On Wednesday 1st April 2026 at 18:30, the first ordinary meeting of the Northumberland Branch of NEPTUG took place following the founding AGM on 4th March 2026. Please read below for more information about the meetings and what the group intends to do, but if you’d like to get involved, please feel welcome to join using the information below!
The speaker at the meeting, Geoff Wade, Community Bus Engagement Lead at the North East Combined Authority (NECA) gave a presentation on the work NECA is doing primarily on the bus network that carries around 70 million people each year to make the system better such as realtime information systems that are so good, you can see a bus negotiate a roundabout such is the clarity of the data, and making major improvements to thing such as bus stops too.
Public Transport and Active Travel as a holistic system, not just one mode in isolation.
As a wider organisation intending to cover the whole of the North East, ‘NEPTUG campaigns for an integrated, sustainable, publicly-accountable transport system connecting Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham. It also supports walking, wheeling and cycling.
The Northumberland Branch of NEPTUG, at the last meeting on Wednesday 1st April 2026, decided to take forward a list of projects which included a mix of rail and bus proposals, with a few examples below:
Rail campaigns included but were not limited to:
Improved services to Chathill Station.
Local rail service on the ECML.
Development of the new N.C.L. rail route (Newcastle to Berwick/Edinburgh via Bedlington).
Bus campaigns included but were not limited to:
Improved bus rail integration at railway stations.
Improving reliability of buses across Northumberland.
Support the roll-out of real-time information for bus passengers.
If you’d like to get yourself involved with the work of the Northumberland Branch (or indeed other North East Branches!) membership is FREE, and can be done via the Join NEPTUG page on their website.
At present, the group intends to meet monthly, with meetings held on the first Wednesday of the month as a general rule. Meetings are a proposed to be a mix of online and in-person, with the next meeting on Wednesday 6th May 2026 proposed to be onlinevia Zoom, then the next one on Wednesday 3rd June 2026 proposed as an in-person meeting (location yet to be set).
Yesterday evening, Sunday 29th March, I travelled down to Bedlington station to see the final Northumberland Line station for myself, and one close to my heart as a born and bred Bedlingtonian!
At long last, Bedlington has rejoined the national rail network!
It is fantastic to see the town I grew up in once again reconnected to national network, but as the title suggests, I and many others feel that this is the ‘end of the beginning’ for the Northumberland Line; with further expansions already publically tabled by NCC and others, including this campaign for the Northumberland Coast Loop.
Bedlington, a brief history.
Bedlington station, closed on 2nd November 1964, was reopened on Sunday 29th March 2026, after a hiatus of 22,427 days, and 64,157 days (175 years, 7 months, and 27 days) since it originally opened on 3rd August 1850.
This means for a little over ⅓ of its life that the station has existed as a structure, it has been closed to passengers.
Happily that closure has now been fully reversed, and the station also has a much different layout than it did originally.
The original station was just a single platform, where platform 1 is now, as the opposite side of the line was a junction amd sidings for the two of the many collieries in Bedlington at the time, the ‘Doctor Pit’ located roughly where the current Bedlington Police Station is now, and the ‘A’ pit, a short distance SW of the railway station.
National Library of Scotland mapping showing a side by side view of a 1900’s 1.1 million to 1:2500 map and modern satellite image of Bedlington Station.
These pits closed after the railway went to freight only operation, the Doctor Pit closing in 1968, and the ‘A’ pit closing in 1971, with the sidings and junctions likely to have disappeared not long afterwards, so the new Platform 2 had to be built completely from scratch.
The station is quite a functional and utilitarian design, but unlike other stations on the Northumberland Line, there is quite a lot of railway heritage surviving at Bedlington giving it perhaps a bit more atmosphere than many of the totally new stations on the line where little, if any historic fabric survived at all, and sole stations are also on new sites entirely (for example Newsham).
The 1850 era station building has been saved, and hopefully will be repurposed soon to become an attractive part of the revived station, and the signalboxes (Bedlington North at the junction end, and Bedlington South near to the Clayton pub) are also likely to remain part of the station scene for many years to come.
Bedlington station: Opening Day
Below are a few photos of Bedlington station from my visit yesterday, which marks the completion of the first phase of the Northumberland Line.
Bedlington North Signalbox and Bedlington Junction.
The line to the right here heads to Ashington, and could be extended to Woodhorn, Newbiggin and Lynemouth in the future, whilst the line to the left heads towards the former station at Choppington, then Hepscott, where another junction spilts the line again.
The left branch at Hepscott takes trains towards Morpeth Station, and back towards Newcastle Upon Tyne, whilst the right branch at Hepscott heads north towards Pegswood, Berwick Upon Tweed and Edinburgh158815 waits at Platform 1 to head to MetroCentre via Central Station.The 1850 built station building at Bedlington.Closer view of Bedlington station.The opposite end of the station building.View of the station from the ‘pit sidings’ side of the line and the brand new platform. What an asset this building could become! Bedlington South signalboxX21 showing the excellent interchange potential at Bedlington between buses and trains.Tbe same X21 from closer to Platform 1. Decent size car park at Bedlington station.
As stated above, the end-on expansion of the Northumberland Line towards Newbiggin by the Sea is already a clear contender, and one that this campaign supports, but there is a route that I strongly feel is being overlooked by local politicians and other rail campaigners, and is seen clearly in the photo below; the route from Bedlington, through Choppington to Pegswood, then north up the East Coast Main Line (ECML) to Edinburgh… The Northumberland Coast Loop.
A Class 158 bound for Newcastle coming from Ashington and joining what could become the Northumberland Coast Loop.
Three routes between Newcastle and Edinburgh by rail
The Forth, Blyth and Tyne, a route linking the Edinburgh to Newcastle and North Tyneside via the Blyth Valley area.
As can be seen from this map below, which shows some (not all) potential rail expansions in the North East of England, with Newcastle Central station in the centre, there are two existing routes that can be taken today between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and a third as yet unbuilt route proposed by SENRUG.
The current ECML route via Morpeth
The long established East Coast Main Line (ECML) route runs out of Newcastle, through Cramlington and Morpeth, then Pegswood, Alnmouth and Berwick Upon Tweed towards Edinburgh; dozens of trains per day and has been an established passenger route for well over a century.
The Northumberland Coast Loop route via Bedlington
As can again be seen on the above map, following the same path north from Newcastle, the alternative option via the Northumberland Line is clearly shown, passing through Northumberland Park, Seaton Delaval, Newsham, Blyth Bebside, and Bedlington, then cuts across westwards, back to rejoin the ECML, with one route into Morpeth and back to Newcastle, the other curving north to Pegswood, Alnmouth, Berwick Upon Tweed and Edinburgh.
This route has existed since 1980, when the Morpeth North Curve, first touted in 1882 was finally opened to traffic, built to avoid coal trains bound for Blyth Power Station and the Port of Blyth needing to reverse within Morpeth Station.
Unofficial ‘Metro’ style map of the regions’ railways sent to me by Paul.
‘The Seven Counties Rambler’: Riding the Northumberland Coast Loop on the 8th March 2025
I have actually travelled by train on this proposed route just over a year ago on an SRPS railtour called ‘The Seven Counties Rambler‘ which ran on Saturday 8th March 2025 as circular tour of southern Scotland and Northern England, with the final leg of the tour from Newcastle Central to Linlithgow going via Bedlington, rather than Morpeth.
A more geographically true to layout map was included with the souvenir brochure of the trip, as can be seen below.
Map drawn by Stephen Philips inside the SRPS ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ souvenir brochure given to passengers on the train.
The route map below shows the stations in the order that they would be passed through by a service working the route; Ashington and Morpeth stations do not feature as they are not possible to serve via this route, but Pegswood is substituted in lieu of a call at Morpeth or Ashington.
Using this route would bring a wider range of trains, added capacity and new connections onto the ‘core’ section of the Northumberland Line; for example, if a TPE ‘Nova 1’ bi-mode was to work alongside the current Class 156 and 158 units, it would add extra seating capacity to/from Newcastle to stations such as Northumberland Park and Blyth Bebside; helping carry the many thousands of people using the line, but it would also offer a direct link to places in North Northumberland and Scotland.
The SENRUG route: Newcastle to Alnmouth and beyond via Ashington
The SENRUG campaign for Ashington – Butterwell – Alnmouth is very similar to that of the Northumberland Coast Loop, indeed the southern section from Newcastle Central Station to Bedlington Junction, and the northern section from Widdrington Station to Alnmouth (and possibly as far as Edinburgh) are both identical.
The fundamental difference between the two proposed routes is just the section between the stations at Bedlington and Widdrington, the N.C.L. route using the working and long established route via Morpeth North Curve, and SENRUG proposing a new line to connect Ashington to Widdrington directly.
This new line would likely use some of the former ‘Butterwell Line’ which dates in parts back to the 1890’s and the Ashington Colliery Railway system, parts of it actually having colliery operated miners passenger trains between Hirst station (not far from current Ashington station but separate from the mainline), and Linton Colliery.
That being said, the northern end of the line would need to be substantially new; as the curves would need to be realigned to get sufficiently good speeds, but also a new alignment is needed to create a new north-south connection, as the present link curves south towards Pegswood only, it has never had a direct northward link.
The building of this new link could have a few significant, but not insurmountable hurdles to overcome, which would make such a route likely to be both significantly expensive but also very time consuming to build.
Use the existing network better before new build lines?
The N.C.L. campaign was started as the above Ashington to Alnmouth connection would require a very substantial upfront investment to make it happen; whereas the very similar and already existing route from Bedlington to Pegswood achieves many of the same direct connections (i.e. Blyth Bebside to Berwick Upon Tweed, or Northumberland Park to Edinburgh Waverley) as the new route via Ashington would provide.
In the short-term, using the Bedlington to Pegswood route could allow the benefits of direct long-distance services to be brought to the area sooner as the route already exists and just needs to utilised.
In the longer-term, the route via Ashington could be built and services diverted over it, but using the existing link is perhaps the more pragmatic option, and also allows the market for such services to build up over time.
Bedlington to Alnmouth: via Newcastle (for now).
When I visited yesterday, a purchased a ticket from the Platform 1 ticket machine from Bedlington to Alnmouth, which can be seen to be clearly worded as ‘Valid only via Newcastle’.
At present, that is the only possible route by rail between the two stations, BUT, given that just over a year ago ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ took the direct route, perhaps now is the time to implement a regular timetabled service making these connections more direct?
As outlined above, the route is possible to take a train over today, and has been since 1980; and with 1.4m passenger journeys on the Northumberland Line so far, it is likely that a very substantial number of people would also use direct services heading into North Northumberland and Scotland too, given the opportunity to do so.
On Sunday coming (29th March 2026), the final Northumberland Line station at Bedlington will finally open to passengers and mark the completion of this hugely successful but unfortunately much delayed project.
The opening date of 15th December 2024 was much revised from original forecasts, and only two stations (Ashington, and Seaton Delaval) opened on that date, joined progressively by Newsham (17th March 2025), Blyth Bebside (19th October 2025), and Northumberland Park (22nd February 2026).
Despite only opening with two stations, passenger numbers started very strong, and jumped significantly with each successive station opening; to the point where reputedly people cannot board at stations such as Seaton Delaval as the trains are full upon leaving towns such as Blyth.
There have even been some extraordinary remarks made that stations such as Bedlington ‘shouldn’t be opened until more carriages come’ due to how busy the line is!
As a lifelong advocate for the line to be reopened, I’ll freely admit to feeling full of joy, and doing a James May style ‘victory dance’ at how successful the line has been over the last 15 months!
James May and his ‘victory dance’ on Top Gear
Anyway, back to trains!
With this astounding start, it is clearly a good time to build on this success and deliver even more:
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea extension
Extending the Northumberland Line north beyond Ashington, and around to Woodhorn and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea has been announced multiple times by Northumberland County Council as their intended next phase, subject to a feasibility study, planning permission, and funding and is much welcomed by myself.
I personally feel that rebuilding the branch into Newbiggin itself might be less preferable than a station at the Church of St. Mary, Woodhorn (where the existing line to Lynemouth Power Station crosses the A197), as this could allow for a terminus station within Lynefield Park (former smelter site) serving this growing business park, as well as a future extension to Lynemouth itself when the power station ceases operation at some point in the future, and a new station could be built nearby to the Lynemouth Miners Welfare Institute, which would serve Lynemouth directly, but also offer a fair connection for Ellington and Cresswell too.
Those are just my own thoughts on the extension, and a feasibility study process might identify which option is the better one.
The Northumberland Coast Loop
This campaign began around nine years ago; long before the Northumberland Line opened in 2024, but was inspired by the long running campaign to reopen the then ‘Ashington, Blyth, and Tyne Line’, coupled with the 2017 ‘Bound for Craigy’ railtour which ran on 18th March 2017 operated by Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) and the Branch Line Society (BLS) for the 40th anniversary of the Class 43 HST sets, and raised £50,000 for The Railway Children charity.
Led by power car 43300, and with 43082 on the rear, this tour took the proposed Northumberland Coast Loop route from Newcastle towards Edinburgh via Bedlington, I took the photo below of it passing Barrington Road, which is between Bedlington railway station and the site of Choppington station.
43300 on the ‘Bound for Craigy’ railtour, 18th March 2017
Over the ensuing years, and with the Northumberland Line scheme clearly making progress, the Northumberland Coast Loop proposal started to take shape, as it showed the benefit of using the route to connect SE Northumberland to North Northumberland in a way that wasn’t possible until the 1980’s, well after the stations had closed in 1964.
I travelled the route personally just shy of eight years later aboard ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ on 8th March 2025.
Morpeth North Curve: A century too late?
What is now known as the Morpeth North Curve was noted by C.R. Warn (1976 p. 35 & 36 in his book ‘Main Line Railways of Northumberland’, where it was authorised in 1882 ‘to avoid reversing coal trains travelling from Widdrington to Blyth‘ but strangely was not built until almost a century later despite the vast growth of Blyth as a coal shipping port driven by the NER itself, becoming one of the busiest coal exporting ports in Europe in the 1960’s.
Had this curve opened pre-WW1, I would speculate that Blyth, as an important industrial town with coal mining and shipbuilding would almost certainly have commanded a long-distance service to serve the town, and possibly would have retained it even through through the postwar era through to today.
Similarly, areas such as North Tyneside, another thriving industrial area, and the coast from Whitley Bay to Tynemouth as a once major tourism hotspot would similarly have likely commanded enough of a market for long-distance services for passenger trains to have survived and possibly thrived again.
Whitley Bay to Glasgow
An example such as this 1962 special train from Whitley Bay to Glasgow Queen Street might have survived longer if the direct connection from Bedlington towards Scotland had then existed, avoiding the awkward reversal at Morpeth and therefore the potential need for two locomotives (steam & diesel), and thus the reduced costs and operational complexity involved.
Post shared on ‘Everything North Eastern Railway’ Facebook Group by John M Scott
Sadly, history didn’t happen that way; the curve wasn’t opened until 1980, long after most of the stations on the potential route had closed and been demolished (only Bedlington remained intact) so the opportunities of what might have been were unfortunately lost.
Still an opportunity today.
Blyth does howver, remain as an important industrial town; as despite closures of mines and shipyards, a new future as a major centre for green energy infrastructure beckons; businesses like JDR cables in Cambois for example supplying cables for offshore wind farms for example.
Similarly, while Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, and Tynemouth may not be the ‘resort’ that they once were bring hordes of Glaswegians to the area, they are still popular places to visit from far and wide.
The route map below shows the potential of connections along this route; Northumberland Park, now open as an interchange between trains and the Tunr and Wear Metro is ideally placed to distribute people around North Tyneside wherever their intended final destination is.
Blyth Bebside would give easy access by rail, bus, car, bike or walking to a wide area of SE Northumberland, boosting the local economy by making access to education, training, employment and leisure easier.
For example, students from Berwick wishing to access Ashington College would only need to change train at Blyth Bebside and travel up to Ashington then have a short walk to campus, whereas currently it is a bus transfer from Morpeth (with notable problems of reliability on the 35 bus), or travelling into Newcastle and back again which adds unnecessary time to journeys when a shorter link is possible.
Leisure opportuntities are also significant; year round attractions like Seaton Delaval Hall or seasonal ones like Blyth Battery (World War 1 and 2 coastal fortification) have significant tourist draw, and major but short events such as the highly successful Tall Ships Regatta of 2016, which brought an estimated 500,000 visitors to the town, and £13.5m boost to the local economy could be made even greater with a long distance rail link to make reaching Blyth even easier should the event be repeated or something similar be hosted again in the port.
All of the above is a strong economic case to go beyond ‘just’ the Northumberland Line as it stands today, and use the existing link from Bedlington back to the East Coast Main Line (ECML) as soon as possible.
With the huge success of the Northumberland Line, a clear candidate to be reopened would be Choppington station, which sits on two potential routes; the Northumberland Coast Loop route between Newcastle and Edinburgh via Bedlington, as well as the Bedlington to Newcastle via Morpeth route as advocated for by SENRUG.
As stated on the SENRUG page, the route appears to be already cleared for passenger use, and rolling stock such as the LNER Azumas for diversionary purposes, so the barriers to both the InterCity N.C.L. route and Newcastle to Bedlington local trains would appear to be minimal.
A new station at Choppington, if sited close to the A1068 would provide a great interchange between rail and local buses using that road, and is within easy walking/cycling distance from large parts of Bedlington, Scotland Gate, Guide Post, and Choppington.
If you can, please support both the N.C.L route plus the new station at Choppington by signing both petitions!
The above petition is now well ahead of the 2008 SENRUG petition for the passenger reopening of the ‘Ashington, Blyth and Tyne Line’ submitted to 10 Downing Street which attracted 1094 signatures. Whilst now styled as the ‘Northumberland Line’, this route has to date seen over 1.2million passenger journeys, meaning one signature on a rail petition may represent around 1000 real railway journeys (1094×1000=1.09m).
Email correspondence with Cllr Glen Sanderson, Leader of Northumberland County Council
On New Years Eve 2025 (31.12.25) I again wrote to Cllr H.G.H Sanderson, following a previous email on 8th October 2024 which I received a same day response from, with both emails putting forward the progressing campaign for the Northumberland Coast Loop.
To date, I have unfortunately not yet received a reply from my email that was sent on the 31st December 2025, but with Bedlington station due to open on the 29th March 2026, marking the completion of the current scheme, I will once again raise the Northumberland Coast Loop with Cllr Sanderson with a few to taking the proposal forward.
Extra carriages and Newbiggin by the Sea extension announcement?
That is unless the feasibility study looks into both the Northumberland Coast Loop and Newbiggin by the Sea routes for expansion?
Confirmation on this would be good to see, but the Northumberland Coast Loop has a clear advantage in being a working, but fairly little used freight line through Hepscott connecting two very busy passenger railways (Northumberland Line and the ECML (East Coast Main Line) between Newcastle and Edinburgh together from Bedlington at the east end on the Northumberland Line to Morpeth and Pegswood on the ECML. This line has existed in the current layout since c.1980 when Morpeth North Curve was completed.
In contrast, the Newbiggin extension presumably relies on rebuilding a section of railway into the village, with a branch off the current line to Lynemouth Power Station in the region of where this line passes over the A189; this would need fairly significant earthworks to bring the old alignment to a suitable height to join the existing railway east of the A189 bridge, or even more so to clear the road (including a new bridge span) if the rail junction is placed on the west side of the A189 nearer to Woodhorn Museum?
As stated in many previous blog posts, trains have run on the Northumberland Coast Loop route for decades (as diversions or as railtours, with the last to my knowledge being ‘The Seven Counties Rambler’ to successfully run the route on 8th March 2025, just over a year ago.
To me, using ‘the loop’ route first to boost train capacity, and also to give new direct links perhaps makes the most sense over extending the line beyond Ashington; more trains on the ‘core’ section from Bedlington to Newcastle would add more seating capacity both in absolute terms, of the seats in each direction per hour, but also in terms of released capacity; a passenger starting from Ashington could transfer onto a northbound train via Hepscott at Blyth Bebside, which would then free up the seat on the route into Newcastle. Similarly, a person bound for Blyth on the ‘loop’ train would alight at Blyth Bebside, their seat being taken by the passenger from Ashington heading north.
Lets use the existing network to full advantage alongside the reopening long closed routes?
Thanks for reading, RH.
Please note: Header image created by GeminiAI, not a real locomotive/rolling stock/location.
An article today in the Northumberland Gazette: ‘North Northumberland rail campaign group proposes solution to tackle transport poverty‘ discusses the proposal put forward by the Chathill Rail Action Group (CRAG) to help ease the transport poverty problem in North Northumberland, many residents of which don’t have access to a private car, but also places many at a huge connectivity disadvantage, which is covered in a separate article by the Northumberland Gazette below.
The currently underused station at Chathill only sees four trains each day, made up of two in each direction; comprising a morning and evening service, which comes from and returns to Newcastle Central operated by Northern, locally nicknamed the ‘Chathill Flyer’.
There are some hurdles (though not impossible ones) to overcome for a true local service (all stations between Newcastle and Berwick), but a potentially quick fix is put forward by CRAG to use other services.
The CRAG proposals centre around stopping some of the TransPennine Express services that currently race through the station to give Chathill a more frequent and fast service, and serve this area of Northumberland which is located quite a distance from the other stations at Alnmouth and Berwick with a faster rail connection to both Newcastle, but also presumably all the way to Edinburgh too; reinstating a long lost northward connection from Chathill.
Small change for a big reward
The approach by CRAG is a reasonable one; using a small timetable alteration to an existing service to massively upgrade the service pattern at Chathill.
This service would be relatively modest compared to the services calling at Alnmouth or Berwick, but would put Chathill into a similar service pattern that is seen at Reston station just over the border in Scotland, and due to this better rail service, Reston station had 29,896 recorded passenger journeys in the 2024/25 ticketing year, compared to Chathill which in the same time period had just 1,580 passengers, 5.3% of the number travelling to and from Reston.
Reston railway station reopened in May 2022 after a £20m investment on the Scottish side of the border, but on the English side, a station open since 29th March 1847 (almost 179 years at time of writing) and never closed sees far fewer trains each day, despite being an asset that is arguably worth tens of millions of pounds when considered against a new station being built elsewhere, and being better utilised could be a massive economic boost to the North Northumberland economy.
Lets hope that CRAG sees success with their campaign, and TPE begins to call at Chathill sooner rather than later?
North Northumberland Students struggling financially to get to Newcastle by rail
Like the CRAG post above it highlights the important part the ECML plays in getting students (most of whom are too young to drive, and even if holding a licence are inexperienced and at higher risk than other drivers) to colleges such as those in Newcastle and to a lesser extent Ashington given the large distances involved in this very large county.
At Berwick, the issue is more financially based due to the wider range of potential rail services already available, the issue being railcards changing from a larger discount of 50% to only ⅓ off after the students 18th birthday, meaning a much larger financial gap needing to be made up by parents or the students themselves.
Northumberland Coast Loop to reach College or University?
The issue of reaching colleges is also one that the Northumberland Coast Loop route could contribute to making easier; a direct link from Berwick, Chathill, and Alnmouth to Blyth Bebside would put Ashington within very easy reach by a short train trip from Blyth Bebside to Ashington, just one change of train and a much shorter journey.
In addition, colleges such as Tyne Metropolitan College in Wallsend could perhaps be more easily reached from Northumberland Park, as could Coach Lane campus of Northumbria University.
Better and cheaper rail connections for Northumberland
Taken together, it can be seen that Northumberland as a whole would clearly benefit from both a wide range of rail services into Newcastle direct, but also taking in the proposed ‘loop’ route via Blyth, which if extended beyond Newcastle onto the Tyne Valley Line to Hexham or beyond could offer an excellent ‘colleges connection’ service linking not only to Newcastle, but also those in North Tyneside and Ashington too.
As of 17th March 2026, the petition for the Northumberland Coast Loop stands at 1,137 signatures, but it is still open for even more signatures if you’d like to add yours!
Northumberland could be said to be a ‘forgotten paradise’ between Newcastle and Scotland; we have beautiful places like Bamburgh Castle and its neighbouring beach, magnificent gardens and stately homes, and breathtaking views such as that looking out over Lindisfarne on a beautiful day.
There may be something of the legacy of Northumberland being the place of pitheads and industry; the ‘grim up north’ of old, but Northumberland in 2026 is a picturesque county, with the only pithead left at Woodhorn now an excellent museum, no longer a working pit winning coal. The last deep mine to close, Ellington ‘Big E’ closing suddenly in January 2005.
Indeed back during the 2006 refurbishment at Woodhorn Museum, back when the ‘cutter’ building was being built (now home to Northumberland Archives) I was exremely lucky to visit the site, and get to the very top of the upcast headgear. This is pit with a long personal connection, with my father being photographed at Woodhorn by local photographer Mik Critchlow as part of his ‘Coal Town’ series.
Yours truly, though much younger, on a unique visit to Woodhorn Colliery in mid 2006, scarily almost 20 years ago and Woodhorn Museum is now being refurbished again.
I’m the first of many generations of my family to not be ‘doon the pit’; the economy of Northumberland has fundamentally changed away from getting black diamonds out the pit into power stations or shipped from ports with coal staiths at Amble, Blyth, or on Tyneside.
Part of ‘Ellington Combine’ showing the mixed road and rail bridge over the River Lyne, used to tip colliery spoil on Lynemouth beach. Photographer and copyright unknown.
Personally, I feel a bit of sadness in not following in my family footsteps, but it is also an industry that many fathers, including my own didn’t want their sons to enter; knowing it was a dangerous job, and one that could leave a significant impact on a miner’s health too. Members of my own family loss their lives underground. It is a complex relationship of both pride in the hard graft of my forebears, but also an appreciation of the terrible sacrifices made to keep their families fed; risking your health and life at work is thankfully something that most now avoid.
These changes to the employment and economic basis of Northumberland is highly relevant to what the railways now find themselves suited for. Gone are the thousands of coal waggons trundling from pit to port or power station loaded with coal and empties heading back again, the modern railway very much relies on commuters, leisure travel, and business people, with freight now mostly in shipping containers as part of international supply chains, or other bulk commodities such as biomass, stone, cement, and alumina.
From horse drawn waggons to 125mph InterCity expresses!
From a start with possibly the first wooden waggonways in the regiom in 1609, this part of Northumberland continued to be an important area for development of the modern railway we know today. Developments such as the malleable iron rail developed by John Birkinshaw in 1820 and used extensively on the famous Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Bedlington was also the birthplace and the childhood home of GWR locomotive engineer Sir Daniel Gooch, who worked closely alongside Isambard Kingdom Brunel and brought a bit of ‘Geordie genius’ to the fledging Great Western Railway; it took a Northumbrian lad to make the locos work!
Since 1609, there has been an almost unrecognisable change from horse drawn wooden waggons on wooden rails, through steam and diesel power, to 125mph all electric trains running just a few miles away on the East Coast Main Line (ECML).
The local lines survived the post-war total closure of many routes due to the coal industry and other local heavy industries such as aluminium smelting, but in 1964 the passenger services were taken away after many decades of use.
Indeed, there was some modest investment even in the ‘doldrum’ years of the late 1970’s when the rail network was arguably at its lowest with the building of the Morpeth North Curve to avoid the awkward reversal of trains at Morpeth station to reach Bedlington and Blyth from North Northumberland and beyond.
The under-construction Morpeth North Curve c.1980, photo from P. Kirkland.An example of an awkward operation for a Whitley Bay to Glasgow special train in 1962, which involved shunting at Morpeth station, now avoidable by use of Morpeth North Curve that allows trains to run direct from Berwick to Bedlington or vice versa.
Happily, in 2024 the long awaited reopening of the Newcastle to Ashington route finally happened as the ‘Northumberland Line’. Campaigns for the reopening of route date back as far as 1974, with an additional article below from 1978 too.
c.1974 article for ‘Plan to bring trains back to Ashington’, 50 years later it happened to huge success!1978 article as shared on a local Facebook group (1 of 3)1978 article as shared on a local Facebook group (2 of 3)1978 article as shared on a local Facebook group (1 of 3)
In my own view, this represents a far more secure future as a mixed use railway once again; a very solid use now for passengers alongside the up’s and down’s of railfreight traffic.
The recently reopened Northumberland Line, with every train calling at every station on a ‘drumbeat’ timetable of every half an hour from morning to early evening, then hourly til late is ideal; you almost need not know the timetable. Turn up and go rail services are a winner!
At present, the services use only Class 156 and Class 158 diesel units built in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, many being older than myself!
Whizzing past a wonderful part of the world.
As the article states, it is all to often perceived that the ECML, with branded trains such as LNER (sometimes referred to cheekily as the London, Newcastle and Edinburgh Railway given the relative rarity of intermediate stops) and other operators view Northumberland as somewhere to simply pass through between Edinburgh and Newcastle; a pretty view from the train window as you’re whisked past on a fast express.
There are, in reality a fair range of semi-fast LNER trains calling at Berwick, Alnmouth, and Morpeth, as well as other operators such as TransPennine Express, but there should also be a better range of services also calling at Chathill, Acklington, Widdrington, and Pegswood.
This is perhaps ideally combined with some trains forming a link to the Northumberland Line at Bedlington, and then to Newcastle, a section of line which itself is home to a number of major attractions such as the National Trust operated Seaton Delaval Hall, the aforementioned Woodhorn Colliery (note there isn’t access to the headgear on an ordinary day!), and Blyth Battery to name just a few.
Route map showing the potential alternative route via Bedlington between Newcastle Upon Tyne and Berwick Upon Tweed. Section of the North East Bylines article mentioning the N.C.L. route via Bedlington.
As the NE Bylines article above mentions, trains running between Newcastle and Edinburgh could make better use of the ‘loop’ from Benton Junction to Morpeth North Junction; it effectively acts as a section of 3/4 track railway north of Newcastle if taken alongside the ECML, meaning a slower stopping train could come off the ‘mainline’ for several miles, allowing faster trains to overtake slower ones.
The Morpeth Triangle from the air! Hepscott and the route to/from Bedlington is at the bottom right of the above Google Earth image, with the line headed left towards Morpeth railway station and back towards Newcastle, and the North Curve to Pegswood, Berwick, and Edinburgh bearing off to the right.
Ecclesiastes 1:9–10: ‘Nothing new under the sun.’
The use of fast (125mph capable trains) on this route is not unprecendented; HST diversions via Bedlington happened on several occasions in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, seen below in a screenshot passing through the disused platform at Bedlington c. 1992.
Had stations on this route remained open, it is likely, in my opinion that a handful of InterCity services would have started running via the old B&T to serve major towns like Blyth, the big barrier being that most of the stations were long closed and demolished by the time the Morpeth North Curve was built and opened up.
Bedlington North Signalbox and diverted HST 14th November 1992.Screenshot of 43109 at Bedlington 14/11/1992 from a YouTube video.
Bedlington Diversions at 29min 30sec into video above ‘The Alternative East Coast’.
Even high speed ‘Electra’ sets (Class 91) have ran via Bedlington, but required to be dragged by a suitable diesel locomotive, as shown below.
In the longer term, electrification of these lines would allow electric trains to traverse the route under their own power, rather than rely on a ‘drag’ by a diesel locomotive.
This ‘alternative’ section of the East Coast could be used to great effect, and solve a number of problems together.
Wider range of rolling stock to carry Northumberland Line passengers: by diverting just some existing trains between Newcastle and Edinburgh to run via Bedlington, calling at least at Northumberland Park and Blyth Bebside, it could go a long way to easing the crammed carriages on Northern services by adding extra trains to the route.
A ‘new’ connection within Northumberland; the route via Bedlington would directly link up parts of Northumberland that presently only has a rail connection via Newcastle. A direct route avoids the need to change trains at all on some journeys, which is both more comfortable and more convenient for many rail users.
Greater railway resilience; a diversionary route being active and regularly used by passenger trains means that any sudden closure of a route can be quickly worked around. Arguably ALL ECML drivers and train crew who learn the route between Newcastle and Edinburgh would benefit from also learning the diversionary route via Bedlington too; so in the event of disruption, both planned and unplanned, the option to go via Bedlington is more easily and quickly available.
Economic growth: This route via Bedlington would help areas that have long struggled with deindustrialisation to develop new industries or allow commuting to other parts of Northumberland for tourism opportunities, for example Northumbrians from the SE of the county could access work in seasonal tourism businesses such as pubs, cafes etc without the need to use cars or relocate into typically very high value postcode areas, allowing tourism in the more rural parts of Northumberland to benefit urban areas in SE Northumberland.
There are branches for most parts of the North East active, with the branches covering local authority areas, so there is a Newcastle Branch and North Tyneside Branch respectively for those council areas.
More info will be coming soon from NEPTUG itself, but if you’re interested in being part of it, which will cover rail, buses, and any other public transport in Northumberland, please take a look at their website here: https://neptug.org.uk/
In recent news from Arriva, the major local bus operator in Blyth, Northumberland; there will be starting on Sunday 22nd March between Blyth Bus Station in the Town Centre and Blyth Bebside railway station on the Northumberland Line.
Announcement on the Arriva bus website 4.3.26
This bus will work three morning buses in each direction leaving the bus station at 06:39, 07:09, and 07:39, arriving at Blyth Bebside station at 07:00, 07:30, and 08:00 respectively, with a decent 14-15 minute margin to meet the 07:14, 07:45, and 08:14 Northern trains towards Newcastle.
Timetable for the No. 3 bus as of 4.5.26
In the evenings; the No. 3 bus will depart Blyth Bebside railway station at 17:33, 18:03, and 18:33, having met the 16:55, 17:25, and 17:56 Northumberland Line trains leaving Newcastle. These three buses will arrive back to Blyth Bus Station at 17:54, 18:24, and finally 18:54.
A great sign of bus and rail intergration between the Northumberland Line and local buses at Blyth Bebside, and hopefully a good starting point for this link to be made more frequent throughout the day and with a greater service span (first bus to last bus on the route).
Please click the link below for further information direct from Arriva.
The Northumberland Coast Loop 