Chathill is a railway station on the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...

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

Beadnell Beadnell is a village and civil parish in Northumberland, England. It is situated about south-east of Bamburgh, on the North Sea coast, and has a population of 528(2001), increasing to 545 at the 2011 Census. It takes its name from the Anglo Sa ...

and

Seahouses Seahouses is a large village on the North Northumberland coast in England. It is about north of Alnwick, within the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Attraction Seahouses attracts many visitors, mainly from the north ea ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, England. It is owned by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

and managed by

Northern Trains Northern Trains, branded as Northern, (legally Northern Trains Limited) is a State-owned enterprises of the United Kingdom, publicly owned train operating company in England. It is owned by DfT OLR Holdings for the Department for Transport (DfT) ...

History

The station was opened by the

Newcastle and Berwick Railway The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interest ...

on 29 March 1847. At the time of opening, four passenger trains ran each way every weekday between Newcastle and

Morpeth Morpeth may refer to: *Morpeth, New South Wales, Australia ** Electoral district of Morpeth, a former electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in New South Wales * Morpeth, Ontario, Canada * Morpeth, Northumberland, England, UK ** Morpeth (UK ...

, 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. Tweedmouth ...

. 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 The North Sunderland Railway was a railway line in Northumberland, England. It was opened in 1898, and ran from to , with an intermediate station at . Chathill was on the main line of the North Eastern Railway between Morpeth and Berwick. The bra ...

, 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 m ...

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 LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

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

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and

Edinburgh Waverley Edinburgh Waverley railway station (also known simply as Waverley; gd, Waverley Dhùn Èideann) is the principal railway station serving Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the second busiest station in Scotland, after Glasgow Central. It is the north ...

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 of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in May 1991, due to a shortage of rolling stock. Owing to the limited service (two trains per day towards

and Newcastle), an easement permits passengers travelling north towards Berwick-upon-Tweed and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

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 called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important ...

and

St Cuthbert's Way St Cuthbert's Way is a long-distance trail between the Scottish Borders town of Melrose and Lindisfarne (Holy Island) off the coast of Northumberland, England. The walk is named after Cuthbert, a 7th-century saint, a native of the Borders who ...

. The station has retained its

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building and

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

on the northbound platform, though neither is in operational use. The station house is now privately owned and the signal box houses signalling equipment.

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.

Services

Services at Chathill are operated by

using and

DMUs A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...

. 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 . 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 (UK) stations Former North Sunderland Railway stations Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1847 Northern franchise railway stations 1847 establishments in England John and Benjamin Green buildings and structures