With the Northumberland Line project making steady progress, and planning applications beginning to appear, thoughts turn to ‘what next?’.
One often suggested is the link into Blyth Town Centre which will be, admittedly, quite distant from both Bebside and Newsham stations which are on the existing route on the western edge of town.
Blyth did once have a town centre station, approximately where Morrisons is now (See Disused Stations: Blyth), but while the alignment arguably exists to an extent, I would argue for the money needed a better solution might be available.
Bebside to Newsham via the Town
As Blyth should hopefully gain both Bebside and Newsham stations, I think it would make sense to connect both of them via tram running on-street through the town centre, most likely following the route of the A193 (Cowpen Rd), B1329 (Hodgson’s Rd Regent St), B1328 (Bridge St & Waterloo Rd) then back onto the A193 (Renwick Rd / Broadway /Rotary Way) before heading along the A1061 (South Newsham Rd) to Newsham Station.
Newsham and the Cramlington Circle
From Newsham, the line could then continue westwards towards Cramlington, likely taking following the A1061 corridor (in parallel to road out of town), passing under the A189 at Shankhouse via the existing bridge then following Durham Rd, Northumbrian Rd, the A1171 towards Cramlington Station, eastwards along Station Rd, then south along Dudley Lane, before again turning east, following the A1171 parallel to the A19 then north along the B1505 (a new foot bridge then connecting to Hospital), the line continuing north and rejoining the line to Newsham at Shankhouse.
Rationale
While this is perhaps ambitious, the conurbations of Blyth and Cramlington would have a combined population of around ~60,000 based on the 2011 census and likely to have grown since with lots of new housing development.
In addition, it would connect Cramlington A&E Hospital with both the East Coast Mainline at Cramlington and the Northumberland Line via Newsham, making access to the hospital much easier for those who live distantly.
This is also a sustainable link, as opposed to developing more roads and traffic it would allow for clean, quiet electric trams to provide the service.
Vehicles
Vehicles could either be simple modern trams running on their own dedicated network or tram-train technology could be exploited which would allow it to share track with ordinary trains for short distances.
This latter option is attractive as it may avoid the need (at least initially) to need to build expensive viaducts, and could perhaps allow for a single depot to service a wide area with trams using early morning and late evening paths to leave from and return to depot.
Extensions
I would also argue that such a system is ripe for expansion; particularly if tram-train technology was employed.
Heading north from Bebside, and crossing the River Blyth via the existing viaduct (and thus saving costs), the line could then access ‘The Top End’ of Bedlington, Guide Post, Stakeford and Ashington (again via existing viaduct), with the line connecting areas distant to rail stations.
South from Blyth and Newsham could see a line continuing to follow the A193 down the coast, and most likely connect to Monkseaton Metro station via Spanish City. This would largely parallel the former Avenue branch but would run through more areas of population as well as offer a link to the beach between Blyth and Seaton Sluice.
South from Cramlington would offer opportunities to connect Dudley & Annitsford and on to Camperdown, Killingworth then via Quorum Park another link to the Metro at Four Lane ends.
Heading westward from Cramlington could allow more housing (Arcot Manor) and industrial estate connections, Northunberlandia, then heading south parallel to Fisher Lane through Seaton Burn, Wideopen and into Gosforth and again feeding into Regent Centre, with this route offering potential to also access Great Park.
Ryan Hogg 