Northumberland Line: trip planning & reports

BrianW said:

Looking at Google maps and Google earth, (showing Wilko) the route to and from the station is not clear; indeed what appears to be an elderly gent appears to be 'stuck' contemplating the car park- it may well take him 10 mins to work it out. Hopefully 'regeneration' will facilitate greater connection, in the fullness of time ...

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03_179 said:

I took a trip along the Northumberland line on Saturday.
It was worth the trip from London

You can find my report here:

Track n Trains.

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03_179 said:

Newcastle weren't playing on Sat 16th May.
They played Sunday

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Haywain said:

Good point!

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Haywain said:

The cricket ground is across the road (Kenilworth Road - a fine name!) from the current station and car park access. The Spoons is on the other side of the railway along Station Road (the road bridge is just to the north of the station), and my understanding is that in due course there should be direct access to Station Road from the platform.


That is not where the Spoons is. It's the other side of the town centre by the bus station.
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I lwas born and live in Ashington (near enough). The building over the road from crumpets was proposed to be another wetherspoons type pub a few years ago way before the station reopening, maybe it will again but who knows.

The redevelopment of Wansbeck Square (the old Wilko/council offices) has stalled as the council could not secure an operator for the planned community hub but I believe the plan is still to improve the station access at some point, probably not until the redevelopment of the new cinema near wetherspoons is done.

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Haywain said:

From that you say that the trains after lunch on Saturday were all packed, but the loadings would likely reflect the fact that Newcastle United had a home match kicking off at 17:30 that day.

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peteb said:

I'm sat at Newcastle having just been to Ashington and back. I was wondering why they use 90mph class 158s on the line as the line speed seems pretty sedate in the main whereas to Morpeth on the ECML I've just seen a class 153 depart, which surely is limited to 75mph? Maybe there aren't enough 153s to form the service pattern to Ashington. The passenger capacity would seem about the same.

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Killingworth said:

ECML section needs that speed to prevent undue congestion? Although it can't make all that much difference over such a short distance. But they're running half hourly rather than the less frequent services to Morpeth and Chathill.

I thought 153s had left Northern some time ago so it can't have been one of theirs. A 156?

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