SENRUG's plans for Blyth and the Seaton Valley

The map is an old SENRUG map of their plan for the Ashington Blyth & Tyne line.
It looks like a Metro map, but it's deceptive.
Under SENRUG's plans the only stations on the map that would see more two trains an hour in each direction are Newcastle Central, Manors (possibly) and Morpeth. Many stations, including those on the Blyth line, would see only one train an hour.

Let's walk through SENRUG's plans. Phase 1 is to take the existing local  trains that run to Morpeth, which park up on the AB&T at Morpeth between journeys, along the AB&T to Bedlington. Choppington station may or may not get built, depending on who you ask. The beauty of this plan is that it can be done with existing trains, and the only real additional costs are the fuel used, and the cost of providing and maintaining new stations. No sane person can object to this proposal, but it still hasn't happened for reasons that no-one can quite explain but which are probably a lot to do with the convoluted nature of railway finances and the lack of any real commitment of Northumberland County Council to the project. NCC staff are judged on what they do, and you can get a lot of bus shelters built and cycle paths laid (and grumpy councillors placated) while you wait for a train comapny to work out if it can screw more subsidy out of government for any given change in services.

Phase 2 would require more rolling stock, since it would require trains to reverse north from Bedlington to Ashington. That would make the existing local rail timetable to Morpeth impossible without extra trains and drivers. It's not impossible once services are running to Bedlington of course, but it would require additional subsidies and a rigorous business case.

Phase 2A would require a new station to be built adjacent to the museum at Woodhorn. Trains could then run from Ashington to Woodhorn. Quite what demand would exist for that service is anyone's guess, but it does hold out the prospect of Woodhorn becoming a tourist attraction in the future. There might even be the prospect of heritage excursion trains going to Woodhorn on weekends, although that's not something you can build a business case for.

You'll notice Blyth and the Seaton Valley  is phase three on SENRUG's plans. You can see the logic of phase one, but not of phase two or three. Central to SENRUG's thinking appears to be that any train service has to link to Central Station. That raise the thorny topic of how you get trains through Benton Junction, which deserves another post all its own. There are two questions though that SENRUG have never satisfactorily answered.
1. If more trains will be needed to serve Ashington in Phase 2, why not make Phase 2 a Northumberland Park to Ashington shuttle service?
2. If passengers are to change between Phase 3 trains and  Metro at Northumberland Park or Palmersville, who will organise the integrated tickets and subsidies necessary to make the train an attractive option? The lack of answers to those questions is what inspired people to start arguing that Metro is the solution to getting Blyth and the Seaton Valley moving.