Northumberland Line

The Northumberland Line is a railway in North East England; it has reintroduced passenger rail services to lines in South East Northumberland that had for many years been freight-only. Under the scheme, a new passenger service links some of Northumberland's major population centres in Ashington, Bedlington and Blyth to the nearby city of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Construction of new stations and works to upgrade the existing rail infrastructure to bring it up to passenger-carrying standards was reported as having begun by late August 2022. The first anticipated launch date of the new passenger service was December 2023. However, this was pushed back, first to the summer of 2024 and then to December. Passenger services started operation on 15 December 2024 between Ashington and Newcastle, after numerous delays, with the opening of the first two new stations, followed by the opening of Newsham the following March. The rest of the stations will open in 2025.

The new passenger service runs on lines which formerly constituted part of the Blyth and Tyne Railway system, a once-extensive railway network that historically covered much of South East Northumberland. Most of the lines being utilised as part of this project have been without passenger services since 1964, when they were withdrawn as part of the Beeching cuts.