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The first video is 66740 on the ‘Alcan’ tanks leaving Morpeth North Curve, headed for Fort William, with this freight service using the N.C.L. route between Bedlington and Berwick.
Please click here for the latest announcement on the Northumberland Line from the Northumberland Gazette, with key facts being:
1. December 2024 being target date for opening, with earlier date being hoped for.
2. Estimated final cost in region of £298.5m.
This video (Railways Of The North-East in Retrospect 1961 to 1968), at 20min 35seconds in starts with a section ‘The Alternative East Coast’
The narration of the video tells us that this was a diverted Edinburgh to Kings Cross service, hauled by 43109 due to the mainline being blocked near Morpeth (due to an accident on 13th November 1992).
The train above would almost certainly have followed the proposed route of the Northumberland Coast Loop, coming off the East Coast Mainline at Morpeth North Junction, passing through Hepscott village, then Bedlington, before continuing down what is soon to reopen as the Northumberland Line later this year and into Newcastle.
While the above service was an emergency diversion, it perhaps shows a ‘What could’ve been…’ as had stations like Bedlington, Bebside, Newsham etc remained open beyond 1964, maybe a ‘mainline’ service could have happened; arguably the Port of Blyth ‘Ship Shape’ video from 1986 which highlights the ‘superb transport links, with London just three hours away by rail’.
With the Northumberland Line soon to open a number of stations once again, for the first time in 60 years the line will once again have regular passenger services, but could some of the trains offer direct connections to Scotland and London?
So far, 642 signatures have supported the petition to see this route be considered as a option going into the future; it would simply build upon the existing investment made into the Northumberland Line, and make use of the Hepscott Line and Morpeth North Curve, used by 43109 in the above video back in 1992 but for routine, regular services not just emergency diversions.
If you like the proposal, please share this post on your social media and reach out to your local MP’s, county councillors and local councillors to state your support for the Northumberland Coast Loop route.
While investment in Northumberland is indeed welcomed, we need to ensure such investment is right for targets needing met, and not running contrary to others, which is where our response opposes schemes such as the A1, Blyth Relief Road, but back an extended Northumberland Line (the N.C.L. itself is potentially an ideal fit for this).
Probably the main headline project for Northumberland for decades, it is probably one to shelve permanently for a number of reasons:
Emissions is the main contradiction that this scheme has with other targets set both locally and nationally, with the widely known figure of 1.44m tonnes of CO2 forecasted to be released by the project. How this can sit with Net Zero targets when transport is UK’s biggest sector for emissions and roads make up the vast majority of the sectors’ emissions seems a backward step.
Economic contribution is also debatable, with documents advocating for dualling showing a very low benefit/cost ratio (BCR) of between 0.8 & 1.4, meaning per £1 invested, a return in the range of 80p to £1.40 could be expected, so there is a sizeable amount of the range where it could be a loss maker. Indeed if a full carbon cost figure of around £800 is applied (cost per ton of carbon to mitigate effects of climate change such as requirement to build/upgrade flood defences, lost agricultural productivity etc), then the dualled A1 would be a net negative of c. £1.2bn, meaning a large scale economic loss. (Figures from SPACE for Gosforth).
Local impacts of more car-based travel is also a major concern, with places such as Craster, Bamburgh, Alnwick etc all facing major problems with existing traffic volumes, as stated in a previous post, Northumberland faces a choice with a growing tourism sector – fall into the same trap as places like the Lake District, or do better and use the potentially fantastic public transport network (rail and bus) plus active travel corridors to deliver much more sustainable tourism access.
Union Connectivity was explored back in November 2021 by Sir Peter Hendy, now Minister of State for Rail, with the conclusion of ‘conducting an assessment of the East Coast rail and road corridor to determine appropriate investments for better connectivity between England and Scotland‘.
It would appear such a review has never been carried out, and given the need to meet Net Zero targets, any projects being taken forward should have to consider this as part of the wider economic and environmental considerations?
Let’s see such a review take place before commitment to the A1 being dualled.
Again, widening roads such as the A1061 to dual carriageway will carry a high carbon cost (more motoring using petrol/diesel cars leads to more emissions), and will put further pressure on internal roads within Blyth, as well as connecting routes such as A189. The logic behind the Northumberland Line itself is to reduce traffic and improve air quality by simple means of less driving, this road scheme contradicts that approach by encouraging more driving.
Given that the Northumberland Line is due to open within next few months, perhaps a fuller assessment of modal shift away from driving by active travel or integrated rail and bus services would be a better option than commitment to wider roads and more road transport.
Additionally, utilising the Northumberland Coast Loop proposal to connect Blyth to Berwick/Edinburgh by using the existing Hepscott Line/Morpeth North Curve could help drive modal shift towards rail for a greater number of present car journeys to places in North Northumberland and Scotland.
Again, modal shift away from motoring is probably the cheapest and least disruptive option by reducing vehicle volumes on the A189 through modal shift; less traffic = less congestion.
This is a proposal that has fullest backing, and one of the obvious contenders is the Northumberland Coast Loop itself, which, by utilising the Hepscott Line could connect Bedlington, Blyth Bebside, Newsham, Seaton Delaval and Northumberland Park on the Northumberland Line, to Pegswood, Widdrington, Acklington, Alnmouth (for Alnwick), Chathill, Berwick and even Scottish stations to Edinburgh.
…lets see an honest appraisal of rail options compared to roads with a holistic costing of each with regards Net Zero/carbon neutrality, air quality, traffic issues etc and equality for those who can’t drive for economic or health reasons.
While it is great to see articles such as the one below that recognise the beauty of the Northumberland Coast at places such as Beadnell and hopefully encourage more visitors, and consequent tourist spend; it could be chaotic to bring these tourists in by road, and repeating the problems experiences in places like the Lake District.
Below are two typical headlines seen on major news outlets, the first from the BBC, and the second from The Express. Northumberland could and should develop its tourism industry, but should aim to maintain its ‘unspoilt’ nature by avoiding a car dominant approach to tourism.
Given that places like Beadnell are so close to the East Coast Main Line (ECML), a line that connects London, Newcastle and Edinburgh as well as wider UK, it makes sense to improve access by rail (plus buses) to places along the Northumberland Coast rather than relying on roads.
To reach Beadnell, the nearest station would be Chathill, clearly seen on the above route diagram between the more major neighbouring stations at Alnmouth (for Alnwick) and Berwick (Upon Tweed) – yet at present, this station is only served by two trains daily to/from Newcastle.
It isn’t just this campaign that is setting out to see improved rail services; with the independent Chathill Rail Action Group campaigning for improved rail services too as can be seen from a recent news article below, but also long-standing campaigns from national groups like Railfuture with their North of Morpeth campaign.
As our last post describes, our petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop has now exceeded the number of signatures that the Dual the A1 petition recieved, with the dualling petition having recieved 624 signatures by time of it closing, and at time writing the N.C.L. Petition standing at 630 and still open for further signatures.
If you can, please support Northumberland to avoid the car chaos seen in the Lake District and other tourism hotspots and use our existing rail network to best effect.
Monday 15th July 2024.
As of this evening, the Northumberland Coast Loop Petition stands at 628 signatures, which means it now has exceeded the figure achieved by the Dual the A1 from Morpeth to the Scottish Border Petition back in 2012, which only garnered 624 signatures.
The rail option, by this metric is the more popular one, and as set out below, is the better fit with national and local targets such as Net Zero (set in both Northumberland and UK-wide).
This is perhaps an even more stark and important comparison; as the Campaign Director, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, later became MP for Berwick-Upon-Tweed between the 2015 and 2024 elections.
The July 2024 election resulted in a decisive victory for the Labour candidate David Smith, who made not pre-election promises to dual the A1, whilst it was a central pillar of the Anne-Marie Trevelyans campaign, who came second place, followed up by the third candidate Natalie Younes of the Liberal Democrats, also campaigning for dualling of this road.
Given that result, it would give current North Northumberland MP David Smith no mandate for dualling, and goes against the grain of the wider Labour party to follow Net Zero targets and to improve the rail network.
We would like to call upon Northumberland County Council, the North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer to redirect funds away from the deeply flawed dualling of the A1 and instead invest into the rail network along the Northumberland Coast to bring improvements in rail services to, from, within and through Northumberland.
The election just past, on 4th July 2024 resulted in a landslide vote for Labour, with every seat on the route of the Northumberland Coast Loop now taken by a Labour MP, an unprecendented situation; never before has the whole area covered by the route had all members of parliament belong to a singular party.
This means, in simple terms, that the whole route should stand to benefit from a cohesive voice at the highest levels, and hopefully that can be translated into real action on a route that is very, very close to being a functional reality; all the track is in situ, signalling may need modest amendments, but trains could be running fairly quickly, easily and cost-effectively.
At time of writing, the Northumberland Coast Loop petition has the support of 569 persons, but is continuing to grow, please add your signature if you’d like to see this route become a reality to boost connections to, from and within Northumberland.
As a constituent, I’ll be reaching out in the next few days to David Smith of the North Northumberland seat to seek his support for the proposal, but I also hope that he will be joined by other members along the course of the route such as:
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington),
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth),
Mary Glindon (Newcastle Upon Tyne East and Wallsend), and,
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle Upon Tyne Central and West).
The Northumberland Coast Loop could be a huge boost to connectivity to, from and within Northumberland, helping drive real economic growth, whilst also driving down carbon emissions and inequality by providing a better public transport network.
If you’d like to support this proposal, please write a letter/email to your local MP, especially if living nearby to the route, a template letter will be uploaded soon to act as a guide.
Thanks, RH.
The Northumberland Coast Loop Petition is continuing to do well and gain signatures, now only 40 away from its next big target, please click the link above to view and hopefully join more than 500 others who have done so to date!
Our recent post about journey times via the existing East Coast Main Line (ECML) has captured many site visitors (about 60 each day) in the last few days using a very rudimentary table to show potential journey times, an updated table can be viewed below, which now shows a comparison between ECML local service (based on current ‘Chathill Flyer’, and semi-fast (served by multiple operators, hence range of times for Alnmouth & Berwick).
The route via Bedlington would only be, at worst case, about 35mins or so slower than ECML only services, meaning that journey times still remain highly competitive even with driving from stations such as Alnmouth and Berwick, and still much faster than buses, especially for journeys to/from SE Northumberland.
With such a relatively small time penalty incurred by this route, it could potentially be within a reasonable balance for an operator looking to extend services north of Newcastle to cities such as Edinburgh or Glasgow, but taking this route to serve the large communities of SE Northumberland more directly, and being non-abstractive from other operators?
For example, Grand Central service to/from Sunderland could be extended to Edinburgh or even Glasgow but use route via Bedlington to not abstract from other Newcastle – Edinburgh operators?
Grand Central could be a good fit for the N.C.L., as it would also give direct connectivity between the Northumberland and Durham Coast’s which is presently unserved by any operator, and could offer direct Teesside to Edinburgh connections too.
This is just one example, and any operator willing to serve the route would be welcomed.
As ever, if you have any comments or suggestions, please leave a comment here, or via our Social Media channels.
Please see below a journey times comparison for a local (all stations service), between the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop (N.C.L.) and the ‘Chathill Flyer’.
Times between trains are derived from the following timetables shown on Real Time Trains (RTT) as a publically accessible and free resource to fact check.
Newcastle to Chathill via Cramlington and Morpeth from the Friday evening timetable on RTT showing the Chathill service on 21.6.24.
Newcastle to Bedlington from previous example timetable of the Northumberland Line sourced from RTT on 3.6.24. (Shown below)
Freight timing between Bedlington (BEJ) and Pegswood (PEG) based on following timetable for North Blyth – Fort William ‘Alcan’ service minus dwell time at Coopies Lane for crew change (see below), timed at 12min assuming non-stop run.
From the above data, plus an approximation of Chathill to Berwick Upon Tweed of 14mins, the following table was derived:
Between Newcastle and Bedlington, the journey times would be identical or very close to ‘Northumberland Line’ journey times, with the trip between Bedlington and Pegswood on the Hepscott Line being estimated at a mere 12mins (assuming no stop at Morpeth North Junction), and from there identical timings along the ECML northwards to Berwick as any other local service.
This results in the N.C.L. route being slightly longer in overall journey times (longer and slower route due to more stops) but only by 17mins, at just 43 minutes.
This still compares very favourably to other public transport, where aside from the Chathill Flyer, all other options to central station would take over an hour (as shown below), and even travelling by car to Central Station would take approx 30mins.
In conclusion, the Northumberland Coast Loop could be a valuable link between the densely populated SE Northumberland area and North Northumberland, with a few key journey times to pick out:
If you support the Northumberland Coast Loop, please sign the petition here: https://chng.it/f6MGxdzXfJ
A very good meeting tonight with five of the North Northumberland MP candidates in attendance; David Smith for the Labour Party, Anne-Marie Trevelyan for the Conservatives, and the incumbent MP for Berwick Upon Tweed, Natalie Younes for the Liberal Democrats, Georgina Hill as an independent, and Jan Rosen for the Green Party.
There was an excellent selection of questions from the packed halls at St James’s Church Centre in Alnwick (two had to be run with audio link into the second due to strength of attendance).
Sadly there wasn’t an opportunity to raise the Northumberland Coast Loop directly with the candidates tonight, but the pledges to improve public transport, and making travel in North Northumberland more sustainable will certainly be a focus for any future hustings and for the successful candidate on 4th July.
If any of the candidates would like to reach out and contact, please feel free to do so!
The Northumberland Coast Loop