Today I had a Whatsapp Call with Ian Levy, MP for Blyth Valley. After initial introductions and explaining the work of SENRUG, we spoke about the timetable at Cramlington and SENRUG’s aspiration to see earlier morning trains, and ultimately frequency throughout the day increased from the present paltry one per hour to two per hour. Ian expressed his strong support and we discussed options for moving forward. We also briefly discussed the Ashington Blyth & Tyne Re-opening, now called “The Northumberland Line” – where we seem so tantalisingly close to the finishing line of a formal government commitment to go ahead. Ian is of course fully aware of the scheme, but we also discussed SENRUG’s aspirations for further extensions once the core route is in service, the key one affecting Blyth Valley being a link from Newsham to Blyth Town Centre via the old alignment, apart from a brief diversion round the edge of Blyth Sports Centre. The southern end of the route was discussed: SENRUG’s aspiration is for it to run on the Metro tracks to Airport forming a route from Blyth to Newsham then Northumberland Park, Four Lane Ends, Regents Centre and Airport. Such a service could include a station at Seghill, as this would not compromise on overall journey time from Newcastle to Ashington. First of course, we have to get the core route from Newcastle to Ashington up and running!
First impressions about council’s web site with regards the Northumberland Line is good, but there is a lot to take in. One point would appear there is no trains between Morpeth and Bedlington. My impression was the train from Newcastle would travel down to Bedlington and back, instead of sitting at Morpeth for 20mins . Maybe I got it wrong
Hi Ralph. The re-opening is for the core route from Newcastle to Ashington. SENRUG has several aspirations for further extensions and re-openings after that, as listed on page https://www.senrug.co.uk/Re-open-AshingtonBlythTyneLine.php (see section “After The Line is Re-Opened, What Then?”. One of these is to extend the MetroCentre – Newcastle – Morpeth trains on to Bedlington with a re-opened intermediate station at Choppington. However that has not been part of the core re-opening for several years, and SENRUG does support the Council’s current plan.
Thanks Dennis for the correction, it seems light years away, since I was on the last train from Blyth to Newbiggin. Hopefully the trains will start running once again.