Monday 17 March, a sunny but bitingly cold day, and a return to the Northumberland railway line between Newcastle–upon-Tyne and Ashington. I’d last visited this line on its inaugural day, 15 December 2024. You can read about that here.
Don’t call us trainspotters
I was here to visit the latest station to open, Newsham, on the outskirts of Blyth. Only two stations, Ashington and Seaton Delaval, opened on 15 December. After the opening of Newsham, three more stations remain to be opened. Bebside, in another suburb of Blyth, is scheduled to open in the summer. The remaining stations, Bedlington and Northumberland Park, will take a bit longer. An employee of the main contractors for the Northumberland Line, Morgan Sindell, confirmed that the project has been beset by delays.
Stormy weather
Many of the delays to the project, such as extreme weather, couldn’t have been foreseen. Although, in fairness, we’ve all been warned about climate change impacts for several decades. Also, the entire area of south east Northumberland has been mined out for coal for centuries, with many of the former collieries being un-mapped. This has caused severe delays at all of the stations, particularly Northumberland Park, where massive concrete rafts have had to be installed.
The Toon
I took the train up the Durham Coast Line from Teesside, and changed trains at Newcastle Central Station. The whole place was en fête because Newcastle United had won the Carabao Cup the day before. The club doesn’t win silverware often, so we’ll give them their day.
Take that, Doctor Beeching!
The Ashington train was waiting at Platform 1, displaying the destination of Newsham for the first time since 2 November 1964. Due to penny-pinching by Northumberland County Council, the project managers for this new line, the trains that run between Newcastle and Ashington are Class 158 diesels, nearly 40 years old. That, and the line’s average speed of 30mph, are the two main drawbacks of travelling on the Northumberland Line.
A new station at Newsham
Despite the slow line speed, trains between Newcastle and Newsham only take 21 minutes. It’s a half-hourly service, and it’ll be a great commuter link. I caught up with famous YouTube blogger Geoff Marshall, who was here to record the opening of Great Britain’’s 2,587th railway station. No doubt Geoff will clip his visit up shortly.
Sweet tooth
Staff from the Northumberland Line group were on hand, giving out sweets to grateful travellers. Can you see what they did here?
A work in progress
The first impression of the new station is the amount of work that remains to be done. Only one of the two car parks has opened, so there aren’t many disabled parking bays available. There will be four EV charging points, but these haven’t been installed yet.
Freight update
I decided to walk to Blyth town centre, just over two miles away, but before I did so, a freight train passed through the station. This was a biomass train returning empty from Lynemouth Power Station to the Port of Tyne. Despite the Beeching cuts to the passenger services, this line was never closed to freight. Up until the 1980s it served some of the largest coal mines in the UK.
Future bus stop
A new bus stop has been built to the east of the station, but it doesn’t appear to be in use. There is an existing bus stop about 200 metres away on the other side of the now-closed level crossing. But I decided to walk into Blyth town centre in search of the former railway station, stopping off at Plessey Road along the way.
Blyth Spartans
Croft Park on Plessey Road is the home of the Blyth Spartans AFC, the most famous non-league football team in the world . Fortunately, the gate to the ground was open, and groundsman Peter was preparing the pitch. Peter broke off from his work and we chatted about football, railways and everything else. Peter helps with the training too, and he talked with pride about one of the former Blyth Spartans juniors, Dan Burn. Dan had received his first England call-up only three days beforehand, he had also scored one of Newcastle United’s goals in their cup win the previous day. Dan would go on to make his England debut four days later.
Railway knowledge
I happened to mention to Peter that I was in search of the former Blyth railway station, closed on the same day as Newsham in 1964. Peter knew all about the town’s railways, and recalled a bizarre day in 1965 when Blyth station was temporarily reopened for the visit of Jonah the Whale. He showed me where to find one of the last remnants of the site, the stationmaster’s house. It’s extant, but it’s boarded up.
Railway artefacts
Blyth station occupied a huge footprint, but the vast site is now occupied by Blyth Community Hospital and Morrisons supermarket. However, clues remain in the form of two pubs situated on Regent Street, opposite the former railway entrance. These are the Railway Tavern and the Blyth and Tyne Hotel, named after the company that built the railway station in 1867.
Railway desert
Prior to the opening of Ashington railway station in December 2024, the town had been, by some measures, the largest in the UK without one. That mantle has now been passed on to Blyth. New suburban stations at Newsham and Bebside are fine, but they are both more than two miles away from the town centre. Blyth is one of the most deprived communities that I have ever visited. The fabric of the town is crumbling away. This is Waterloo Road, the main shopping street:
Fighting back?
Blyth badly needs its railway station back. There are outline plans to extend the Northumberland Line to Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, but the country council needs to be more ambitious than this. Most of the track-bed between Newsham and Blyth is still in situ. However, some buildings would need to be relocated if the rail link were to be restored. It would be well worth the investment. For reference, here’s the local railway network at its peak, at the start of the 20th Century: You may notice that Ashington station appears as “Hirst” on this map. The station name was changed shortly after the map was produced.
A tourist attraction
Blyth isn’t a tourist attraction now, but it could be. It has an unrivalled industrial heritage. Here’s just one example: Extensive wooden coal staithes survive on the quayside, just a stone’s throw away from the North Sea.
Going home
I walked back to Newsham railway station and took the train back to Newcastle. Two trains stopped at the same time, and lots of passengers boarded and alighted them. More than 300,000 people have used the Northumberland Line since it reopened in December, slightly in excess of expectations. The reopening of Newsham will add substantially to this.
