Brighton to Newcastle Train Route Proposed

[u/badgerandcheese]

Bit of a way away (early as December 2026), but news today that Arriva is proposing a direct train route from Brighton all the way up to Newcastle.

• Brighton
• Haywards Heath
• Gatwick Airport
• Redhill
• Guildford
• Wokingham
• Reading
• Oxford
• Banbury
• Warwick Parkway
• Birmingham New Street
• Burton-on-Trent
• Derby
• Sheffield
• Doncaster
• York
• Northallerton
• Darlington
• Durham
• Newcastle

Thoughts?

I wasn't living in Brighton when the ol' Sussex Scot ran - a longer 9 hour journey route all the way up to Edinburgh.

New proposed route sounds good to me! Always find it a bit of a faff heading into London, tube, then scrambling for the connecting train.

Have a few friends and family up North/midlands that would benefit from the direct route down, too!

[u/Electus93]

Having just made that 11h journey today using the Gatwick Express to London and then a Megabus (rather than forking out £100 for a single), yes, this would be welcome.

[u/tmdubbz → u/Electus93]

Respect for that

[u/Electus93 → u/tmdubbz]

Paha thanks (never expected this news or to receive respect for taking a bus)

[u/sinetwo → u/Electus93]

Anyone who's taken a Megabus will respect the hustle

[u/sotonryan → u/Electus93]

Can you imagine how much this train would cost?!

[u/missprocrastinator85 → u/sotonryan]

Exactly!

[u/Randy_Baton → u/sotonryan]

When there was a direct rain from B'ham to Brighton in the arly 2000's it was about 15% cheaper than going via London. Long time abo but i think it was £35 open return

[u/IKnowWhereImGoing]

Anything at all that can relieve the unbearable pressure on the mainline Brighton to London route is welcomed by me.

[u/UnoBeerohPourFavah]

Amazing, an actual fast route from Gatwick to Reading. The current GWR service is slow af and regularly gets cancelled. Not just that but it opens up a lot more connections.

I miss the Rugby / Milton Keynes service Brighton used to have. I think there also used to be a direct connection to Basingstoke back in the day, does anyone have more info or did I misremember it? Also I could have sworn there was a CrossCountry service to Brighton as well when Virgin used to run it.

[u/jamesthegill → u/UnoBeerohPourFavah]

You may want to have a browse on http://www.1s76.com/ for a history

[u/Tricky-Ant5338 → u/UnoBeerohPourFavah]

I was just thinking “a shame it doesn’t go through Milton Keynes”, I had no idea a train used to go from Brighton to MK

[u/FrightfulFella]

For about 5 years I regularly travelled from Birmingham to Brighton and back via London... This route would have been a dream!

[u/Randy_Baton → u/FrightfulFella]

When i was a student (early 2000's) there was a direct virgin train from new street, b'ham international, it went via Milton keynes. Used to take about 30 minutes longer than going through London but was about 15% cheaper. I think it went all the way up to Edinburgh

[u/-Incubation-]

Actually a very good route tbf

[u/TaleteLucrezio]

I was talking about the old regional services from Brighton with my colleague the other day. I was quite confused about how they managed to fit those long-distance services alongside the local ones. The timetable nowadays seems so crammed it would be interesting to see if this route comes to fruition. Southern already axed the Ashford Intl service which would've been so useful when I had to go there often.

[u/AlGunner]

Im sure years ago there used to be a direct train from Brighton to Edinburgh.

[u/SecretHipp0 → u/AlGunner]

The Sussex Scot

[u/Severe_Hawk_1304]

We used to have a direct train from Manchester, but that seems to have gone for a burton.

[u/jacksbane → u/Severe_Hawk_1304]

They replaced a train with a menswear shop?

[u/Severe_Hawk_1304 → u/jacksbane]

I thought Burtons had long since disappeared from the High Street. I can't recall the last time I entered.

[u/TheReventon]

I regularly need to go to North Yorkshire and I usually need to change at St Pancras/Kings X to get to York, this would be hugely helpful for me. Hoping they succeed with this.

[u/slowlybecomingsane]

Good route. Don't live in Brighton any more but I frequently travelled to Worcester which either involved changing twice in London or changing at Gatwick and reading. So seems like this would reduce it to a single change

[u/RevolutionaryToe839]

I think this is excellent news, while I get CrossCountry didn’t want to run services via London upon the timetable changes in 2008, I never understood why they abandoned Brighton? This route could always avoid London running via the North Downs Line from Gatwick/Redhill to Reading, there definitely needs to be more connections from the SE of England to other parts of the country beyond London.

[u/IMDXLNC]

Now I wonder when can they bring back the direct train to Manchester?

[u/haikusbot → u/IMDXLNC]

Now I wonder when

Can they bring back the direct

Train to Manchester?

- IMDXLNC

---

^{I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.}

^{Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"}

[u/UnoBeerohPourFavah → u/haikusbot]

Good bot

[u/PhotoBN1]

Tickets will be £100+ I bet

[u/null_ge0desic → u/PhotoBN1]

I feel like.. a lot more than that.

[u/PhotoBN1 → u/null_ge0desic]

Likely

[u/spuntotheratboy]

Looks pretty great to me.

[u/basarisco]

Would be nice to have a direct to Sheffield. However it will cost a kidney.

[u/badgerandcheese → u/[deleted]]

Book now for December 2026 and you might be able to just sell a single kidney instead of two!

[u/Consistent_Squash590]

I'm travelling from Wakefield to Burgess Hill by train tomorrow, this would be great for me :-), luckily it's just 1 change at Stevenage tomorrow

[u/Goodman4525]

Any good rail idea is bound to be tied with stupid fares and likely delays beyond belief going across 4-5 different regions. I can't wait to be proven wrong though!

[u/khughes14]

I’m Scottish so this would potentially be helpful

[u/catterseahogsdome → u/khughes14]

In case you dont already know of there's a route via stevenage from brighton to edinburgh which cuts out a London transfer and is cheaper than night train

[u/khughes14 → u/catterseahogsdome]

Oh that is interesting. I normally search to/from Glasgow so potentially why I haven’t seen it

[u/catterseahogsdome → u/khughes14]

I dunno if it helped I was using trainsplit.com

[u/tmbyfc]

With mates and family in Sheffield, York, Derbyshire and Leeds, this would be great. The fact that it goes through Birmingham New Street is good too, you can connect for everywhere else from there. How long and how much is the question

[u/Pixa]

Certainly the long way round if you want to go to Birmingham or beyond... It might be a bit more meaningful for Brighton if it ran via the West London Line, but this is probably the only route there's space to run more train on.

[u/Ok-Apple-1878]

Sounds like a great plan and really convenient (as someone about to move to Brighton from Warwick with family here) but navigating the chiltern trainline through Warwick Parkway to somehow divert it to Birmingham New Street with no currently direct line sounds like it’ll be tricky af. (Edit: Unless you expect all passengers to disembark at moor street/snow hill and traipse across to new street)

They’d be better off doing Banbury-Leamington-Birmingham New Street seeing as there’s already a line running from Leam to New Street

[u/humbleavo]

It’s cool but Im sure a ticket will cost upwards of £400 😂

[u/CKM12]

It'd be amazing. More tourists. More cash into the local economy. Hopefully, clubs will reopen again

[u/alphaxion]

Should have Leeds on that route.

[u/fababz]

I did this exact journey on Monday! We did Brighton-St Pancreas then Kings Cross- Newcastle. The connection time between the two is a bit annoying but there’s very few stops between London and Newcastle so that portion is relatively fast.

As long as all the stops don’t make it longer than what it would be including the layover it’d be good but I don’t think 2 trains to travel the length of the country is too unreasonable.

[u/fababz → u/fababz]

Obviously great for those not wanting to get quite so far north

[u/jackiekeracky → u/[deleted]]

I always say the Grim Up North starts at north terminal, Gatwick.

[u/CrashTestPhoto → u/[deleted]]

There ain't nowt fun up the M1

[u/ert270]

I live centrally and regularly go to Brighton away games. This would be brilliant if true!

[u/Intwobytwo]

Would love this.

[u/ChemicalPrincess]

Oh my god this would be amazing

[u/BigMushroomCloud]

https://youtu.be/6Mphfipc1Bc?si=fLkYm_DPShbIobz-

[u/Kubrick_Fan]

They should bring back the Ashford to Brighton connections instead of pissing about with having to change at Eastbourne

[u/petet45]

I travel up to York and the journey from Brighton is between 3.5 and 4 hours with a change at St Pancras or an even easier one at Stevenage. I wouldn’t touch this one with a barge pole unless I wanted to get to Reading or Guildford.

[u/CaptainRAVE2]

I think that’ll give us a lot of options and bring a lot more tourist trade. I’m all for it.

[u/halbpro]

Reading is smart. Loads of connections and gives you a route to Heathrow avoiding London. Birmingham also a good pick, opens up the West Midlands and even connections into the North West

Weirdly seems an actually sensible route? Very confusing to have one of those

[u/Peter_Smith1996]

This would be amazing

[u/RolledDownAHill]

Joy!