dh TYNE VALLEY Railways MELKRIDGE

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Ernies Northumbrian Railway Archive

16th February 2006

Melkridge is a small village east of Haltwhistle, many years ago a colliery was situated here but it closed between the Wars. In the late 1980's good quality coal on Plenmeller Common high in the hills to the south of the River Tyne could be mined by OpenCast if planning permission could be obtained. Eventually it was agreed that the coal could be extracted but only on condition that road transport was not used as the local road infrastructure was not suitable.
The problem was solved by building a conveyor some 2 miles long down the hillside and across the river to a Loader on the Newcastle to Carlisle railway situated just east of Whitfield tunnel. Everything was completed by the early 1990's, however the upgrading of the local signalling system was not fully completed and loadedtrains initially continued west to Carlisle for running round before returning past the loader; an additional round trip of nearly 50 miles.
Traffic amounted usually to just 1 train per day, invariably 56 powered and the coal was destined usually for Eggbrough In Yorkshire or any other of the adjacent Power stations.
After about 7 years planning permission was requested to open the coal field up further, but the local NIMBY's succeeded in getting this refused. Shortly after this the system closed down and the conveyor and Loader were dismantled. The track is still there however, as far as I know it has only been used once since the loader closed when 2 DRS 20's on a trial trip with some containers got into difficulty and were shunted there to stop the line being blocked.

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