Milestone Reached As 250,000th Passenger Journey Made On Northumberland Line
The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item from Northumberland County Council.
These three introductory paragraphs add detail?
Passengers who have made more than 250,000 journeys on Northumberland Line services are being reminded they can beat the queues for tickets by buying online.
Northern said the major milestone was reached this week, after it began running passenger trains on the line in December, for the first time in 60 years.
Services call at Newcastle, Manors and new stations in Seaton Delaval, Newsham and Ashington, with a journey along the entire route taking around 35 minutes and a single fare costing no more than £3.
This is a good leveling-up story, so why hasn’t the government got a pipeline of shovel-ready new rail projects?
These projects could be for starters.
The West London Orbital
This page on the Transport for London web site gives the current progress and starts with this paragraph.
We’re making plans for a new rail service on existing, underused rail lines in west London that would become part of the London Overground network. The West London Orbital rail service would run from Hounslow towards Hendon and West Hampstead in the north.
The Mayor and Transport for London are probably spending most of their time, thinking of a silly woke name, that no-one will remember and just cause confusion.
The Ivanhoe Line
This article on the BBC is entitled Disappointment As Reopening Of Railway Line Halted.
This is the sub-heading.
The restoration of a passenger rail link through the Midlands has been stopped in its tracks.
These three paragraphs give more detail.
A business case for reopening the Ivanhoe Line rail link from Burton-upon-Trent to Leicester had been submitted before the election, with campaigners hopeful that work could begin in 2024.
But on Monday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Treasury needed to find £5.5bn of savings in 2024 and a further £8.1bn in 2025.
Speaking in the House of Commons, the Chancellor said that the previous government’s entire Restoring Your Railway programme would be scrapped, saving £85m.
Note.
- I don’t believe this government believes in improving the rail infrastructure in the UK.
- But how do they expect people to get around, given their preferred transport mode of electric cars are ridiculously overpriced?
- The article on the BBC is a must-read.
- Last week Arriva Group announced a new Newcastle and Brighton open access service, that will call at Burton-on-Trent, which is planned to be the Western terminus of the Ivanhoe Line. See Arriva Group Submits Open Access Rail Application To Connect Newcastle And Brighton, Via London Gatwick for more details.
For more on the Ivanhoe Line, read the Campaign to Reopen the Ivanhoe Line web site.
The Anonymous Widower 
This one cost £300m (on an existing railway!!) so assuming they achieve say 2m journeys/year & £6 raises 12m/yr wont even cover the cost of staff, rolling stock and track access charges. It of course enables much wider economic benefits to help justify it but until the industry gets costs lowered im afraid we wont see any more stories like this anytime soon although new stations should still happen.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | April 26, 2025 |
Newsham station probably cost a lot of the budget, but they must be doing something right, as Blackrock are now spending a fortune in the area on a data centre at Blyth.
One LNER manager told me, that he felt bookings on LNER and Lumo have improved since the opening.
The opening of Grand Central’s service between Newcastle and Brighton, won’t do revenue on the Northumberland Line any harm.
Opening of the new platform at Northumberland Park will give access to the Metro and clog the current Class 158 trains with passengers. So that’s going to be a problem!
But the line is an easy win for four-car battery-electric trains based on ScotRail’s Class 385 electric trains. Hitachi have the technology to build the trains at Newton Aycliffe and Sunderland, and put up a short length of overhead wires at Ashingdon. The platforms the trains use in Newcastle are already wired.
Lord Hendy should give Rachel from Accounts, an appropriately-sized lump hammer and tell her to smash her piggy bank and buy a prototype fleet. Who knows, but if the ROSCOs were asked nicely, one might fund a prototype fleet or two?
Comment by AnonW | April 26, 2025 |