To Washington! - Leamside Line

The second extension I will discuss is the Washington extension.

Extending the metro to Washington will bring service to a large and totally unserved town. Also I could see an extension to Washington being very politically expedient; people in Washington are paying their taxes and funding the metro just like those in the other towns so why don't they have access to it?

The easiest way to extend to Washington would be via the Leamside Line.
The Leamside Line is a railway line which runs from Pelaw down the east side of Washington and then over the river wear at the rather pretty, Victorian-era Victoria Viaduct.

The Leamside Line has been out of use since 1991, in some places the track still exists however in others it has been removed. It is likely however that even in areas where the track still exists that major maintenance work will need to be performed on the track; total replacement in most places. So all Leamside really gives us is a easy route rather than a ready built track.

If added to the metro the route would go as follows-

Wardley-

Wardley is a rather unfortunate town in that its a bit too big to be totally adequatly served by one station but too small to be served by one.
West along the line you have a very small gap between station existing, if this rule was followed in Wardley you could get two stations- Wardley Colliery and White Mare Pool.
Northwards however towards South Shields you get rather big gaps which would make for just one Wardley station.
Here I am going with just the one, perhaps at the bridge before the Quarry Park stables; the Pelaw station also serves part of Wardley to an extent and to have three stations in this little town would be rather silly.

Follingsby-

The Follingsby Industrial Estate was formerly home to a freight station which which was the destination for most of the traffic using the line in its latter years.
Reopening this as a metro station wouldn't make for one of the more popular stations on the network however people do work in the area and it is spaced such from the others that it is yet another 'we might as well'.
Given the amount of space in the area perhaps this could be a good place for a park and ride for those working in Newcastle much like the current East Boldon.

Stephenson-

The next station will again serve a largely business rather than residential area but again spacing has made it so that this is a logical spot to place a station as we come into Washington.

Sulgrave-

After Stephenson the next part of Washington to be passed is Sulgrave and here we finally have a big residential area to serve. As with much of the Leamside line however unfortunatly we're on the far east end of it. Nonetheless a station here would be used a lot, I would place it around the place the A1290 crosses the track.

Barmston

Just south of the Sunderland highway would seem the next smart place for a metro station. This would perhaps be the best station on the route being right in the midst of a industrial and residential area.

Teal Farm-

Barmston is so big that we can really squeeze in two stations here, this one being at the far south of the estate where it borders onto others including Teal Farm.

Pattinson-

The last station in Washington shoudl be around the bend serving the Pattinson area. Again though on the far east of the area it is a rather large area.

After Pattinson we have a number of choices of what to do next if this route is the one we're following.

1: End of the line. The metro train then heads back to Newcastle.
2: Cross the Victoria Viaduct to serve the towns of Penshaw and Shiney Row then go home.
3: Cross the Victoria Viaduct then after an optional Penshaw visit loop around to join the Sunderland line at South Hylton. Penshaw is quite out of the way and you would get a strange nook nonetheless I think it would be rather cruel to come so near to this town and not actually serve it.

Additionally if we are to be going up to South Hylton the old Durham-Sunderland line (the route of which is still visible and would be logical to follow) passes through the small village of Coxgreen. This village however I feel is a bit too small to be given its own metro station unless some development is planned in the area; I somehow doubt though that this would be wanted by the residents or done by the council.

I will be taking the simplest most conservative option her; the entire point of this post being the 'easy' way of connecting Washington. On the picture the colours mean the same as before with the addition of red for the new Washington line.