Plenty of potential for Pegswood Station

On a quick visit to Pegswood Station recently, and driving past on my commute to work, Pegswood Station strikes me as a great asset that has ample potential to be realised.

Pegswood Station is just north of Morpeth on the East Coast Mainline (ECML), lies a few miles west of Ashington and nearby to the A197, which connects to the A1/A697 at Northgate via the recently built Morpeth Northern Bypass to the west, and to the east the A1068, Ashington and the northern end of the A189 ‘Spine Road’.

The station itself is also quite well laid out, with both platforms having ramped access from the road over the railway, leading down to wide platforms. The road is the main route through the village, and was itself a major route between Morpeth and Ashington prior to construction of the bypass some decades ago.

This main route through town sees a regular bus service (the 35) running between Morpeth Bus Station and Newbiggin By The Sea, the nearest stops being very convenient for the station between the junctions of Edward St and Castleway.

The only obvious thing with Pegswood is no parking directly near the station, but more on that later.

Current Rail Services

Pegswood does sadly fall into the category of ‘poorly served’, with only a small number of trains calling daily. A service nicknamed the ‘Chathill Flyer’ calling on its way southbound on weekday mornings and both directions in the evening.

Future rail services

At present, and a long term aspiration from SENRUG has been to see a regular local train run between Berwick Upon Tweed on the Scottish Border through to Newcastle Upon Tyne, which would see many more regular services call at Pegswood and increase the usefulness of this quite well placed station.

Pegswood Parkway?

With its location in relatively close proximity to the A1 & A697 in Northumberland, as well as other major routes such as the A1068 & A189, I believe Pegswood would present an excellent opportunity to become a ‘Parkway Station’, acting as a park and ride station for the more rural areas of Northumberland to feed onto the rail network and in to a city such as Newcastle.

It should be relatively inexpensive for the following reasons:

1. Pegswood Station already exists: Pegswood is unusual to be almost directly bordering two large fields to the SW of the station, and with amble space between running lines and the apparent boundary it shouldn’t be too difficult to drive a pathway from the current up (southbound) platform to the corner of these fields. Measuring from Google Maps would make this about a 60m long path.

2. Car parking away from the settlement: as can be seen from the image below, if car parking was developed in the fields south of the ECML, it access would ideally be made from the A197, likely just west of Pegswood Fire Station. This would allow vehicle traffic to remain on the bypass rather than being forced to enter a town, as at Morpeth currently.

3. Train and bus park and ride: While ideally drivers would switch to using the train to complete their journey, it is also potentially useful for Morpeth as a park and ride site using buses too, alleviating some of the strain on Town Centre parking at busy times.

The Morpeth Diversion

It has been mooted that a diversion of the mainline away from Morpeth and Pegswood could be done to allow through rail services to bypass the notorious Morpeth Curve, which hampers speed and has sadly seen a few incidents.

In my view, a new line avoiding Pegswood and Morpeth for fast through trains could present a huge advantage by allowing more services (especially local trains & stopping InterCity ones) to actually call at these stations. Such a bypass should also consider allowing for a triangular junction at Butterwell to increase flexibility and resilience.

Just in the right place

Pegsood is well situated to take advantage of a number of potential routes, a few ideas are outlined below.

Morpeth ‘Wannie Bay’ – Pegswood – Linton – Ashington – Cambois

If the old Wansbeck Railway platforms to the north of Morpeth station were repurposed into a bay platform connecting to and from the north, it could be possible to connect Cambois and the proposed Gigafactory to both the ECML & Northumberland Line via the Butterwell Line.

This also has the side benefits of reopening the Butterwell route for potential freight use, and Linton station would be well placed for leisure users such as cyclists.

Cambois – Ashington – Linton – Pegswood – (Stobhill?) – Bedlington – Newsham

While a little circuitous, this route would actually connect the five largest settlements in Northumberland; Blyth, Cramlington (served via Newsham), Ashington, Bedlington & Morpeth (served via a new station at Stobhill), with Guidepost/Stakeford connected via new stations at Marcheys House (an interwar proposal apparently) and a rebuilt Choppington Station.

Please leave me a comment to let me know your thoughts: