Notes: Chevington was one of the locations on the Newcastle & Berwick Railway where crossing keepers’ accommodation, but no station, was provided when the line opened in 1847. The accommodation, at a location identified in N&B records as West Chevington, was of a standard design for the line comprising a pair of semidetached ‘chalet style’ dwellings with attic bedrooms lit by gabled windows; mullioned bay windows faced the railway with entrances between them. Despite the sparsely populated location, a passenger station opened here in October 1870, served initially by four weekday and two Sunday trains in each direction. It had staggered platforms, the down platform being north of the crossing, facing the original cottages, while the up platform was south of the crossing.

On 5 September 1849, a branch had opened from the main line a mile north of Chevington to serve the port of Amble from which coal was shipped to London and destinations in Germany and Scandinavia. The branch handled only mineral traffic until 1879. An NER working timetable of February 1879 indicates that a passenger service was introduced on the Amble branch, but other sources suggest that the date was June or July of that year. The branch passenger trains used a bay behind the down main line platform at Chevington as their terminus, and a dull, utilitarian single-storey brick building at the southern end of the platform provided booking and waiting facilities. The up platform had an equally undistinguished building. The signal box was constructed by October 1877 and placed immediately south of the level crossing on the down side. It was an NER N2 design with a stone base, originally with a 40-lever McKenzie & Holland frame, later extended to 43 then 56 levers. At Amble Junction the original signal box, constructed pre-1873, was replaced with a bridge-mounted type N5 cabin in 1900, equipped with a 62-level McKenzie & Holland frame. This box closed in the early 1930s.

Several sidings adjoined Chevington station, as indicated on a 1934 line diagram; two were south of the crossing, on the down side, entered from the north. To the north of the crossing, again on the down side, were two sidings entered from a loop – one serving the bay platform - and two more were on the up side, their entrance facing south. The RCH 1904 Handbook noted that Chevington could handle most types of goods traffic, and 1913 NER records show that livestock was the principal component, with 185 vans dealt with that year.

An accident occurred on 13 September 1913 south of Chevington station. The report of the incident states that the 11.45pm express from London to Edinburgh, consisting of an engine, tender and six coaches was running between Widdrington and Chevington stations when the train, with the exception of the engine, left the rails. Its speed at the time of the derailment was between 55 and 60mph. The vehicles of the train were derailed to the up side of the down line on which they were running, and the train became uncoupled at two points. No vehicles, however, were overturned, and none of the 21 passengers who were travelling in them were injured by the accident, though one sprained his ankle in alighting from his carriage.

The winter 1912-13 passenger train departures from Chevington are listed below. Convenient (cross-platform) connections were provided between northbound ECML services and Amble branch trains, which began their journey at Chevington. However, the 1.31pm (Saturday only) departure for Amble was a through train from Morpeth.

# signifies a limited-stop service

The station failed to attract any significant settlement in its vicinity; in 1911 only 888 people lived within its catchment and 8,584 tickets were issued. However the two stations on the Amble branch were much busier, with the terminus booking 31,806 passengers and Broomhill, the only intermediate station, booking 27,746 in 1911.

In 1923 at the ‘Grouping’ the North Eastern Railway became part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER), and it was in the early years of LNER administration that the volume of passenger traffic on the Amble branch declined rapidly. Before World War I the need, on most journeys, for Broomhill and Amble passengers to change trains at Chevington was an acceptable inconvenience, but the development of motor bus services in the 1920s direct to Newcastle and Alnwick made the railway option much less attractive. An internal LNER memorandum of May 1930 stated, ‘there has been such a considerable falling off in passenger traffic on the branch that the service is being worked at a loss. Indeed the traffic is now so small that it does not even justify the maintenance of a service by steam passenger coach’. It was expected that the income lost by the railway would benefit the LNER’s associated ‘United’ bus company. Herein is a reminder that railway companies sometimes had a financial interest in what appeared to be their competitors. Passenger closure would save 430 train miles per week, and an F8 tank engine and trains set of 260 seats would be released for other duties. The Amble branch passenger service ended on 7 July 1930. In comparison to the seven-or-so trains each weekday in the 1920s – and no Sunday service – by the end of that decade buses between Amble and Newcastle (direct) ran half-hourly, taking approximately the same time as the trains, and on Sunday there was a two-hourly service. Buses on weekdays were provided alternately by United and G Longstaff & Sons, the former via Ashington and the latter via Longhirst and Morpeth.

LNER winter 1937-38 departures from Chevington:

In LNER and BR(NE) ownership little investment appears to have been made in Chevington station, with oil lighting considered adequate. By the early BR days very little passenger traffic was handled – 982 tickets were issued in 1951: approximately three per day. In the summer 1950 timetable the frequency of train departures from Chevington had declined slightly in comparison to 1937-38:

With the introduction of the summer 1952 timetable, in common with other minor ECML stations in Northumberland, the service frequency was reduced. Trains no longer called on Sunday from June 1955. The final timetable for Chevington consisted of two southbound weekday departures (three on Saturday) and two northbound (four on Saturday). Chevington, and several other stations between Newcastle and Berwick-upon-Tweed, closed to passengers on 15 September 1958. Goods traffic continued to be handled at Chevington until 10 August 1964. The branch stations at Broomhill and Amble also lost their goods services in 1964, the former on 4 May and the latter on 14 December. Coal traffic continued on the Amble branch, and parcels were handled at Amble station, until the line closed completely on 6 October 1969, and the tracks were lifted in 1972.

At Chevington station the platforms and their buildings had been swept away by the early 1970s, but the original crossing cottages survive and there is a permanent way engineers’ siding trailing from the down line north of the level crossing. The crossing gates were replaced with barriers in summer 1978 and the signal box closed on 24 February 1991; its stone base was retained as a relay room.

Click here for a brief history of the East Coast Main Line
in Northumberland.

Route maps drawn by Alan Young. Tickets from Michael Stewart. Tinetable Alan Young.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Addyman, John F (Editor) A history of the Newcastle & Berwick Railway (North Eastern Railway Association, 2011) – especially Chapter 5 ‘The buildings’ by Bill Fawcett
• Biddle, Gordon Victorian stations (David & Charles, 1973)
• Biddle, Gordon Britain’s historic railway buildings (Oxford University Press, 2003)
• Fawcett, Bill A history of North Eastern Railway architecture Vol 1: The Pioneers (North Eastern Railway Association 2001)
• Young, Alan Railways in Northumberland (Martin Bairstow, 2003)
• Quick, Michael   Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology (RCTS 2009)
• Clinker, C R   Clinker’s register of closed passenger stations and goods depots  (Avon Anglia 1978)
  

See other ECML stations : Lesbury, Longhirst, Morpeth, Plessey, Annitsford (1st), Annitsford (2nd), Killingworth, Forest Hall, Durham, Croft Spa, Eryholme, Otterington, Alne & Tollerton