Fallodon Level Crossing, Northumberland

Date filmed: Tuesday the 14th of May 2024
Videos filmed between 17:49 and 18:18

Route: East Coast Main Line (ECML)
Between Alnmouth (ALM) and Chathill (CHT) Stations

Crossing type: Manually Controlled Barrier crossing with CCTV (MCB-CCTV)

Filming location: Christon Bank, Alnwick (NE66 3HE)

A level crossing located on a skew angle near the village of Christon Bank right near the Northumberland Coast. It's quite a long crossing for one with just two tracks - not only because of the skew angle but also the fact that the road across it isn't particularly straight at the crossing. Trains pass this location very quickly even though they have to slow slightly to 110mph for a bend in the railway right near this crossing, and for north-bound trains there's a whistle board instructing them to sound the horn for a nearby user-worked / footpath crossing - resulting in a brilliant 'doppler effect' off of one of the featured trains. A small, private station existed here until 1934, and trains would stop if they were requested to in advance. This video features about half an hour's railway action here at this level crossing with fairly loud alarms, both of which are rather new and one of which has a very fast tone.

Being within two hours of Edinburgh City Centre by road and within only about 30 miles of the Eastern side of the England / Scotland border, this level crossing, at the time of filming and publishing, was the most northerly level crossing I've visited, and the furthest out from where I'm based - a good nearly six hours and 350 miles by road down south if you have a clear run and don't stop! I know, don't laugh if you're in a much larger country - it's quite a way for us on this little island! However, this may have since been elapsed by quite a bit, and it wasn't my most northerly / furthest out for a particularly long time...

What's also unique about this crossing is its skirtless barriers - despite having a fairly recent barrier renewal, barrier skirts to stop things going under them were never added as pedestrian usage is infrequent and risk fairly low, and as such it still has the longest skirtless barriers of any full-barrier crossing anywhere. Please excuse the annoying drop of rain on the lens in the last clip, but I hope the inventive shot of the Northbound Lumo (the thumbnail of this video) makes up for it!

Trains featured:
Lowering 1 (0:00):
Class 801/2 (LNER Azuma) - 1:43
1E24 Edinburgh Waverley ➡ London Kings Cross | 2 minutes early
-
Lowering 2 (2:17):
220 030 (Cross Country) - 3:45
1V71 Edinburgh Waverley ➡ Bristol Temple Meads | On-time
-
Lowering 3 (4:19):
221 137 (Cross Country) - 5:11
1S47 Penzance ➡ Edinburgh Waverley | On-time
-
Lowering 4 (5:48):
70 815 (Colas Rail) - 6:55
6E36 Millerhill Sorting Sidings ➡ Doncaster Up Decoy | 4 minutes early

Also passed:
Class 80x (LNER Azuma)
1S21 London Kings Cross ➡ Edinburgh Waverley | On-time
-
Lowering 5 (7:41):
803 305 (Lumo) - 8:48
1S97 London Kings Cross ➡ Edinburgh Waverley | On-time
-
End-of-video picture showcase: 9:33

Train details sourced from:
Real Time Trains: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear...
Open Train Times: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps
Traksy: https://traksy.uk/live

Filmed on: Panasonic HC-VX1 in 4K 25fps

Thanks for watching!