Northumberland line’s success continues

Saturday 14th February 2026

Britain’s next new railway station, Northumberland Park, is opening next Sunday (22nd) on the recently restored Northumberland line but it was only at the end of last month I got round to visiting last year’s two newbies on the line, Blyth Bebside and Newsham.

They opened in March and October 2025 respectively bringing even more passengers to this already busy line despite it being not much more than a year since reopening in December 2024.

The popular line sees a half hourly service operated by three of Northern’s Class 158 trains linking Ashington with Manors and Newcastle via the above mentioned stations together with Seaton Delaval, which was completed and ready for the line’s reopening.

Media reports regularly record how busy the line has already become with Northern doing its best to double capacity using four coach trains on extra popular days for events etc.

You only have to take a quick glance at the Google satellite image of the two new stations to realise just how many people are now connected into the railway network.

I travelled on a Saturday lunch time at the end of last month and found Newcastle bound trains packed with passengers heading into the city for an afternoon’s shopping and evening’s leisure. Passengers were a good mix of families, young people, loud people, people already having a drink or two on the journey down, as well as retired people seeking a quiet journey such as myself.

At least 40-50 people were waiting for late morning and lunch time southbound trains at both Newsham and Blyth Bebside when I visited with trains arriving already well loaded from Ashington. It was impressive to see. I suspect Arriva has noticed a drop off in passengers using its bus network in the area and hopefully many also used to drive into the city and now park their car in the car parks at both stations.

Newsham seemed to be the busier of the two stations with car parks at both fairly well used, as seen at Newsham photographed below…

… and Blyth Bebside less busy.

Both stations have been constructed to a modular design with footbridge and lifts…

… a couple of shelters…

… and standard seats in two places on each platform…

… as can be seen at Blyth Bebside…

… and Newsham (below) with its open front shelters compared to the enclosed variety at Blyth Bebside (above).

As you can also see in the above photograph, Newsham’s platforms are dominated by the A1061 flyover making for a rather noisy wait as traffic passes overhead.

This was built as part of the station’s reopening when the former level crossing on South Newsham Road was closed as can be seen in the Google map extract above and the photograph below.

Newsham’s car park is alongside the southbound platform but there’s also a small car park with spaces for blue badge holders and electric charging points which wasn’t so busy.

I often wonder about those spaces and how inefficient it is to have a car plugged in all day while a commuter heads off into the nearby major town or city.

There’s also a cycle rack here as well as on the southbound side.

Back at Blyth Bebside vehicle access is only to the car park alongside the northbound platform with the southbound platform having footpath access on a rather meandering trajectory from the neighbouring residential and commercial areas and was proving quite popular during my visit. More so, than the car park.

I noticed spaces for taxis had been marked out alongside the exit from the northbound platform in Blyth Bebside’s car park…

… which frustratingly were much closer than the bus shelter had been positioned.

Although the bus shelter (thank goodness a sign confirmed it was a “bus shelter”) won’t be seeing any buses any time soon and presumably is just for rail replacement buses.

Also in the car park was what I thought was a temporary style cabin making a loud humming noise which I assumed was a generator of some kind and it was only when I got home and uploaded the photographs I took for this blog I noticed it said WC on one of the doors, so maybe it was a toilet – which would be an odd additional facility to a station of this kind.

Both stations have ticket machines by both platforms and the usual electronic displays showing departures.

… as well as good accessible ramps as well as steps where needed.

And there’s good provision for cycle storage.

After Northumberland Park opens on Sunday, the final new station, Bedlington, is due to open later in the Spring while the Northumberland line’s millionth passenger is also expected to buy a ticket in the near future which will no doubt be celebrated with the usual PR coverage.

After that, five more stations will be opening in the West Midlands in the coming months. Manufacturers of modular shelters and seats have been busy. And, not forgetting Cambridge South will open too, although passing through it last week indicated there was still much ‘finishing off’ work to complete.

Roger French

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