The station is also on the Durham Coast Line which provides commuter connections to Gateshead, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Stockton, and Middlesbrough.

Direct destinations from the station include London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Durham, York, Darlington, Bristol, Reading, Birmingham, Derby and Plymouth.

The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway had agreed to relinquish their insistence on exclusively using their Redheugh terminus on the south bank of the River Tyne.

[9] By now the general alignment of Hudson's railways was becoming clear: a main line from the south via Gateshead would approach over the High Level Bridge and enter the general station from the east; the Newcastle and Berwick line would be extended from Carliol Square and also enter from the east; through trains from London to Scotland would reverse in the new station.

Extensive offices as well as refreshment facilities were shown, and there was to be a covered carriage drive on the Neville Street side extending from the porte-cochère at each end.

[7][page needed] The work did not progress speedily, and in 1849 Hudson's collection of railway companies suffered a financial shock.

The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway had been formed by merger of the previous smaller companies, and the YN&BR wished to reduce the financial commitment to the Central Station substantially; hotel accommodation and the covered carriage drive were eliminated.

[note 1] The train shed was, jointly with the Lime Street station in Liverpool, the first to be designed and built in Britain using curved wrought iron ribs to support an arched roof.

The station was shared from the beginning by the Newcastle and North Shields Railway, which abandoned its earlier terminus at Carliol Square to the east which had operated since 1839.

The Corporation of Newcastle used the opportunity of the necessary Parliamentary Bill for the amalgamation to insist on construction of the abandoned porte-cochère, and this was designed by Thomas Prosser and completed in 1863.

[7][page needed][13] The new group of bay platforms at the east end had their own concourse quadrangle, known at the time as the "Tynemouth Square".

The true early history of "Billy" is well-nigh veiled in the mists of antiquity, and it was only by diligent enquiry that Mr Holliday, the Station Master, was able to learn a little of her antecedents.

For about fifty-five years (until 1879) she performed good service, first at the Springwell, and latterly at the Killingworth colliery, from which place she actually steamed into Newcastle in 1881 to celebrate George Stephenson's Centenary.

[13] Another major development came on 1 October 1906 when the King Edward VII Bridge was opened, crossing the Tyne to the south-west of the station: Since 1850 East Coast Main Line trains had entered Newcastle from the south via the High Level Bridge to the south-east, this meant however that they had to reverse in order to continue their journey, which lengthened journey times and led to congestion at the busy junction east of the station.

[13] The Tyne and Wear Metro system opened in 1980, taking over and improving many of the Tyneside suburban routes that had declined under British Railways management.

[17] The Metro system was a considerable success; Many conventional rail services were transferred there, and several of the east end bays were closed and converted to car parking and other usage.

The opportunity was taken in conjunction with the East Coast Main Line electrification scheme, inaugurated in 1991 by British Rail, to extend the station southwards to provide more through platforms.

Proposals to reintroduce passenger rail services between Newcastle Central Station and the communities of south east Northumberland have been discussed since the 1990s.

[24][25][26] In the early 2010s, Northumberland County Council became interested in the proposals, commissioning Network Rail to complete the first study into the feasibility of the scheme in June 2013.

[27] This was followed by a more detailed study, commissioned in June 2015,[28] which confirmed that the reintroduction of a frequent seven-day-a-week passenger service between Newcastle Central and Ashington was feasible and could provide economic benefits of £70 million with more than 380,000 people using the line each year by 2034.

[29] Despite a change in the political leadership of Northumberland County Council following the 2017 local elections[30] the authority continued to develop the project,[31] encouraged by the Department for Transport's November 2017 report, A Strategic Vision for Rail, which named the line as a possible candidate for a future reintroduction of passenger services.

The initial phase, at an estimated £90 million,[35] would have seen the creation of new or reopened National Rail stations at Northumberland Park (for interchange with the Tyne and Wear Metro), Newsham, Bedlington and Ashington and several other infrastructure upgrades undertaken[34] to allow an hourly passenger train to be provided[36] between them and Newcastle.

[39] The allocation of a further £34 million of UK Government funding for the project in January 2021 enables the necessary land to be purchased, detailed designs to be prepared and some early preparatory and site works to begin.

[51] Writing in his 2017 book Britain's 100 Best Stations, British journalist and author Sir Simon Jenkins described the glazing of the portico and its conversion to retail usage as a “disaster” and ”thoughtless”, saying “What had been epic became anaemic.”[57][58] In 2021, a restoration of disused toilet facilities near platform 12, thought to date back to the 1890s, was completed.

The King Edward VII Bridge south-west of the station opened on 10 July 1906 allowing north–south trains to continue without reversing.

The two bridges enable the trackwork north and south of the river to form a complete circle, allowing trains to be turned if necessary.

A new island platform on the former goods lines was commissioned as part of this work, with signalling control relocated to the Tyneside IECC on the opposite side of the river.