Durham Coast Line

[SteveP29]

I had my first trip over the rails of the above yesterday, and I didn't see a bit of it

We travelled from London to Edinburgh, leaving Kings Cross at 4:30pm.

Aware of the work at Darlington and of the alert that bus replacements were being laid on, I thought the timetable meant we'd be on one of those buses.

After contacting LNER and being told that our journey would be fully by train, I just thought we'd be going slowly through the Darlington area.

It was only when I felt the carriage move sideways after we'd called at Northallerton that I had a hunch we were diverting.

Checking Google Maps confirmed it.

Of course, looking out of the window, all we could see was inky blackness with lights here and there illuminating rooms in houses.
I did see Eaglescliffe station, only confirmed after I'd consulted Google Maps again.
I even missed Sunderland station (one I've been through hundreds of times before on the Metro) as I fell asleep, I was woken by the grinding noise as we headed over the bridge over the Wear.

I guess I'll have to do it again sometime but during the day.

 

[CarltonA]

I lived near the junction at Eaglescliffe for a while in the seventies but I've never been on the route to Northallerton. There was not much of a passenger service at the time and old Yarm station had gone. That's on my to do list.

 

[OMGitsDAVE]

It’s quite a nice run, surprised you weren’t awoken by the grinding of the curves in to Hartlepool! It seemed to be quite busy with trains yesterday as I was staying in Hartlepool myself, and a lot of the Northern’s were running late due to trains in front of them (according to the blaring speaker at the station, which you can hear from Travelodge!)

 

[eastwestdivide]

We had a run up there on Saturday on an Aberdeen-KX train, slow old trundle from Newcastle via the King Edward bridge to Sunderland (slow to fit in with the Metro service I guess as we didn't really lose much time), then nice views of the sea in bright weather to Hartlepool, and glimpses of the tall ship Trincomalee and the transporter bridge.
As soon as the panto went up at Northallerton, my (plugged in) phone screen stopped responding as usual. The ticket inspector was telling people to unplug in order to show their tickets. But that's another story.