Platform Progress at Bedlington

Over the Easter weekend, trains were replaced by buses on the Northumberland Line to allow for platform construction at Bedlington to take place, along with other works including drainage installation and adding a new under track crossing for a high voltage cable.

We appreciate that closing the line does cause disruption for customers and there's no ideal time to do this. However, the extended closures do give us the opportunity to make significant progress in station construction, especially at Bedlington as the pictures show.

As the work is so close to the railway, most of the station construction work has to happen at times when trains aren't running, so this restricts construction to overnight works or longer weekend line closures. This would have been the case even if the passenger service hadn't started in December as there are still freight trains running on the line. The freight trains are important as they carry supplies to Lynemouth Power Station and each train saves hundreds or lorry movements on South East Northumberland's roads.

When sections of the line (or the full line) is closed, there will be rail replacement buses running at the same frequency as the rail service, although these journeys will take longer. Information on the rail replacement bus stops are shown at each station on the "onward connections" posters on display.

We will have some further line closures coming up this June and the full details for these will be shared as soon as they are confirmed.