 West of Chillingham Road, the Tyne and Wear Metro route diverges from the former route of the North Eastern Railway.Immediately east of the station was a rail connection into the Heaton Traction Maintenance Depot and Parsons Engineering Works – a connection which remained in place until British Rail's re-signalling of the depot at the end of the millennium.The station was used by 276,204 passengers in 2017–18.