The Tyne Valley Rail Users? Group believes seven smaller stations on the Carlisle to Newcastle route ? including Wetheral, Brampton and Haltwhistle ? are under threat.

City councillors meeting on Tuesday voted unanimously to resist any closures.

The council will write to Mr Darling, to the Department for Transport and the Commons Transport Committee to argue that the stations stay open.

Wetheral councillor Barry Earp told the meeting: ?In 1967 Wetheral station was closed as part of the Beeching cuts.

?It reopened in 1981 after much lobbying and public consultation.

?Now we learn that a leaked document from the Strategic Rail Authority proposes the closure of stations with less than 100 passengers. I can?t see how you can get 100 passengers a day at a rural station.?

Mr Earp said that only seven trains in each direction called at Wetheral and Brampton on weekdays.

The best way to attract passengers, he argued, was for more trains to stop there.

Mr Earp said: ?The Tyne Valley Rail Users? Group wants trains to stop every two hours.

?At present, you can get a train into work in Carlisle in the morning but, if you leave work at 5.30pm, there isn?t a train back until 9.20pm.?

Mr Earp said that, with better advertising and promotion, the line could attract many more commuters.

He added: ?You don?t have the aggravation of driving down Warwick Road and you don?t have any parking charges.

?You can travel in peace and quiet and it only takes seven minutes from Wetheral to the city centre.?

Councillor Doreen Parsons, who represents Great Corby and Geltsdale, said closing the stations would add to the 23,000 vehicles a day using Warwick Road.

And Currock councillor Colin Glover said: ?This is the wrong time to be looking at cutting stations. We should be looking to open more.

?The platform is still in place at Scotby and there?s no reason why we shouldn?t bring that back into operation as part of Carlisle Renaissance.?

He also said there was scope for a station at Durranhill.

The Tyne Valley Rail Users? Group says the threat to stations is contained in a draft strategy prepared for the old Strategic Rail Authority and in a recent review of the Northern rail franchise.

The review was ordered by Mr Darling in response to concerns about the mounting costs of rail subsidies.

Neither document has been made public.

Mr Darling told The Cumberland News last month that the review would not lead to wholesale line closures but he could not rule out the closure of lightly-used stations.