The Tyneside Electrics were the suburban railways on Tyneside that the North Eastern Railway and the London and North Eastern Railway electrified using the third rail system. The North Tyneside Loop was electrified from 1904 onwards and formed one of the earliest suburban electric networks; the South Tyneside line to South Shields via Pelaw was electrified in March 1938. British Railways converted these lines to diesel operation in the 1960s: the line to South Shields in January 1963 and the North Tyneside lines in June 1967 when the electrical supply infrastructure (which dated from 1935) and the rolling stock (which dated from 1937) had become life expired. In addition, the system was losing passengers and suffering from costly vandalism. Since the late 1970s, much of the system has been converted to form the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Routes
The original lines covered were the North Tyneside Loop from Newcastle Central via Wallsend, North Shields, Whitley Bay and South Gosforth back to Newcastle; the East Coast Main Line (ECML) from Newcastle Central to Benton (providing a short cut to Monkseaton and Whitley Bay), and the Riverside Branch from Byker to Percy Main via .
At Benton the electrified lines diverged from the ECML to join the Blyth and Tyne line (see below). These curved lines were called the South West Curve and South East Curve based on their disposition looking north. The SE Curve had scheduled electric services running over it from time to time, but the SW Curve was used for empty stock movements.
In 1923 the triangular junctions at South Gosforth were electrified in connection with opening of the new car sheds, but were used only for empty stock movements. In the same year, a route was electrified in the Heaton area. This route left the ECML at Benton Bank and ran through the freight yard at Heaton to connect with the Tynemouth lines at Heaton East Junction. It was used for empty stock movements and as an access route to Walker Gate Carriage Works where heavy repairs and overhaul of the electric stock took place. This route was called the "Heaton Independent Lines".
Map
History
History before electrification
The line through Jesmond, Benton and on to Tynemouth was opened in the 1860s by the Blyth and Tyne Railway (B&T), and the line through Wallsend by the Newcastle and North Shields Railway in 1839. The portion of the East Coast Main Line to Benton had been opened by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway in the 1840s. The Newcastle Quayside Branch had been opened by the NER in 1873, and the Riverside Branch in 1879. The junctions at South Gosforth dated back to 1905 and were laid for the Gosforth and Ponteland Branch.
Electrification
In the early 1900s, tramway competition caused a large and rapid decline in the number of passengers using the North Eastern Railway's local services in the north Tyneside area. The number of passengers using these services declined from 9,847,000 in 1901, to 5,887,000 in 1903. In 1903, in response to this, and in an effort to win back the lost passengers, the NER decided to electrify their suburban network north of the River Tyne with a 600Volt DC third-rail system. They hired the electrical engineer Charles H. Merz as a consultative engineer for the project, and contracted the British Thomson-Houston company to supply the electrical equipment.
The North Tyneside Loop, including the Riverside Branch, and a short stretch of the East Coast Main Line was electrified in stages between February and July 1904. The original electrified route was not quite a loop however, as the northern leg of the route ran over the former Blyth and Tyne Railway, whose Newcastle terminus was at ; an isolated terminus with no rail connection to Newcastle Central, meaning services initially ran from Newcastle Central via Tynemouth to New Bridge Street. In 1909, New Bridge Street was closed, and a connection was constructed to an extended station, in order to create a full loop, however despite this. it was not until 1917 that a full Central to Central loop service began.
The electrified stretch of the East Coast Main Line between Heaton and Benton Junction was used by certain limited stop 'express' services between Newcastle and the coast.
The electrification, and the improved service it enabled, succeeded in the aim of reversing the decline in passengers numbers, which rose steadily, and topped the ten million mark in 1913, exceeding the highest pre-electrification totals. It also substantially reduced the running cost of the service, which was reduced to less than half the cost per train mile of the steam service it replaced.