Further potential re-openings in the North East now that Ashington has opened?

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Are there any other closed lines in the pipeline for re-opening consideration in the same regional area?

 

[androdas]

The Leamside Line - being pushed by the Mayor but as far as I know there has been no funding allocated

The Leamside Line

www.northeast-ca.gov.uk

From the combined authority website above:

The Leamside Line is the most important piece of infrastructure for the economic future of the North East, which is why, alongside cross-party politicians and business leaders, we have been leading the campaign for its re-opening.

 

[hacman]

There was also some discussion of the line from Birtley to Consett, though it's about as likely as HS2 reaching the region.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Leamside Line - being pushed by the Mayor but as far as I know there has been no funding allocated

The Leamside Line

www.northeast-ca.gov.uk

From the combined authority website above:

If, as stated, the Leamside line is the most economically beneficial to the region, why was it not the first to be chosen to have reopenings made upon it?

 

[A S Leib]

If you count Carlisle as part of a broader "far-north England" region rather than just the North East, extending the Borders Railway there was mentioned in the Union Connectivity Review but without any progress as far as I know.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If you count Carlisle as part of a broader "far-north England" region rather than just the North East, extending the Borders Railway there was mentioned in the Union Connectivity Review but without any progress as far as I know.

I was more concerned with the North-East region than a line from Scotland into the North-West region.

 

[swt_passenger]

If, as stated, the Leamside line is the most economically beneficial to the region, why was it not the first to be chosen to have reopenings made upon it?

I don’t believe anyone knows exactly what to use it for, as has been noted in quite a few older threads.

I think it’s a classic case of ‘reopen it because it’s there’. It would be too slow for intercity services which would still have to use the route through Durham, it doesn’t really go anywhere useful in Washington for new rail or Metro Stations, and it completely bypasses Durham City if you were wanting to promote connectivity within Tyneside, County Durham, and Teesside.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don’t believe anyone knows exactly what to use it for, as has been noted in quite a few older threads.

I think it’s a classic case of ‘reopen it because it’s there’. It would be too slow for intercity services which would still have to use the route through Durham, it doesn’t really go anywhere useful in Washington for new rail or Metro Stations, and it completely bypasses Durham City if you were wanting to promote connectivity within Tyneside, County Durham, and Teesside.

It was the rather definite statement made by the North East Combined Authority that stated benefits appertaining from a reopened Leamside line.

 

[duffield]

If, as stated, the Leamside line is the most economically beneficial to the region, why was it not the first to be chosen to have reopenings made upon it?

Apart from anything else it's a longer line which has been out of use and considerably degraded since the 1990s instead of being an existing operational freight line like Ashington, so it would need much more extensive and very expensive infrastructure work. Essentially much more of a rebuild than an upgrade to passenger standards.

Quote from Wikipedia Leamside Line article:

Following the line's closure in the early 1990s, the double track was reduced to a single line in some places, with the track severed at some level crossings along the line. Initially, the line's engineering features remained intact. However, the embankment carrying the line over Moors Burn, located around 500 yards (460 m) from to the north of the former station at Fencehouses, had partially collapsed, leaving the former down track suspended. Substantial parts of the line and infrastructure were also missing from around the former station at Usworth, which has also become severely overgrown.

In January 2003, a large section of track, located to the south of Penshaw, was stolen over a six-day period.[15][16] In late 2012 and early 2013, around 16 miles (26 kilometres) of track was lifted, with Network Rail insisting that this would have no effect on any future re-opening plans, as track renewal would be necessary. The line is currently safeguarded from development, with no sales of land attached to the line.[17][18][19]

Link:

Leamside line - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ainsworth74]

I don’t believe anyone knows exactly what to use it for, as has been noted in quite a few older threads.

Network Rail tend to view it, as far as I can tell, as a way of completing quad tracking of the ECML north of Northallerton without actually quad tracking the existing alignment. Whenever I've seen it mentioned by Network Rail the intent has been to take freight off the line via Durham and instead have it use the existing route via Yarm, onto Stillington and then onto a re-opened Leamside line. Thereby freeing up additional capacity on the line via Durham for further passenger services as well as creating additional freight capacity. But they've also been quite cagey to say that that is a way of delivering the extra capacity required but might not actually be value for money considering the complexity.

This of course is not likely to be highly popular with local politicians as they want something they can sell as being a new service for their constituents rather than allowing people whoa already have a service to get a slightly better one!

 

[swt_passenger]

Network Rail tend to view it, as far as I can tell, as a way of completing quad tracking of the ECML north of Northallerton without actually quad tracking the existing alignment. Whenever I've seen it mentioned by Network Rail the intent has been to take freight off the line via Durham and instead have it use the existing route via Yarm, onto Stillington and then onto a re-opened Leamside line. Thereby freeing up additional capacity on the line via Durham for further passenger services as well as creating additional freight capacity. But they've also been quite cagey to say that that is a way of delivering the extra capacity required but might not actually be value for money considering the complexity.

This of course is not likely to be highly popular with local politicians as they want something they can sell as being a new service for their constituents rather than allowing people whoa already have a service to get a slightly better one!

That’s probably as good a short summary of the NR view as I’ve seen.

 

[Andymo]

If you look at the SENRUG website you will find their various campaigns for rail reopening. Most viable include extending Morpeth service to Bedlington and Ashington service to Newbiggin on existing freight lines.
Elsewhere Leamside Pelaw to Tursdale then on via the existing Stillington freight via Stockton to Boro,and Newcastle to Consett via South Pelaw Junction.
Other old alignments would be suitable for Metro-Percy Main to Backworth, Brockley Whins to South Shields, Newcastle to Chester le St alongside the ECML perhaps utilising the Bensham curve, Newcastle to the Metrocentre/Blaydon via the old Newcastle and Carlisle on the north bank of the Tyne, and most likely of all the loop over the Victoria viaduct and via Penshaw/Washington to South Hylton

 

[Meerkat]

Restoring your Railway is dead so I wouldn't hold your breath!

My crayons would have the Leamside for freight, a triangle to allow access on toward Tyne Dock, and an intermodal terminal at Follingsby with a link to the Nissan plant.
Though I quite fancy a rail metro loop that, rather than go south of the Wear, took the closed trackbed West to join the ECML slow lines through Tyne Yard/Team Valley/Bensham link back into Newcastle

 

[androdas]

Glad SENRUG has been mentioned as they have recently published their responses to the Mayor's Transport Plan, I don't think it is being discussed anywhere else on the forum. (It has had a bit of discussion on the Newcastle Skyscrapercity forum) and I have been giving the document a good read to see what is proposed and its a bit of a mixed bag with some quite far fetched proposals.

For those not familiar SENRUG are the South East Northumberland Rail User Group and have campaigned for many years for the reopening of the nowe Northumberland Line along with general improvements to ECML services.

Their full response can be viewed here: https://www.senrug.co.uk/blog/wp-co...25-01-23-NE-Mayor-Transport-Plan-Response.pdf but it is a quite lengthy documnet so if best summed up from the map at the end:


(Map showing the rail network to the north of newcastle showing various proposals for new lines)

These are their main proposals:

Newcastle – Berwick Local Service
Morpeth – Bedlington
Ashington - Woodhorn – Newbiggin
Airport – Northumberland Park – Newsham – Blyth Town Centre
Ashington – Butterwell – Alnmouth
Northumberland Park – Cobalt – Silverlink – Percy Main
Airport to Ponteland
Ashington – Cambois – North Blyth

I think some of these proposals are good, for example the Morpeth to Bedlington extension and Ashington to Newbiggin and possibly the link through the Silverlink to Percy Main but to be honest huge out of town office parks are starting to fall out of fashion with more development happening in city centres now. There are many builings in Cobalt that have laid empty for years.

There are a couple of proposals that will be very hard to get going such as the Airport to Blyth Metro. Blyth is maybe too far out from the urban centre to make metro viable and inbetween Northumberland Park and Newsham it would run through open feilds mostly. When you get to Newsham the route into the town centre has been built on at the far end and would require many level crossings so realistically not going to happen.

The North Blyth to Ashington via Cambois metro is frankly never going to happen without masses of development and even then its unlikely, this is where I live so personally it would be useful but it replicates the 434 bus which is a minibus and never sees more than a couple of passengers on it. Saying that the new QTS data centres at cambois might draw demand does not stack up, they are not going to employ local people or anyone if at all to be honest, if they are anything other than huge warehouses surrounded by barbed wire and monitored remotely I would be suprised. I think a lot of people have been caught up in promises made here to secure planning. The part that talks of boring a tunnel under Blyth and the river to North Blyth is a little bizzare and major city level investment to join a medium sized town to 3 streets of houses. The proposals to extend services north via butterwell would I think struggle to get a business case through as the railway misses a lot of the (albeit sparse) settlements such as Alnwick, Amble, Seahouses, Felton, Rothbury etc.

There are many good proposals in the document that are not just building new lines everywhere and that should not be lost such as a better local service on the ECML, better facilities at the existing stations and better bus intergrations.

 

[Oxfordblues]

I wonder if someone could have a word with the current US President and tell him that the ancestral home of the first President needs its trains back. If Trump can afford to buy Greenland and turn Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East" there must be a few billions left to reconnect Washington UK to the outside world?

 

[A S Leib]

I know that East Linton and Reston have got stations, but I can't see any more stations being built between Newcastle and Berwick without a new line from Newcastle to Edinburgh, new town(s) along the route, or both.

 

[androdas]

The reality is once you get much past Newcastle until you get to pretty much Edinburgh it is one of the most sparsely populated areas of the country with little or no appetite for development to take place. That is why things like the North British lines and most stations in Northumberland closed 60 odd years ago and makes it extremely hard for business cases for new rail to stack up.

 

[Meerkat]

Glad SENRUG has been mentioned as they have recently published their responses to the Mayor's Transport Plan,

That is ultra-crayoning! The chances of opening village stations for a stopper on the ECML, and Ashington to North Blyth is impressively obscure!

 

[AlastairFraser]

I know it's not really a heavy rail reopening, but what about a Metro extension towards Ponteland?

 

[Killingworth]

I know it's not really a heavy rail reopening, but what about a Metro extension towards Ponteland?

In theory a good idea, but effectively ruled out by the development of the Airport station, the A696 alignment and the site of the old station in Ponteland having been redeveloped. I think it was considered at the time the Airport station was planned.

At a price it could be done, possibly with further development of the airport. Ponteland and Darras Hall are linked but are not the same. Darras Hall has large houses and gardens where footballers tend to live. That is not likely to be a good market for a Metro and well away from the centre of Ponteland..

 

[AlastairFraser]

In theory a good idea, but effectively ruled out by the development of the Airport station, the A696 alignment and the site of the old station in Ponteland having been redeveloped. I think it was considered at the time the Airport station was planned.

At a price it could be done, possibly with further development of the airport. Ponteland and Darras Hall are linked but are not the same. Darras Hall has large houses and gardens where footballers tend to live. That is not likely to be a good market for a Metro and well away from the centre of Ponteland..

I had a look at the old alignment - apart from near the airport, most of the rest is clear as far as Ponteland Leisure Centre. There's some decently sized car parks there. That could be a decent terminus, especially if you could build a deck or two on top, concealed from the road to cater for drop-off for Newcastle Airport and commuters from the Ponteland area into Newcastle.

 

[bramling]

I had a look at the old alignment - apart from near the airport, most of the rest is clear as far as Ponteland Leisure Centre. There's some decently sized car parks there. That could be a decent terminus, especially if you could build a deck or two on top, concealed from the road to cater for drop-off for Newcastle Airport and commuters from the Ponteland area into Newcastle.

I’ve always wondered that a Metro terminus on the site of the Waitrose store in Ponteland would work reasonably well, though it would need car parking.

I think most people from Ponteland use Callerton Parkway, and are presumably well-heeled enough to be able to drive there, or be dropped off.

Agreed Darras Hall would likely be fairly pointless, but Ponteland seems the sort of place which would be ideal for Metro. As ever guess the problem is who pays…

 

[AlastairFraser]

I’ve always wondered that a Metro terminus on the site of the Waitrose store in Ponteland would work reasonably well, though it would need car parking.

I think most people from Ponteland use Callerton Parkway, and are presumably well-heeled enough to be able to drive there, or be dropped off.

Agreed Darras Hall would likely be fairly pointless, but Ponteland seems the sort of place which would be ideal for Metro. As ever guess the problem is who pays…

Callerton Parkway is all well and good, but tbh a western gateway into the airport (and Newcastle from beyond the airport) would be useful.

Yes, due to low deprivation, it's probably not a funding priority sadly, but if Metro ever have a decent amount for an expansion plan, it should be on the list. You'd get a fair chunk of guaranteed income from commuters alone.

 

[Killingworth]

Interesting to have been reminded that there was a branch to Darras Hall, open for passengers from 1913 to 1929 and not closed until 1954 for freight.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Interesting to have been reminded that there was a branch to Darras Hall, open for passengers from 1913 to 1929 and not closed until 1954 for freight.

Didn't it connect to a colliery railway at some point too?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Didn't it connect to a colliery railway at some point too?

The Ponteland and Darras Hall branch line served Belsay Colliery on the Wallridge Mineral Railway.

After the closure of Darras Hall railway station, the station building was used as a church for some years.

 

[Killingworth]

Didn't it connect to a colliery railway at some point too?

Belsay Colliery at Wallridge lasted from 1923 until 1930. The railway was an expensive effort that has provided a footpath for much if its length.

 

[SeanG]

You don't expect the fine folk of Ponteland to mix with the riff raff on the Metro do you!?!

 

[AlastairFraser]

You don't expect the fine folk of Ponteland to mix with the riff raff on the Metro do you!?!

I thought the Airport line wasn't too bad for ASB?

 

[SeanG]

I thought the Airport line wasn't too bad for ASB?

It's not, but if you've never been to Ponteland, it's rather posh.