Tom's Photo Log: Acklington Station and Amble Harbour

It's been a few days since I last visited the railway, so I headed down to Acklington Station to see what was happening.

The last time I visited Acklington was around Easter time, so I knew roughly what to expect. Around 90 trains per day, mainly Virgin Trains East Coast and CrossCountry passenger services, pass through the station.

Yesterday, for some reason, it was eerily quiet. After an hour of seeing no trains whatsoever, curiosity eventually got the better of me and I started Googling around for information about service disruption.

It transpired that there had been a fatality just south of Cramlington, some 20 miles further up the line. According to reports a man was struck by a train at Dam Dykes level crossing at around 1350 hrs. Further investigation suggests he was struck by train 1S39, the 0625 hrs CrossCountry Trains service from Plymouth to Edinburgh, which had departed Newcastle on time at 1338 hrs.

At about 1530 hrs, with services backed up for miles in each direction, traffic began to move again. In addition to the routine passenger services, there was a charter from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross, train 142L, which was being hauled by DBS's rather tatty-looking electric locomotive 90026. A while later Riviera Trains' diesel locomotive 47812, presumably on hire to GBRf, trundled past towards Edinburgh.

As there was still a bit of light I decided to head into Amble and buy dinner at the one of Northumberland's finest fish and chip shops, the Harbour Fish Bar. Like a proper tourist I sat on the quayside and enjoyed my fish and chips, pausing to take a few photographs up the Coquet estuary towards Warkworth Castle.