Beautiful Northumberland is looking for rail contractors

In this age of restricted travel, it’s perhaps some consolation that we have so many Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK.

Perhaps you wouldn’t associate Manchester, our base, with the terms natural beauty but we form one part of the Peak District sandwich with Sheffield, and no one can deny that this National Park is beautiful.

You may have read too that the railway route between Sheffield and Manchester is being upgraded, but you may or may not know that another northern honeypot, Northumbria, is due for a new £166 million railway line.

Northumberland is stunning. I don’t think anyone could dispute that. It sits between Newcastle and the Scottish Borders, and the city of Newcastle (like our base) is a stunning cityscape, with a fantastic integrated tram network.

It does feel remote and empty when compared with The Peak District and, unlike our close neighbour, has castles and coastal towns that are perfectly formed and picture postcard perfection.

You didn’t though click this post on our website and LinkedIn page, we think, to be presented with a hymn to Alnwick, but to find out more about the railway construction news.

Here goes.

Northumberland County Council are looking for a contractor to reopen a line that was closed by Beeching in 1965 and build six new stations.

The funding has come from central government as part of its “levelling up” agenda and is set to be completed for July 2025.

We quote from Construction News:

“The project will involve upgrading 29km of track between Ashington and Newcastle. Six new stations will be built, along with car parks, new footbridges, level crossings and supporting roads.

“The council also plans to appoint a reserve contractor on the framework. It said the reserve contractor will only be awarded contracts under certain conditions, which it will set out in tender documents.”

Exciting times for this beautiful region.

The new route

The planned new route will run from Newcastle to Ashington, a town famed for its association with the Charlton brothers. It would cut journey times from Ashington to Newcastle to just 35 minutes, following the routes of the old coal trains, linking with the Metro line at Northumberland Park.

The economic case for opening the line is a strong one, too. It will generate inward investment in Blyth, Bedlington and Ashington and help with CO2 targets by cutting traffic along the A189 / A19 corridor.

How can Raildiary help the successful contractor?

Clearly there are finite resources for this project and the government will be keen to stick to the £166 million budget.

The Raildiary app is a perfect match for this.

You can use your project reports for long-term learning and analysis. Previous project data can be stored securely in Sitediary and used to benchmark future works, highlight inefficiencies, estimate cost and output and create detailed risk registers.

Want to know more, follow our LinkedIn and Facebook pages and we can give you a comprehensive demo of our app - click the link here.

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