme has suffered a serious cost overrun of around £100m, it’s BCR figure is expected at 1.6, meaning that for every £1 spent, there is a gain of £1.60 to the economy.

Furthermore, groups such as the East Coast Mainline Authorities who spearhead the  ‘Invest East Coast’ campaign state that for every £1 spent on the ECML, a return of upto £2.73 can be expected.

Linking the ECML and Northumberland Line together via the Northumberland Coast Loop route could drive up the economic gains of both lines, and help drive the wider economy of the North East, of which North Northumberland is an important part.

Political mandate is also lacking?

There is also the question to which David Smith has the political backing to dual the A1 too; when campaigning before the General Election back in July this year, his commitment to dualling the A1 was conspicuous by its absence in many respects, while it was placed front and centre by the incumbent Berwick Upon Tweed Conservative MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who lost in that election.

While the two petitions were also far apart in time, Anne-Marie Trevelyan also launched a petition to dual the A1 back in 2012 that only recieved 624 signatures in its duration, while the recently ended (Oct 2024) Northumberland Coast Loop petition ended with 742 signatures, suggesting that improving rail connectivity enjoys a much greater level of support than dualling the A1.

Indeed in his maiden speech, he made more than one reference to railways, while not a single mention was made about the A1.

Summary

In conclusion, I’m calling for David Smith MP to change his stance from pushing for the dualling of the A1 to instead campaigning for the improvement of the ECML; which has a much more assured climate compatability by not generating emissions on the scale of dualling the A1, is far safer as a mode of transport and can help drive wider modal shift, as well as the obvious economic advantages.