Station to Station: more Northumberland line openings. Then on to Newbiggin?
2025 looks like being a big year for Ashington’s newly-reopened Northumberland railway line, with hopes that all the remaining stations still under construction will open at some time this year. Newsham station in Blyth will be the first 2025 opening, expected in mid-March, due to be followed later in the year by Blyth Bebside, Bedlington, and Northumberland Park. The Northumberland line opened to passengers – 60 years after it was closed by Beeching – on Sunday 15 December last year when packed services ran from Ashington to Newcastle, stopping at Seaton Delaval, the numbers inflated by many railway enthusiasts who had travelled miles to witness and record the historic moment.
Passengers made around 50,000 journeys in the first month, and by late February the number had grown to over 110,000. Trains have been particularly crammed on football matchdays.
After Beeching, the old Blyth and Tyne railway continued to operate as a freight line, mainly to serve the area’s remaining collieries, and still serves places like Lynemouth power station, and North Blyth via a branch line through Cambois.
Much of the railway’s old infrastructure including signal boxes and Semaphore signals have been demolished to make way for the passenger railway upgrade, but the old station building at Bedlington has been retained, and plans are afoot to transform it into a community café.
Originally the passenger railway went beyond Ashington, with a branch to Newbiggin-by-the sea. That line closed in 1964, with the track removed soon afterwards. But there are serious plans to reinstate the passenger rail link to Newbiggin, with county council officers being told to start work on plans, and Northumberland county council leader Glen Sanderson promising: “We hope to see the line fully open soon, and then we want to see an extension to Newbiggin. We remain fully focused on the end result which will be truly transformational for our county.”
Greg Freeman