Starting at Morpeth North Junction (just south of Bothal Viaduct on the East Coast Mainline) the train is taking the direct route as if it was coming from Pegswood, passing through the former station sites at Hepscott and Choppington, then passing through the as then long-disused Bedlington Station, over the Bebside Viaduct, then passing through the sites of soon to open (Summer 2024 and beyond) Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval and Northumberland Park stations.
Please note that the AWL 57 channel and the individual video are in no way connected or affiliated with this proposal and is shared as a publically available video source to showcase the proposed route only.
The previous post covered Bedlington Station services, which would see two services running through the station (Northumberland Line services to/from Ashington, alongside the potential N’land Coast Loop services between Newcastle and Berwick), and a terminating service coming from Morpeth (this is the current Carlisle – Newcastle ‘Northern’ train being extended to Bedlington).
While Bedlington is a station that closed in 1964, Acklington has been open since 1st July 1847 when it opened as part of the Newcastle and Berwick Railway (part of todays East Coast Main Line (ECML), so has been open for almost 177 years continuously.
Minimal Service Today
Somewhat sadly, Acklington has the distinction of being one of the least used stations in the UK, and was featured in a YouTube series by Geoff Marshall: Acklington: Least Used Station in Northumberland, largely due to the minimal timetable imposed since 1991 which sees only the ‘Chathill Flyer’ three times per day (one southbound call in the morning at Acklington, and one in each direction in the evening), this being a great example of how a minimal service attracts some use but more trains calling are needed desperately to improve the usage of the station.
This current service is also limited in not connecting Acklington to Berwick, with only Alnmouth and Chathill stations to the north, and Widdrington, Pegswood, Morpeth, Cramlington, Manors and Newcastle to the south (the train does continue onto the Tyne Valley towards Carlisle and comes from Carlisle on way north, connecting towns such as Prudhoe and Hexham to Acklington).
ECML Service Proposal
There has been research carried out on behalf of Northumberland County Council, Northern and the local rail user groups by Systra in 2019, that identified that an hourly local service (train each hour in each direction) was possible AND commercially viable if current diesel units were replaced by electric ones.
This service would be transformational for a station such as Acklington and would almost certainly produce a substantial increase in ridership.
This service, having already been evaluated and assessed is the priority for the station and local area and hopefully can be implemented with minimal delays. To support this happening, particularly in this election year, please contact your incumbent and prospective MP’s and share with them the Railfuture: North of Morpeth webpage to highlight this ‘quick win’ of a scheme to improve rail connectivity between Newcastle and Berwick (the latter connection being re-established)
N.C.L Service Proposal
Local services taking the Northumberland Coast Loop route could also provide some additional service to Acklington, giving direct connections to South East Northumberland and North Tyneside, with direct links to Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval and Northumberland Park (interchange with Tyne and Wear Metro).
The details of service frequency would need investigation by a body such as Systra, but ideally a service of 4/5 trains per direction per day could be considered a minimum in the long term.
Following some confusion on Social Media of what services will go where, this short explainer will hopefully help.
Northumberland Line
The first service to start (Summer 2024) will be the Northumberland Line (Ashington to Newcastle via Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval, and Northumberland Park), which will stop at Bedlington once that station is opened (later in 2024/early 2025 based on recent announcements).
Newcastle to Bedlington via Morpeth
The next service after the Northumberland Line will likely be the extension of the current Newcastle to Morpeth local train (that calls at Cramlington and Manors too) onto Bedlington. The trains currently sit for quite a while in the sidings at Coopies Lane, so once Bedlington Station is opened, the plan is to extend their route to Bedlington and back (about 8mins journey time between Morpeth and Bedlington Station compared to about 33mins by bus).
To reach any of the other Northumberland Line stations, a change onto a Northumberland Line train would be required as the train would terminate at Bedlington and head back to Morpeth.
Northumberland Coast Loop
The Northumberland Coast Loop is a newer campaign, and so less established than either of the above, but would seek to run the route shown below through Bedlington (local trains only calling at Bedlington due to likely constraints on train length with junction and level crossings at each end of the Bedlington platforms).
That being said, a target of 2025 hopefully isn’t unreasonable as Bedlington/Bebside have a strong link to the Stockton and Darlington Railway (which used Bedlington made rails for about 2/3rds of the line), so hopefully a longer distance connection at Bebside could be made in 2025 to help highlight the role Bedlington played in early railway history.
The only Northumberland Line station not served by this route is Ashington, so a change at either Bedlington or Bebside (semi-fast services planned to call at Bebside) would be required to go to/from Ashington.
The map above shows the route of the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop through South East Northumberland, which shares a common route with the Northumberland Line between Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Bedlington, Northumberland. It then heads westwards and rejoins the East Coast Main Line (ECML) near Pegswood and Morpeth, allowing access towards North Northumberland and Edinburgh.
While this route is very modestly longer than the ECML route through this part of Northumberland, it does run via larger settlements:
Bedlington is the fourth largest town in Northumberland with a population of 16,348 at the time of the 2021 Census, for context, neighbouring Morpeth on the ECML has a population of 14,419, nearly 2000 fewer persons.
Blyth is the largest town by a considerable margin, with a population of 37,742 in 2021, and will be served by both Blyth Bebside and Newsham Stations, which are situated on the western edge of the town, and arguably would also serve the town of Cramlington quite well, which has a population of 28,843, which whilst it has its own station, tends to have a relatively poor service for a town of its size.
These three settlements around the River Blyth, of Bedlington, Blyth and Cramlington together have a combined population of 82,933 persons.
The station at Bebside is particularly well located for serving all three settlements by active travel (Route 1 Cycle Path nearby and numerous other walking and cycling connections), buses and road connections (the A189 Spine Road in particular), so using this station for semi-fast long distance trains could arguably have a great catchment area alongside great access via a variety of modes of transport to & from the station.
Newsham is another station situated pretty much between Blyth and Cramlington and again offers potential to serve both settlements quite well.
Further smaller settlements in area include Stakeford/Guide Post at 8,194, which brings the potential catchment of Bebside to over 90,000 persons.
The settlement of Seaton Delaval stands at 8005 persons, but again has a much larger catchment potential for its namesake station as it doesn’t include settlements such as Seghill, and Seaton Delaval is also the closest station to NSECH, which would offer a lot of traffic to/from the hospital potentially.
Northumberland Park is situated on the northern edge of North Tyneside, and is surrounded by areas of housing such as Shiremoor, and West Allotment, but is also adjacent to the Tyne and Wear Metro Station of the same name, offering an interchange between the Yellow Line of the system and the national rail network outside of Central Station and much shorter travelling distance for many stations en-route, again another potentially ideal stop for semi-fast longer distance trains.
North Tyneside is home to 209,151 persons according to the 2021 Census data, which is a very large potential catchment.
One key advantage of Northumberland Park is its close proximity to the DFDS Ferry Terminal and Cruise Terminals at Port of Tyne, which could allow better public transport connections to and from the ferries/cruises by improving almost direct rail connections (short transfer by bus/taxi) as opposed to longer bus or taxi trips from Central Station.
A second advantage of Northumberland Park is its location close to Cobalt Park, one of the largest office parks in the UK.
All in all, this section of the Northumberland Coast Loop has the potential to serve about 300,000 persons, as well as significant sites of employment such as those around the Blyth Estuary, and in North Tyneside, as well as connecting sites such as the ferry and cruise terminals for onward international travel to areas such as North Northumberland and Scotland.
If you agree, please share this post with friends and family and contact your local elected representatives, from your local councillors all the way to your MP, to help make this rail route a reality.
The intention of LNER & Network Rail is to introduce one more fast, non-stop service through Northumberland, which results in fewer stopping trains, as fast services are capacity intensive – they need a lot of track clear ahead of them to run at high speeds without being slowed by other services.
This is to make rail travel between Edinburgh and London (or vice-versa) more attractive compared to air travel, with a recent Edinburgh Evening News article hailing ‘Edinburgh trains: LNER to cut Edinburgh-London journey times by half an hour‘, with a proven link between reduced journey times and a modal shift away from highly polluting domestic flights to much cleaner domestic, electric rail travel.
While this is a laudable goal to cut emissions in the face of climate change, it comes at the price of local and regional rail connectivity along the Northumberland Coast (as well as the Scottish Coast), as more fast trains will reduce the opportunity for local trains.
This offsets the cuts in emissions from flights by putting more traffic onto road, simply displacing aircraft emissions for those of cars.
Solution :Better local services ALONGSIDE faster long-distance trains.
The real solution is to have BOTH types of service; more fast services between the capitals of Scotland and England is of course welcomed, but an hourly local service along the Northumberland Coast would be transformative for the area.
The Northumberland Coast has many places to potentially serve, with world-famous castles such as Bamburgh, Alnwick and many more, a fantastic coast (the Northumberland Coast National Landscape parallels the ECML for a good part of its length), as well as the numerous communities en-route.
The local service was also proven to be viable by research carried out by Systra in 2019, and funded between Northumberland County Council, Northern (Arriva Rail North at the time) and with a small contribution from a local rail user group. Please see Railfuture North East: North of Morpeth Local Service for more information on the history of the campaign.
In short, there is a need to get this hourly local service up and running BEFORE increasing the fast, non-stop services that are potentially detrimental to local and regional connectivity. In the longer term, Network Rail needs to be appropriately funded to allow for capacity enhancements to accomodate both services alongside one another, not squeezing out local connections to enable more InterCity trains.
Let’s please have BOTH services, and implement the capacity improvements to enable this.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 