Chathill is a railway station on the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

, which runs between and . The station, situated north of Newcastle, serves the hamlet of Chathill, and surrounding coastal villages of Beadnell and Seahouses in

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

, England. It is owned by

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and managed by

Northern Trains Northern Trains, Trade name, trading as Northern, is a British train operating company that operates Commuter rail, commuter and Inter-city rail, medium-distance intercity services in the North of England. It is owned by DfT Operator for the Dep ...

History

The station was opened by the Newcastle and Berwick Railway on 29 March 1847. At the time of opening, four passenger trains ran each way every weekday between Newcastle and Morpeth, and between Chathill and

Tweedmouth Tweedmouth is part of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, England. It is located on the south bank of the River Tweed and is connected to Berwick town centre, on the north bank, by two road bridges and a railway bridge. Tweedmout ...

. Road coaches filled in the gaps for the time being, and a four-hour transit from Newcastle to Berwick-upon-Tweed was achieved. Between 1 August 1898 and 27 October 1951, the station served as the south-western terminus of the North Sunderland Railway, which ran between Chathill and the

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 ...

of Seahouses. The railway operated independently, until takeover by the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

in 1939. An average of 3 or 4 stopping services each way per day ran between

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and Edinburgh Waverley via

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recor ...

until the late 1980s. Following the electrification of the East Coast Main Line, these services were curtailed at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Services were further reduced to their current level by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

in May 1991, due to a shortage of rolling stock. Owing to the limited service (two trains per day towards Morpeth and Newcastle), an easement permits passengers travelling north towards Berwick-upon-Tweed and

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to double back via Alnmouth for Alnwick. The local rail user grou
SENRUG
has been campaigning since September 2016 to have local services on the corridor between Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley increased, to offer more choice for commuters and offer leisure opportunities for visitors to locations such as

Lindisfarne Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parishes in England, civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th centu ...

and St Cuthbert's Way. The station has retained its 1847

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

building, designed by Newcastle architect Benjamin Green, and the signal box dating from around 1873 (extended at the north end about 1911) on the northbound platform, though neither is in operational use. The station house is now privately owned and the signal box houses signalling equipment on the ground floor and staff accommodation on the first floor.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed and has no ticket facilities, so intending passengers must buy tickets on the train or prior to travel. There is a large stone waiting shelter on the southbound platform, but there are no other amenities other than information posters on each side. Step-free access is available to both platforms. Two (possibly modern reproduction types) B.R. North Eastern Region Tangerine Orange Totem signs are provided on the northbound platform 2, as well as a rectangular "CHATHILL" sign, also in Tangerine Orange, fitted below the station platform canopy. These may have been provided by the building owner rather than being original B.R. era signs. Normal modern Northern Rail signage is also provided on both platforms as well. Although the Northbound Platform 2 is open to passengers and maintained for safe use, only the single morning terminating train uses it to set down passengers, and no other northbound services have called here since B.R. withdrew the local locomotive–hauled semi–fast service in 1991.

Services

Services at Chathill are operated by

using and DMUs. The station is currently served by two trains per day (one in the morning and one in the evening) to via . Both services on weekdays and the morning service on Saturdays continue beyond Newcastle to via (the afternoon service from Newcastle that terminates here also originates there). No services call at the station on Sundays.

References

Sources

*Wright, A., (1988), ''The North Sunderland Railway'', The Oakwood Press, Locomotion Papers No. 36,

External links

{{Railway stations served by Northern Trains Railway stations in Northumberland DfT Category F2 stations Former North Eastern Railway (United Kingdom) stations Former North Sunderland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Railway stations served by Northern 1847 establishments in England John and Benjamin Green buildings and structures