An outline of the proposed route, as well as the service pattern is explained below.
The Route
The intended route of this service would broadly follow that of the existing Arriva operated X20, but it would be truncated to just the Alnwick – Alnmouth – Amble rather than continuing to Ashington and Newcastle, which should help the service to maintain time and avoid disruption caused by traffic elsewhere.
Alnwick Bus Station – Alnmouth Rail Station – Warkworth Castle – The Amble Inn
Starting from at Alnwick Bus Station, this route runs via Green Batt to reach the B6346 (Bondgate Without), passes The Plough, then Alnwick War Memorial, Barter Books until it reaches the A1068 at The Oaks Roundabout, and from there, the route continues along the A1068 Alnmouth Road, crosses over the A1 to exit Alnwick.
The route then runs past Alndyke, over the River Aln, then passes Hawkhill, then goes under the East Coast Main Line (ECML), passes Lesbury Road End, over the River Aln again at Lesbury, turns up Curly Lane to serve Alnmouth Railway Station.
Leaving Alnmouth Railway Station then down South View to Hipsburn Roundabout, from there rejoining the A1068 towards High Buston Road End, Shortridge Hall Road End, then Birling, Coquet Bridge, and into Warkworth, going along Bridge Street and Castle Street to reach Warkworth Castle and Beal Bank Top, leaving Warkworth via Beal Bank and continuing along the A1068.
Entering Amble via The Wynd, the route passes along High Street, Queen Street and Bridge Street, then joins Percy Drive to head towards the edge of town at the Amble Inn and the adjacent roundabout. At the Amble Inn Roundabout (Percy Drive-Industrial Estate), it is intended the service would turn around to form the return bus service to Alnwick, following the same route back to the bus station.
Service frequency and timings
Due to the high variation of train arrival and departure times at Alnmouth over the course of the working day, as well as potential for trains to be delayed, the buses will not be timed to meet specific services, but instead are proposed to run to a regular, half-hourly ‘clockface’ or ‘drumbeat’ timetable throughout the day so in a worst-case scenario of just missing the bus, the maximum waiting time is just 30 minutes. This is directly based on the highly successful Northumberland Line train timetable which runs to a 30 minute frequency most of the day.
The first and last buses are also early/late enough to meet the first and last trains, with an option for the last buses to hold until the last train has arrived, allowing passengers from the train to catch the final bus back to Alnwick or Amble.
The Monday to Saturday service is half hours with clockface departures from AlnwickBus Station on the hour and half past the hour (i.e. 06:00, 06:30, 07:00, 07:30 and then at XX:00 and XX:30 until 19:30, after which, the service could reduce to hourly).
Journey time via the current X20 timetable is 13 minutes from Alnwick Bus Station to Alnmouth Railway Station/Curly Lane. That would result in a reasonable expected arrival times at 06:15, 06:45, 07:15, 07:45, and then at XX:15 and XX:45 until 19:45, after which arrivals would be hourly), allowing an additional two minutes for any delays en-route such as traffic congestion or roadworks.
Leaving Alnmouth Railway Station, the route to the Amble Inn takes slightly longer at 21 minutes, so a departure from Alnmouth at XX:17, and XX:47 (two minute dwell at Alnmouth Station), would give an approximate Amble Inn arrival at XX:40 and XX:10.
Therefore the full run, starting from Alnwick Bus Station, through to Alnmouth Railway Station and ending at The Amble Inn would take approximately 40 minutes to complete by each bus, allowing an additional four minutes than current schedules for recovery of late running.
Departures from The Amble Inn to return to Alnwick would therefore be likely to be at XX:15 and XX:45, fourty-five minutes after their departure from Alnwick Bus Station. These buses would then be expected to arrive at Alnmouth Railway Station at XX:38 and XX:08, departing Alnmouth Railway Station at XX:40 and XX:10, to arrive back at Alnwick Bus Station for XX:55 and XX:25, ready for the on the hour departure back to Amble.
Three buses needed
To run a half-hourly service, this route would require three buses, as each would complete a full Alnwick Bus Station – Alnmouth Railway Station – Amble Inn – Alnmouth Railway Station – Alnwick Bus Station circuit in c.85 minutes, based on existing timetable and a total of 8 minutes of additional running time to allow delays to be absorbed.
Draft Timetable
Based on the above information, and timed to arrive before the first/last trains, and for the last to potentially wait until the passengers leave the train and board the bus, here is a potential timetable that could operate using just three buses to give a half hourly service from 05:15 to 19:30, and hourly from 20:00 until 23:00.
Draft Timetable for the AAA bus, 2nd December 2025
Operator
The above service could be taken on by any willing operator, either large or small, this campaign doesn’t have any preference for the colour of the bus, or its operator so long as the service is cheap to use (low fares), ns is comfortable, clean and reliable.
This time in two weeks, Monday 15th December 2025 will mark the first full year since the long awaited opening of the Northumberland Line to passengers. Starting with just the two stations at Ashington, and Seaton Delaval at the outset on 15th December 2024, there are now four of the six stations open, with Newsham opening in March 2025, and Blyth Bebside opening in October 2025. The next two stations at Bedlington, and Northumberland Park are due to open in ‘early 2026’, with no precise date yet announced.
Despite these issues with delayed opening of stations and of cost overruns, the line so far having cost £336.4m, the line has been a HUGE success with regards to passenger numbers, with over 800,000 now having used the line since opening, well ahead of any projections, and even the dreams of most optimistic advocates for the reopening.
Hopefully on the anniversary itself, or a few days afterwards, we can see just how close to carrying a million passengers that the Northumberland Line actually is, and that the remaining stations may at last be given a more precise opening date.
BBC article for expansion of the Northumberland Line to Newbiggin by the Sea
The proposed Newbiggin extension is very much welcomed, but ideally should also happen alongside the Northumberland Coast Loop, which as can be seen below, has now reached 1037 signatures on the petition in support of this route, which you can view here: https://c.org/wbhpn9ffpJ
Hopefully it’ll soon be possible to travel both to Newbiggin by the sea by rail again, after a now 61 year absence, as well as being able to travel directly from destinations around the ‘loop’ to North Northumberland and Scotland, something not yet seen, aside from special trains of the past and railtours.
An example from the past is this 4th August 1962 Whitley Bay to Glasgow train, which due to the Morpeth North Curve (M.N.C.) not existing, needed to awkwardly reverse at Morpeth station to head north, it not being possible until 1980 to head directly from the Choppington and Hepscott, run around the M.N.C. and pass through Pegswood to head directly north.
1962 Whitley Bay to Glasgow Queen Street special train, as uploaded to Facebook by John M Scott.
The Morpeth North Curve is photographed below, a route avoiding an awkward reversal at Morpeth station to head northwards from SE Northumberland or North Tyneside.
Looking towards the East Coast Main Line from the Coopies Lane bridge over the M.N.C. Looking towards the bridge above from a foot crossing over the line.Route of ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ on 8th March 2025, showing the route of this railtour coming into Newcastle Central from the Tyne Valley Line, then proceeding north along the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop route to Edinburgh.
The other campaign is for a more reliable and frequent bus service connecting the towns of Alnwick and Amble, to Alnmouth Railway Station.
Both of these towns previously had rail connections to the East Coast Main Line (ECML), with Amble losing is passenger rail services as early as July 1930 due to bus competition, and Alnwick losing its rail link in October 1968, despite growing passenger numbers in the years before closure.
Whilst Alnwick has the Aln Valley Railway rebuilding steadily towards Alnmouth station (around halfway as of November 2025), this is as a preserved heritage railway, and so is highly unlikely to run an everyday, early morning to late evening rail service as ‘mainline’ services such as the Northumberland Line does, most likely running on a selected number of operating days each year.
Alnwick also has the issue that the current terminus is very much ‘edge of town’ at present; with the Lionheart station being built on the eastern side of the A1 Alnwick Bypass, about ¾ of a mile east of the original Alnwick station, due to cost of two bridges, and loss of trackbed into the original stations since closure of the line in 1968. The line has, however, had a major boost since Eden Hill Bridge has had repairs announced, allowing the line in upcoming years to extend east towards Alnmouth, so a rail connection from Alnmouth station to the edge of Alnwick by heritage trains may be possible in the coming years.
The Amble branch has no plans, as far as I am aware of, to be rebuilt, which presumably is due to loss of trackbed after extensive opencast coal workings, and later building developments since closure of the line entirely in 1969.
The need to provide a better public transport connectivity to and from Alnwick and Amble is, however, required now to help ease both traffic problems within both of these towns and more widely, as well as reduce carbon emissions, and rail links to both towns would take a significant amount of time and money, whilst in the case of Alnwick also resulting in displacement of a significant tourist attraction too..
The clearest way to provide a better public transport connection between the towns and the station is, therefore via running a dedicated bus service connecting both towns to the busy railway station at Alnmouth.
As of 30th November 2025, this campaign has 825 signatures, but it is still open, so you can sign it here if you’d like to see this bus route improved: https://c.org/B4RwwtHnJc
Thanks for visiting, and please sign and share this post, or the petitions themselves with friends and family to keep the momentum going!
The progress of the Northumberland Coast Loop petition has been phenomenal in the last few days, with 1028 now having signed it in total, with more than 30 people in the last couple of days having supported the petition!
Signatures as of 23.11.25
Thank you to all who have signed the petition so far, and please feel welcome to share this post with your friends and family, to hopefully encourage them to sign it too.
If you haven’t already looked at the petition, please click this link: https://c.org/wbhpn9ffpJ to view and/or add your signature!
This is great news for the UK rail network, and is unprecendented for the last 30 years, with commonly above inflation rises each year on regulated fares, which are being kept frozen, whilst unregulated fares may have an increase, this is likely to be very small as they have tended to closely follow regulated fares.
The Northumberland Coast Loop petition reached the milestone of 1000 signatures earlier tonight (approx 18:00 when I briefly looked while at Disney on Ice at the Utilita Arena in Newcastle), but by 21:50 when I arrived home it had thundered on to a thousand and six!
1000 signatures at around 6pm on Saturday 22nd November 2025Visit to Disney on Ice with the family, an excellent show tonight!1006 signatures on arrival home
Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition so far, and helped us achieve this landmark, but the petition and the campaign will keep rolling until trains start running over the proposed route; so if you haven’t signed it yet, please pop your name down here: https://c.org/wbhpn9ffpJ
Thanks again to all of you who’ve taken the time to give your support to the campaign and how fitting to have blasted past this landmark before the first anniversary of the Northumberland Line on 15th November 2025!
Amazing progress on our Northumberland Coast Loop petition today, with just two signatures to go until it reaches 1000 signatures in total!
If you’d like to join the other 998 people who’ve signed it so far, please click this link and follow the instructions! Thank you to all who’ve signed so far and hopefully we’ll reach this next landmark very soon!
Massive thanks to all who’ve signed it already, as well as those who’ve contributed to a promotion too!
Please share this blog post on your social media feeds, or send directly to friends and family if you support direct trains between SE Northumberland & North Tyneside to North Northumberland and Scotland.
The past week has had a number of significant news announcements, and with a number of links between them, it is perhaps the right time to address them together.
Blyth Bebside station is blossoming; and is boosting overall numbers for the Northumberland Line towards a million passengers!
There has been more great news on the Northumberland Line in recent days, with Northern putting out the one month anniversary post for Blyth Bebside station, which opened to passengers on 19th October 2025, and so far has seen a phenomenal 12,000 passengers using the station!
In the same post, the Northumberland Line as a whole has seen over 800,000 passengers since it opened on the 15th December 2025, and could well be looking at 900,000 to one million passengers by the first anniversary of the line on 15th December 2025, it having opened with just two stations on Sunday 15th December 2024.
Northern Facebook post from Wednesday 20th November
The two stations left to open at Bedlington, and Northumberland Park have not yet had an official opening date announced, but like the other stations are likely to prove equally busy, and perhaps especially for Northumberland Park, as an interchange with the Tyne and Wear Metro, could give a massive increase in passenger numbers for people travelling to and from North Tyneside via Northumberland Park.
Hopefully these remaining stations will be opened early in 2026 (now unlikely to open before the New Year), and mark the completion of the first phase of the Northumberland Line.
All in all, the Northumberland Line is continuing to exceed expectations on all fronts, and despite the issues of cost overruns and delays, is very much looking like a no-regrets project; it having far more use than was ever anticipated even by the most ardent advocates for the reopening, and every announcement showing a huge leap in passenger growth on the line too. Long may it continue its huge success!
Woodhorn and Newbiggin Extension
Also in recent news were the plans that Newbiggin by the Sea might soon see an extension of the Northumberland Line into the coastal former mining town, which could see two new stations added beyond Ashington, the first at Woodhorn (likely to be near Woodhorn Museum), and a second station built on the edge of Newbiggin itself.
This would require rebuilding around a mile of track from the bridge carrying the railway over the A189 and dropping down into the town, as the former route was lifted with closure of the station and former colliery in the 1960’s.
This campaign welcomes this proposed expansion further along the Newbiggin branch, as well as potential to also extend the route further along the Lynemouth Branch to more directly serve Lynemouth and Ellington too.
The first option could be to run into Lynefield Park, a large brownfield development site (Lynefield Park, Ashington NE63 9YH) sited on the former Alcan aluminium smelter near Lynemouth. This site has a currently disused rail link, but could be ideally placed as an extension of the Northumberland Line as the trackbed was used until closure of the smelter in 2012, and could help drive industrial developments on the site too. Reopening the link for passenger services could also help reconnect the site for railfreight users too, as the freight link could be added onto the end of the passenger line, reducing the cost of maintaining the entire branch line into the smelter site?
The second option would be to extend the N’land Line to edge of Lynemouth village itself, where the current headshunt for the power station biomass trains ends very close to the Lynemouth Miners Welfare Institute (Bridge Rd, Lynemouth, Morpeth NE61 5YJ). This might perhaps be more complex than the options of going to Newbiggin, or to Lynefield Park as alterations to trackwork within the existing and still active Lynemouth Power Station might be required, but could be borne in mind as a future option, especially when the power station is closed and the site cleared in the future.
Unlike the extension to Newbiggin, or even that to Lynefield Park or Lynemouth, the route is already wholly in place; the line through the village of Hepscott being used several times a week for railfreight (notably the GBRf operated alumina train between the dock at Port of Blyth to the Lochaber smelter in Fort William on the Scottish west coast), this train coming through Hepscott and using the Morpeth North Curve to head directly to/from Scotland to reach Bedlington.
The under construction Morpeth North Curve in the late 1970’s/1980, photo by courtesy of Phil KirklandPhoto of 66301 hauling the now withdrawn ‘Alcan’ PCA waggons around the Morpeth North Curve bound for Scotland on 22nd August 2024.
Route maps of this proposed route show the potential of connecting Newcastle and Edinburgh via Blyth alongside the existing route via Morpeth and Cramlington, in effect, the Northumberland Coast Loop is just an alternative route a train can take to travel between the two cities, and whilst slower than the route via Cramlington, a stop at Blyth Bebside station serves the largest population centre in Northumberland (Blyth), with easy access to Blyth Bebside by rail, bus, taxi, car (via A189/A193), and even active travel from the surrounding towns of Ashington, Bedlington, and Cramlington, making it very strategically located and hence its suggestion as a key stop on this Northumberland Coast Loop route.
Once opened, Northumberland Park will be the only conventional railway station in the North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough since the 1970’s, so a long distance service to and from this station would give the area a much wider range of direct connections, and could be a massive boost to business parks such as Cobalt, one of the largest in the UK by offering an InterCity link close by, as well as the close location of the Port of Tyne, especially for connections to the DFDS ferry to Amsterdam, and cruises into the Port of Tyne.
Map of the Northumberland Coast Loop showing the potential to go between Newcastle and Edinburgh via a large part of the Northumberland Line between Bedlington and Newcastle. Ashington is situated on the Newbiggin branch, so is not directly served by the route, as Woodhorn or Newbiggin would also be on this branch of the route)Route map of the Northumberland Coast Loop within Northumberland, showing onward connections both north and south.
Back in March this year, I actually travelled this line on the SRPS Railtour ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘, which is where the map below is derived from, being taken from the brochure given out on the day, which shows how complete the route is, trains could be using it now to give this connection north into North Northumberland and Scotland given paths and rolling stock being made available.
As also stated in numerous blogs and posts, this route would have the added advantage of adding seating capacity onto the Northumberland Line by adding some additional trains to the route alongside the half-hourly Northumberland Line service, and would also reduce the number travelling into Newcastle purely to back-track north on board other trains via Cramlington, instead, people could simply travel north on a direct service; reducing overall journey times, and making trips easier and more comfortable (time isn’t ‘wasted’ on the train as it is possible to settle down to work, or simply to sit back and relax).
Moor Farm roundabout: End the National Highways ‘veto’, and use of rail to ease congestion issues.
In recent days, the Moor Farm Roundabout (where the A19 and A189 cross each other near the Northumberland border with North Tyneside), as well as that at Seaton Burn (where the northern end of the A19 meets the A1) has again been raised as an issue by local MP Emma Foody, alongside supporting remarks by Ian Lavery MP, as effects ripple far more widely than just the immediate area of the roundabout itself.
On the congestion itself, Moor Farm Roundabout has long been a congestion hotspot, with heavy traffic in all directions almost all of the time, but road congestion is something almost impossible to ‘build your way out of’, as to paraphrase the wise Lewis Mumford, who wrote back in 1955 (70 years ago in The New Yorker) ‘Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.’
As can be seen from the Tyne Tunnel, of which a second bore was opened up in 2012, the traffic issues have not really been ‘solved’ at the Tyne Tunnel, or elsewhere as it is still an area very prone to congestion, as despite hundreds of millions of pounds spent on the second Tyne Tunnel, and the rebuilding of Silverlink and Testos roundabouts, driving around there is still likely to have you stationary at peak times; as simply more roads result in more traffic.
Quote from Lewis Mumford, 1955.
The same has happened on the A1 Western Bypass, despite spending again hundreds of millions of pounds, road congestion continues to be an issue as building more lanes results in more traffic using the road, filling up the additional capacity created and returning congestion to how it was before.
No-one enjoys road congestion, and the apparently logical course appears to be widening of roads, or building totally new ones, but it simply allows more traffic onto the road and soon after, any benefit is negated by this additional traffic, as can be seen in the above examples; going around the MetroCentre, or via the Tyne Tunnel isn’t fast or congestion free, despite more and more lanes, roundabout rebuilds, and more.
The reality of widened roads
National Highways ‘veto’ powershould be ended and let building homes and businesses happen.
The real issue is that due to the congestion, National Highways can effectively ‘veto’ planning applications to attempt to throttle back road traffic:
“National Highways can issue holding recommendations on planning applications, in effect preventing them from moving forward. There are at least four holding objections on applications for housing and business development as a direct result of the Moor Farm roundabout.” Emma Foody MP as quoted in the Northumberland Gazette.
The Northumberland Line/Coast Loop to relieve the A189 and release developments from National Highways constraint?
The relevance of this to the Northumberland Coast Loop, and the above celebration of the Northumberland Line continuing to thrive is that the railway provides a great alternative to driving at all; a person riding a train, or goods moving via railfreight doesn’t add anything to road congestion, and if anything actually relieves it via modal shift (changing from a car trip to being a rail passenger, or goods going by rail and not by road).
The effect of the Northumberland Line having over 800,000 passengers is that clearly fewer people are travelling by road; anecdotal evidence from social media and conversations with friends and family shows that many have swapped car trips for rail journeys, which means that rail is taking a much greater share of overall travel now the Northumberland Line is open and moving towards completion.
Therefore, and in my own view, the throttling back of planning applications by National Highways for development of homes and businesses should be ended, with investment instead put into the Northumberland Line and Northumberland Coast Loop to increase train capacity to take more people by rail, rather than road, and allow much needed new homes and businesses to break ground as soon as possible.
The Northumberland Line has cost around £336.4m to develop 18 miles of line from a low freight line to a bustling passenger line with six new stations (Ashington, and Bedlington are really ‘new’ due to large rebuilds of both), and the ‘do minimum’ for Moor Farm and Seaton Burn is £300m, rising to £775m for the largest scheme; putting even a fraction of that sum into the Northumberland Line/Coast Loop for more track, trains or new routes could massively improve local transport and open up developments without the need to pay hundreds of millions to rebuild one or two roundabouts.
Thank you to all who have signed and supported it so far, and please keep sharing via Facebook, WhatsApp or any other means with your friends and family to keep the petition growing!
The Northumberland Coast Loop 