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A half-hourly service to Newcastle is planned, reports

Projects to restore passenger services on railway lines where they were withdrawn in the 1960s are very much in vogue nowadays. While some fanciful ideas have been put forward for the Government’s ‘Restoring your Railway’ initiative, Northumberland boasts a scheme where plans to return trains to a route closed in the Beeching era are close to fruition.

Passenger services were withdrawn from the Ashington branch in 1964, but the line was retained for freight services and this makes the reopening proposal simpler.

The idea of restoring passenger trains to the 24km of the Blyth & Tyne line between Benton Junction and Ashington has been around for a long time, but was given a boost in January with a £34 million grant from the Government. This will be split between Network Rail and Northumberland County Council (NCC) and spent on preparatory works, including land acquisition, detailed design work and early site works.

HOW, NOT IF

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