the ex-hd&r line survived longer; the line came under control of the north eastern region of british railways after the lner was nationalised in 1948. by this time, passenger and goods traffic across the country was in decline and this was also the case for the route from west hartlepool to sunderland through wellfield, which lost its passenger services (south of ) on 9 june 1952. nonetheless, the line did remain open to goods with most stations not closing to goods traffic until 1966 and a single line was retained for some years afterwards to serve various collieries along its route. however, the lack of goods handling facilities meant that wellfield station closed completely when passenger services ceased.