Northumberland Park Metro station

Northumberland Park
Tyne and Wear Metro
Northumberland Park Metro station under construction in 2005.
Location
Place	Backworth
Local authority	North Tyneside
Fare zone information
Network One zone	2
Metro zone	B
Original (1979) zone	18
Station code	NPK
History
Opened	2005-12-11
List of stations

Northumberland Park Metro station is a station on the Tyne and Wear Metro Yellow Line. It serves a new housing development known as Northumberland Park. It is situated between Palmersville and Shiremoor, close to where the single-track freight-only Network Rail line diverges northwards towards Ashington. The station has proved popular with over 320,000 passengers using the station in the 2008-9 period.^[1]

The Metro station began operating on 11 December 2005 and was officially opened on 13 December 2005 by Prof Tony Ridley, the first Director General of Nexus. The station is purpose built for Metro and is the first new station to be built since the Sunderland extension in 2002. It is located immediately west of the site of the Backworth railway station, which closed on 13 June 1977 and was demolished prior to the construction of the Metro. Backworth was the only station on the North Tyneside Loop not included in the system, apart from Heaton station (which was on a part of the alignment not used in the Metro).

The station is also served by bus route 19 which links Northumberland Park with the Cobalt & Silverlink Business Parks, Royal Quays and the Shields Ferry.

In October 2007, a large hole under the track appeared, which was spotted by a Metro driver. All trains from Shiremoor station and Benton station were halted. This hole was first determined to be a collapse of the underground mines below and caused widespread media coverage, causing fret among the public believing the new station was subsiding (which could affect the newly built housing estate and Sainsbury's supermarket). This was all downplayed and the hole was fixed, with normal service resuming 3 weeks later.

There is a multi storey car park adjacent which has limited parking for cycles. The station is also a bus interchange.^[2]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Northumberland Park Metro station.

• Train times and station information for Northumberland Park Metro station from Nexus

Coordinates: 55°01′59″N 1°31′11″W / 55.0331°N 1.5198°W / 55.0331; -1.5198

• Route 19 website