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Stockton and Darlington Railway

January 01, 1970

For the current line that uses most of this railway‘s route, see Tees Valley Line.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives,[1] its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.

Stockton and Darlington Railway
Map of the original planned route of the railway, taken from the prospectus of 1821
In the Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, a watercolour painted in the 1880s by John Dobbin, crowds are watching the inaugural train cross the Skerne Bridge in Darlington.
Overview
LocaleCounty Durham
Dates of operation1825–1863
SuccessorNorth Eastern Railway

The S&DR was involved in building the East Coast Main Line between York and Darlington, but its main expansion was at Middlesbrough Docks and west into Weardale and east to Redcar. It suffered severe financial difficulties at the end of the 1840s and was nearly taken over by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, before the discovery of iron ore in Cleveland and the subsequent increase in revenue meant it could pay its debts. At the beginning of the 1860s it took over railways that had crossed the Pennines to join the West Coast Main Line at Tebay and Clifton, near Penrith.

The company was taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1863, transferring 200 route miles (320 route kilometres) of line and about 160 locomotives, but continued to operate independently as the Darlington Section until 1876. S&DR opening was seen as proof of steam railway effectiveness and its anniversary was celebrated in 1875, 1925 and 1975. Much of the original route is now served by the Tees Valley Line, operated by Northern.

Genesis edit

Origins edit

 
The seal of the Stockton & Darlington Railway

Coal from the inland mines in southern County Durham used to be taken away on packhorses, and then horse and carts as the roads were improved. A canal was proposed by George Dixon in 1767 and again by John Rennie in 1815, but both schemes failed.[2][3] The harbour of Stockton-on-Tees invested considerably during the early 19th century in straightening the Tees in order to improve navigation on the river downstream of the town and was subsequently looking for ways to increase trade to recoup those costs.

A few years later, a canal was proposed on a route that bypassed Darlington and Yarm, and a meeting was held in Yarm to oppose the route.[4] The Welsh engineer George Overton was consulted, and he advised building a tramroad. Overton carried out a survey[5] and planned a route from the Etherley and Witton Collieries to Shildon, and then passing to the north of Darlington to reach Stockton. The Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson was said to favour the railway, and the Quaker Edward Pease supported it at a public meeting in Darlington on 13 November 1818, promising a five per cent return on investment.[6][7] Approximately two-thirds of the shares were sold locally, and the rest were bought by Quakers nationally.[8][note 1][note 2] A private bill was presented to Parliament in March 1819, but as the route passed through Earl of Eldon's estate and one of the Earl of Darlington's fox coverts, it was opposed and defeated by 13 votes.[11]

Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1821
Act of Parliament
 
Citation1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. xliv

Overton surveyed a new line that avoided Darlington's estate and agreement was reached with Eldon, but another application was deferred early in 1820, as the death of King George III had made it unlikely a bill would pass that parliamentary year. The promoters lodged a bill on 30 September 1820, the route having changed again as agreement had not been reached with Viscount Barrington about the line passing over his land.[12] The railway was unopposed this time, but the bill nearly failed to enter the committee stage as the required four-fifths of shares had not been sold. Pease subscribed £7,000; from that time he had considerable influence over the railway and it became known as "the Quaker line". The act that received royal assent on 19 April 1821 allowed for a railway that could be used by anyone with suitably built vehicles on payment of a toll, that was closed at night, and with which land owners within 5 miles (8 km) could build branches and make junctions;[13][14] no mention was made of steam locomotives.[15] This new railway initiated the construction of more railway lines, causing significant developments in railway mapping and cartography, iron and steel manufacturing, as well as in any industries requiring more efficient transportation.[16]

George Stephenson edit

Concerned about Overton's competence, Pease asked George Stephenson, an experienced enginewright of the collieries of Killingworth, to meet him in Darlington.[note 3] On 12 May 1821 the shareholders appointed Thomas Meynell as chairman and Jonathan Backhouse as treasurer; a majority of the managing committee, which included Thomas Richardson, Edward Pease and his son Joseph Pease, were Quakers. The committee designed a seal, showing waggons being pulled by a horse, and adopted the Latin motto Periculum privatum utilitas publica ("At private risk for public service").[18][19] By 23 July 1821 it had decided that the line would be a railway with edge rails, rather than a plateway, and appointed Stephenson to make a fresh survey of the line.[20] Stephenson recommended using malleable iron rails, even though he owned a share of the patent for the alternative cast iron rails, and both types were used.[21][note 5] Stephenson was assisted by his 18-year-old son Robert during the survey,[23] and by the end of 1821 had reported that a usable line could be built within the bounds of the act, but another route would be shorter by 3 miles (5 km) and avoid deep cuttings and tunnels.[24] Overton had kept himself available, but had no further involvement and the shareholders elected Stephenson Engineer on 22 January 1822, with a salary of £660 per year.[25] On 23 May 1822 a ceremony in Stockton celebrated the laying of the first track at St John's Well, the rails 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm) apart,[note 6] the same gauge used by Stephenson on his Killingworth Railway.[24]

 
Stephenson's iron bridge across the Gaunless

Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1823
Act of Parliament
 
Citation4 Geo. 4. c. xxxiii
Dates
Royal assent23 May 1823
Other legislation
Repealed byStockton and Darlington Railway (Consolidation of Acts, Increase of Capital and Purchase of Middlesbrough Dock) Act 1849
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Stephenson advocated the use of steam locomotives on the line.[15] Pease visited Killingworth in mid-1822[28] and the directors visited Hetton colliery railway, on which Stephenson had introduced steam locomotives.[29] A new bill was presented, requesting Stephenson's deviations from the original route and the use of "loco-motives or moveable engines", and this received assent on 23 May 1823.[30] The line included embankments up to 48 feet (15 m) high, and Stephenson designed an iron truss bridge to cross the River Gaunless. The Skerne Bridge over the River Skerne was designed by the Durham architect Ignatius Bonomi.[31][note 7]

In 1823, Stephenson and Pease opened Robert Stephenson and Company, a locomotive works at Forth Street, Newcastle, from which the following year the S&DR ordered two steam locomotives and two stationary engines.[33] On 16 September 1825, with the stationary engines in place, the first locomotive, Locomotion No. 1, left the works, and the following day it was advertised that the railway would open on 27 September 1825.[34]

Opening edit

 
The opening procession of the Stockton and Darlington Railway crosses the Skerne bridge

The cost of building the railway had greatly exceeded the estimates. By September 1825, the company had borrowed £60,000 in short-term loans and needed to start earning an income to ward off its creditors. A railway coach, named Experiment,[note 8] arrived on the evening of 26 September 1825 and was attached to Locomotion No. 1, which had been placed on the rails for the first time at Aycliffe Lane station following the completion of its journey by road from Newcastle earlier that same day. Pease, Stephenson and other members of the committee then made an experimental journey to Darlington before taking the locomotive and coach to Shildon in preparation for the opening day, with James Stephenson, George's elder brother, at the controls.[36] On 27 September, between 7 am and 8 am, 12 waggons of coal[note 9] were drawn up Etherley North Bank by a rope attached to the stationary engine at the top, and then let down the South Bank to St Helen's Auckland. A waggon of flour bags was attached and horses hauled the train across the Gaunless Bridge to the bottom of Brusselton West Bank, where thousands watched the second stationary engine draw the train up the incline. The train was let down the East Bank to Mason's Arms Crossing at Shildon Lane End, where Locomotion No. 1, Experiment and 21 new coal waggons fitted with seats were waiting.[40]

The directors had allowed room for 300 passengers, but the train left carrying between 450 and 600 people, most travelling in empty waggons but some on top of waggons full of coal. Brakesmen were placed between the waggons, and the train set off, led by a man on horseback with a flag. It picked up speed on the gentle downward slope and reached 10 to 12 miles per hour (16 to 19 km/h), leaving behind men on field hunters (horses) who had tried to keep up with the procession. The train stopped when the waggon carrying the company surveyors and engineers lost a wheel; the waggon was left behind and the train continued. The train stopped again, this time for 35 minutes to repair the locomotive and the train set off again, reaching 15 mph (24 km/h) before it was welcomed by an estimated 10,000 people as it came to a stop at the Darlington branch junction. Eight and a half miles (14 km) had been covered in two hours, and subtracting the 55 minutes accounted by the two stops, it had travelled at an average speed of 8 mph (13 km/h). Six waggons of coal were distributed to the poor, workers stopped for refreshments and many of the passengers from Brusselton alighted at Darlington, to be replaced by others.[41][42]

Two waggons for the Yarm Band were attached, and at 12:30 pm the locomotive started for Stockton, now hauling 31 vehicles with 550 passengers. On the 5 miles (8 km) of nearly level track east of Darlington the train struggled to reach more than 4 mph (6.4 km/h). At Eaglescliffe near Yarm crowds waited for the train to cross the Stockton to Yarm turnpike. Approaching Stockton, running alongside the turnpike as it skirted the western edge of Preston Park, it gained speed and reached 15 mph (24 km/h) again, before a man clinging to the outside of a waggon fell off and his foot was crushed by the following vehicle. As work on the final section of track to Stockton's quayside was still ongoing, the train halted at the temporary passenger terminus at St John's Well 3 hours, 7 minutes after leaving Darlington. The opening ceremony was considered a success and that evening 102 people sat down to a celebratory dinner at the Town Hall.[43]

Early operations edit

The railway that opened in September 1825 was 25 miles (40 km) long and ran from Phoenix Pit, Old Etherley Colliery, to Cottage Row, Stockton; there was also a 1⁄2 mile (800 m) branch to the depot at Darlington, 1⁄2 mile (800 m) of the Hagger Leases branch, and a 3⁄4 mile (1,200 m) branch to Yarm.[44] Most of the track used 28 pounds per yard (13.9 kg/m) malleable iron rails, and 4 miles (6.4 km) of 57+1⁄2 lb/yd (28.5 kg/m) cast iron rails were used for junctions.[45] The line was single track with four passing loops each mile;[46] square sleepers supported each rail separately so that horses could walk between them.[31] Stone was used for the sleepers to the west of Darlington and oak to the east; Stephenson would have preferred all of them to have been stone, but the transport cost was too high as they were quarried in the Auckland area.[47] The railway opened with the company owing money and unable to raise further loans; Pease advanced money twice early in 1826 so the workers could be paid. By August 1827 the company had paid its debts and was able to raise more money; that month the Black Boy branch opened and construction began on the Croft and Hagger Leases branches. During 1827 shares rose from £120 at the start to £160 at the end.[48]

 
The route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1827, shown in black, with today's railway lines shown in red

The line was initially used to carry coal to Darlington and Stockton, carrying 10,000 tons[note 10] in the first three months and earning nearly £2,000. In Stockton, the price of coal dropped from 18 to 12 shillings, and by the beginning of 1827 was 8 shillings 6 pence (8s 6d).[49][note 4] At first, the drivers had been paid a daily wage, but after February 1826 they were paid 1⁄4d per ton per mile; from this they had to pay assistants and fireman and to buy coal for the locomotive.[50] The 1821 Act had received opposition from the owners of collieries on the River Wear who supplied London and feared competition, and it had been necessary to restrict the rate for transporting coal destined for ships to 1⁄2d per ton per mile, which had been assumed would make the business uneconomic. There was interest from London for 100,000 tons a year, so the company began investigations in September 1825. In January 1826, the first staith[note 11] opened at Stockton, designed so waggons over a ship's hold could discharge coal from the bottom.[52] About 18,500 tons of coal was transported to ships in the year ending June 1827, and this increased to over 52,000 tons the following year, 44.5% of the total carried.[53]

The locomotives were unreliable at first. Soon after opening, Locomotion No. 1 broke a wheel, and it was not ready for traffic until 12 or 13 October; Hope, the second locomotive, arrived in November 1825 but needed a week to ready it for the line – the cast-iron wheels were a source of trouble.[54] Two more locomotives of a similar design arrived in 1826; that August, 16s 9d was spent on ale to motivate the men maintaining the engines.[54] By the end of 1827, the company had also bought Chittaprat from Robert Wilson and Experiment from Stephenson. Timothy Hackworth, locomotive superintendent, used the boiler from the unsuccessful Chittaprat to build the Royal George in the works at Shildon; it started work at the end of November.[55] John Wesley Hackworth later published an account[note 12] stating that locomotives would have been abandoned were it not for the fact that Pease and Thomas Richardson were partners with Stephenson in the Newcastle works, and that when Timothy Hackworth was commissioned to rebuild Chittaprat it was "as a last experiment" to "make an engine in his own way".[57][58] Both Tomlinson and Rolt[note 13] state this claim was unfounded and the company had shown earlier that locomotives were superior to horses, Tomlinson showing that coal was being moved using locomotives at half the cost of horses. Robert Young[note 14] states that the company was unsure as to the real costs as they reported to shareholders in 1828 that the saving using locomotives was 30 per cent. Young also showed that Pease and Richardson were both concerned about their investment in the Newcastle works and Pease unsuccessfully tried to sell his share to George Stephenson.[59]

New locomotives were ordered from Stephenson's, but the first was too heavy when it arrived in February 1828. It was rebuilt with six wheels and hailed as a great improvement, Hackworth being told to convert the remaining locomotives as soon as possible. In 1828, two locomotive boilers exploded within four months, both killing the driver and both due to the safety valves being left fixed down while the engine was stationary.[60] Horses were also used on the line, and they could haul up to four waggons. The dandy waggon was introduced in mid-1828; it was a small cart at the end of the train that carried the horse downhill, allowing it to rest while the train descended under gravity. The S&DR made their use compulsory from November 1828.[46][61]

 
The Union coach as shown in an advertisement

Passenger traffic started on 10 October 1825, after the required licence was purchased, using the Experiment coach hauled by a horse. The coach was initially timetabled to travel from Stockton to Darlington in two hours, with a fare of 1s, and made a return journey four days a week and a one-way journey on Tuesdays and Saturdays. In April 1826, the operation of the coach was contracted for £200 a year; by then the timetabled journey time had been reduced to 1 hour 15 minutes, and passengers were allowed to travel on the outside for 9d. A more comfortable coach, Express, started the same month and charged 1s 6d for travel inside.[62] Innkeepers began running coaches, two to Shildon from July, and the Union, which served the Yarm branch from 16 October.[63] There were no stations:[64] in Darlington the coaches picked up passengers near the north road crossing, whereas in Stockton they picked up at different places on the quay.[65] Between 30,000 and 40,000 passengers were carried between July 1826 and June 1827.[66]

Founding of Middlesbrough edit

The export of coal had become the railway's main business, but the staiths at Stockton had inadequate storage and the size of ships was limited by the depth of the Tees. A branch from Stockton to Haverton, on the north bank of the Tees, was proposed in 1826, and the engineer Thomas Storey proposed a shorter and cheaper line to Middlesbrough, south of the Tees in July 1827. Later approved by George Stephenson, this plan was ratified by the shareholders on 26 October.[67][68] The Tees Navigation Company was about to improve the river and proposed that the railway delay application to Parliament, but, despite opposition, at a meeting in January 1828 it was decided to proceed.[67][69] A more direct northerly route from Auckland to the Tees had been considered since 1819, and the Tees & Weardale Railway had applied unsuccessfully to Parliament for permission for such a line in 1823, 1824 and 1825.[67][70] This now became a 11+1⁄2-mile (18.5 km) line linking Simpasture on the S&DR's line near today's Newton Aycliffe station with Haverton and Stockton, via a route that was 6 miles (10 km) shorter than via the route of the S&DR, and named the Clarence Railway in honour of the Duke of Clarence, later King William IV. Meetings held in Stockton in early 1828 supported the Tees Navigation and the Clarence Railway,[71] but the S&DR received permission for its branch on 23 May 1828 after promising to complete the Hagger Leases Branch and to build a bridge across the Tees at least 72 feet (22 m) wide and 19 feet (5.8 m) above low water, so as not to affect shipping.[72] Two members of the management committee resigned, as they felt that Stockton would be adversely affected by the line, and Meynell, the S&DR chairman, stepped down from leadership.[73] The Clarence Railway was approved a few days later, with the same gauge as the S&DR.[74] The route of the Clarence Railway was afterwards amended to reach Samphire Batts, later known as Port Clarence,[75] and traffic started in August 1833; by the middle of 1834 Port Clarence had opened and 28 miles (45 km) of line was in use.[76] The S&DR charged the 2+1⁄4d per ton per mile landsale rate for coal it carried the 10 miles (16 km) from the collieries to Simpasture for forwarding to Port Clarence, rather than the lower shipping rate.[77] By July 1834, the Exchequer Loan Commissioners had taken control of the Clarence Railway.[76]

 
The suspension bridge over the Tees

The Croft branch opened in October 1829.[78] Construction of the suspension bridge across the Tees started in July 1829, but was suspended in October after the Tees Navigation Company pointed out the S&DR had no permission to cross the Old Channel of the Tees. The S&DR prepared to return to Parliament but withdrew after a design for a drawbridge was agreed with the Navigation Company.[79] The line to Middlesbrough was laid with malleable iron rails weighing 33 lb/yd (16 kg/m), resting on oak blocks.[80] The suspension bridge had been designed to carry 150 tons, but the cast iron retaining plates split when it was tested with just 66 tons and loaded trains had to cross with the waggons split into groups of four linked by a 9-yard-long (8.2 m) chain.[81][82] For the opening ceremony on 27 December 1830, "Globe", a new locomotive designed by Hackworth for passenger trains, hauled people in carriages and waggons fitted with seats across the bridge to the staiths at Port Darlington, which had berths for six ships.[83] Stockton continued to be served by a station on the line to the quay until 1848, when it was replaced by a station on the Middlesbrough line on the other side of the Tees.[84] Before May 1829, Thomas Richardson had bought about 500 acres (200 ha) near Port Darlington, and with Joseph and Edward Pease and others he formed the Owners of the Middlesbrough Estate to develop it.[85][86] Middlesbrough had only a few houses before the coming of the railway,[87] but a year later had a population of over 2,000 and at the 2011 census had over 138,000 people.[88][89]

Railway improvements edit

 
S&DR offices in Darlington

In 1830, the company opened new offices at the corner of Northgate and Union Street in Darlington.[90] Between 1831 and 1832 a second track was laid between Stockton and the foot of Brusselton Bank. Workshops were built at Shildon for the maintenance and construction of locomotives.[91] In 1830 approximately 50 horses shared the traffic with 19 locomotives, but travelled at different speeds, so to help regulate traffic horse-drawn trains were required to operate in groups of four or five. This had led to horses, startled by a passing locomotive and coming off their dandy cart, being run down by the following train. On one occasion a driver fell asleep in the dandy cart of the preceding train and his horse, no longer being led, came to a stop and was run down by a locomotive. The rule book stated that locomotive-hauled trains had precedence over horse-drawn trains, but some horse drivers refused to give way and on one occasion a locomotive had to follow a horse-drawn train for over 2 miles (3 km).[92][93] The committee decided in 1828 to replace horses with locomotives on the main line, starting with the coal trains, but there was resistance from some colliery owners. After the S&DR bought out the coach companies in August 1832, a mixed passenger and small goods service began between Stockton and Darlington on 7 September 1833, travelling at 12–14 miles per hour (19–23 km/h); locomotive-hauled services began to Shildon in December 1833 and to Middlesbrough on 7 April 1834.[94][95] The company had returned the five per cent dividend that had been promised by Edward Pease, and this had increased to eight per cent by the time he retired in 1832.[96] When the treasurer Jonathan Backhouse retired in 1833 to become a Quaker minister, he was replaced by Joseph Pease.[97]

The way north edit

Great North of England Railway edit

 
The north entrance to Shildon Tunnel, which opened in 1842

On 13 October 1835, the York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was formed to connect York to London by a line to a junction with the planned North Midland Railway.[98] Representatives of the Y&NMR and S&DR met two weeks later and formed the Great North of England Railway (GNER),[99] a line from York to Newcastle that used the route of the 1+1⁄2-mile (2.4 km) Croft branch at Darlington.[100] The railway was to be built in sections, and to allow both to open at the same time permission for the more difficult line through the hills from Darlington to Newcastle was to be sought in 1836 and a bill for the easier line south of Darlington to York presented the following year. Pease specified a formation wide enough for four tracks, so freight could be carried at 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and passengers at 60 mph (97 km/h), and George Stephenson had drawn up detailed plans by November.[101] The Act for the 34+1⁄2 miles (55.5 km) from Newcastle to Darlington was given royal assent on 4 July 1836, but little work had been done by the time the 43 miles (69 km) from Croft to York received permission on 12 July the following year. In August a general meeting decided to start work on the southern section, but construction was delayed, and after several bridges collapsed the engineer Thomas Storey was replaced by Robert Stephenson.[102][103] The S&DR sold its Croft branch to the GNER,[104] and the railway opened for coal traffic on 4 January 1841 using S&DR locomotives. The railway opened to passengers with its own locomotives on 30 March.[102][103]

Between November 1841 and February 1842, the S&DR introduced a service between Darlington and Coxhoe, on the Clarence Railway, where an omnibus took passengers the 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) to the Durham & Sunderland Railway at Shincliffe.[105] Early in 1842, the nominally independent Shildon Tunnel Company opened its 1,225-yard (1,120 m) tunnel through the hills at Shildon to the Wear basin and after laying 2 miles (3.2 km) of track to South Church station, south of Bishop Auckland, opened in May 1842.[106] In 1846, the S&DR installed Alexander Bain's "I and V" electric telegraph to regulate the passage of trains through the tunnel.[107] The SD&R provided a 3+1⁄4 hour service between Darlington and Newcastle, with a four-horse omnibus from South Church to Rainton Meadows on the Durham Junction Railway, from where trains ran to Gateshead, on the south side of the River Tyne near Newcastle.[108]

Railway operations in the 1830s edit

By 1839, the track had been upgraded with rails weighing 64 lb/yd (32 kg/m).[109] The railway had about 30 steam locomotives, most of them six coupled,[110] that ran with four-wheeled tenders with two water butts, each capable of holding 600 imperial gallons (2,700 L; 720 US gal) of water.[111] The line descended from Shildon to Stockton, assisting the trains that carried coal to the docks at a maximum speed of 6 mph (9.7 km/h); the drivers were fined if caught travelling faster than 8 mph (13 km/h),[112] and one was dismissed for completing the forty-mile return journey in 4+1⁄2 hours.[113] On average there were about 40 coal trains a day, hauling 28 waggons with a weight of 116 tons.[114] There were about 5,000 privately owned waggons, and at any one time about 1,000 stood at Shildon depot.[115]

 
One of several six coupled steam locomotives operated by the railway.

The railway had modern passenger locomotives, some with four wheels.[116] There were passenger stations at Stockton, Middlesbrough, Darlington, Shildon and West Auckland, and trains also stopped at Middlesbrough Junction, Yarm Junction, Fighting Cocks and Heighington.[117] Some of the modified road coaches were still in use, but there were also modern railway carriages, some first class with three compartments each seating eight passengers, and second class carriages that seated up to 40.[117][note 15] Luggage and sometimes the guard travelled on the carriage roof;[119] a passenger travelling third class suffered serious injuries after falling from the roof in 1840.[120] Passenger trains averaged 22–25 mph (35–40 km/h), and a speed of 42 mph (68 km/h) was recorded. Over 200,000 passengers were carried in the year to 1 October 1838,[110] and in 1839 there were twelve trains each day between Middlesbrough and Stockton, six trains between Stockton and Darlington, and three between Darlington and Shildon, where a carriage was fitted with Rankine's self-acting brake, taken over the Brussleton Inclines, and then drawn by a horse to St Helen Auckland.[121] The Bradshaw's railway guide for March 1843, after South Church opened, shows five services a day between Darlington and South Church via Shildon, with three between Shildon and St Helens. Also listed were six trains between Stockton and Hartlepool via Seaton[122] over the Clarence Railway and the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway that had opened in 1841.[123]

By this time, Port Darlington had become overwhelmed by the volume of imports and exports and work started in 1839 on Middlesbrough Dock, which had been laid out by William Cubitt, capable of holding 150 ships, and built by resident civil engineer George Turnbull.[89] The suspension bridge across the Tees was replaced by a cast iron bridge on masonry piers in 1841.[124] After three years and an expenditure of £122,000 (equivalent to £9.65m at 2011 prices), the formal opening of the new dock took place on 12 May 1842.[125][89] The S&DR provided most of the finance, and the dock was absorbed by the company in 1849.[126]

Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway edit

 
The N&DJR crossed the Sherburn with a timber viaduct

The GNER had authority for a railway from York to Newcastle; it opened to Darlington in 1841 having spent all of its authorised capital and could not start work on the extension to Newcastle. At the time Parliament was considering the route of a railway between England and Scotland and favoured a railway via the west coast. Railway financier George Hudson chaired a meeting of representatives of north-eastern railways that wished a railway to be built via the east coast.[127] In the 1830s a number of railways had opened in the area between Darlington and Newcastle, and Robert Stephenson was engaged to select a route using these railways as much as possible. The Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway (N&DJR) differed slightly from the GNER route in the southern section before joining the Durham Junction Railway at Rainton and using the Pontop & South Shields Railway from Washington to Brockley Whins, where a new curve onto the Brandling Junction Railway allowed direct access to Gateshead. This required the construction of 25+1⁄2 miles (41.0 km) of new line, 9 miles (14 km) less than the GNER route, but trains would need to travel 7+1⁄2 miles (12.1 km) further.[128]

This route ran parallel to S&DR lines for 5 miles (8.0 km) and Pease argued that it should run over these as it would add only 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km).[128] The bill was presented unchanged to Parliament in 1842, and was opposed by the S&DR. Despite this, the Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway Act received royal assent on 18 June 1842, and a second Act the following year secured the deviations from the GNER route in the south recommended by Stephenson.[108][129] After the opening celebration on 18 June 1844, through services ran from London to Gateshead the following day.[130]

The N&DJR made an offer to lease the GNER and buy it within five years, and GNER shares increased in value by 44 per cent as the N&DJR took over on 1 July 1845; the N&DJR became part of the larger York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) in 1847.[131]

Wear Valley Railway edit

 
The Wear Valley Railway in 1847
 
Preferential share certificate of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, issued 24. September 1858

Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway Act 1837
Act of Parliament
 
Long titleAn Act for incorporating certain Persons for the making and maintaining a Railway from near the Black Boy Branch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the Township of Saint Andrew Auckland to or near to Wilton Park Colliery, with a Branch therefrom, all in the County of Durham, to be called "The Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway."
Citation7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. cxxii
Dates
Royal assent15 July 1837
Other legislation
Repealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858
Status: Repealed

The Bishop Auckland & Weardale Railway (BA&WR) received permission in July 1837 to build an 8+1⁄4-mile (13.3 km) line from South Church to Crook. The line opened on 8 November 1843 with a station at Bishop Auckland.[132][133]

The Stanhope and Tyne Railway, a 33+3⁄4-mile (54.3 km) line between South Shields and Stanhope had opened in 1834.[134] Steam locomotives worked the section east of Annfield, and in the western section inclines were worked by stationary engines or gravity, with horses hauling waggons over level track.[135] The lime kilns and the line between Stanhope and Carrhouse closed in 1840, and with the Stanhope to Annfield section losing money, the insolvent railway company was dissolved on 5 February 1841. The northern section became the Pontop and South Shields Railway and the southern section from Stanhope to Carrhouse was bought by the newly formed Derwent Iron Company at Consett,[136][137] renamed the Wear & Derwent Railway, and used to transport limestone from quarries in the Stanhope area to its works at Consett.[138] The Weardale Extension Railway ran from Waskerley on the Wear & Derwent to Crook on the BA&WR and included the Sunniside Incline worked by a stationary engine. Sponsored by the Derwent Iron Company, the 10-mile (16 km) line was built by the S&DR and opened on 16 May 1845.[139][140] A passenger service started to Hownes Gill and Stanhope (Crawley) on 1 September 1845; the Stanhope service was withdrawn at the end of 1846.[141] Travelling north from Crook the carriages and waggons were drawn up the Sunniside Incline, a locomotive hauled the mixed train to Waskerley Park Junction, then they were let down Nanny Mayor's Incline and a locomotive took them forward. When returning, regulations required that the carriages run loose down the Sunniside Incline and they were let to run into Crook station, controlled by the guard using the carriage brakes.[142] Later, a 730 feet (220 m) viaduct replaced the two inclines at Hownes Gill ravine on 1 July 1858.[143] A deviation replacing Nanny's Mayor's Incline, as well as a curve that allowed trains from Crook direct access to Rowley, was opened for freight on 23 May 1859 and for passenger traffic on 4 July 1859.[144]

Wear Valley Railway Act 1845
Act of Parliament
 
Long titleAn Act for making a Railway, to be called "The Wear Valley Railway," from and out of the Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway to Frosterley, with a Branch terminating at or near Bishopley Crag in Stan hope in Weardale, all in the County of Durham.
Citation8 & 9 Vict. c. clii
Dates
Royal assent31 July 1845
Other legislation
Repealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858
Status: Repealed

The Middlesbrough & Redcar Railway, a short extension to Redcar, received permission on 21 July 1845. The line branched off before the Middlesbrough terminus, which was closed and a new through station opened with the line on 4 June 1846.[145][84] Also authorised in July 1845 was the Wear Valley Railway, a 12-mile (19 km) line[146] from the Bishop Auckland & Weardale line to Frosterley. The line opened on 3 August 1847, and the Act also gave the S&DR permission for the Bishopley branch, over which 500,000 tons of limestone travelled in 1868. The line was extended in 1862 from Frosterley to Stanhope.[147]

Just before the line opened on 22 July 1847, the Wear Valley Railway absorbed the Shildon Tunnel, Bishop Auckland & Weardale Railway, Weardale Extension Railway and Wear & Derwent Railway[148] and then the S&DR leased the Wear Valley Railway and Middlesbrough & Redcar Railways for 999 years. This required a payment of £47,000 each year, exceeding the SD&R's net revenue;[149] traffic from the Derwent Iron Company was reduced during a period of financial difficulty and the Black Boy colliery switched to sending its coal to Hartlepool.[150] No dividend was paid in 1848 and the next few years;[151] lease payments were made out of reserves.[149] The S&DR announced a bill in November 1848 to permit a lease by and amalgamation with the YN&BR, but this was withdrawn after the YN&BR share price crashed and its chairman Hudson resigned after questions were raised about his share dealings.[152] In 1850 the S&DR had share capital of £250,000 but owed £650,000, most of this without the authority of Parliament until 1849; the debt was converted into shares in 1851.[153]

Cleveland iron ore edit

In mid-1850, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan discovered a seam of iron ore at Eston. They opened a mine, laid a branch line to the Middlesbrough & Redcar Railway and started hauling ironstone over the S&DR to their blast furnaces west of Bishop Auckland. By 1851, Derwent Iron had opened a mine in the area and began moving ironstone 54 miles (87 km) to Consett,[154] and the S&DR had paid the arrears on its debt and was able to pay a dividend the following year, albeit only 4 per cent; between 1849 and 1853 the traffic more than doubled.[155][note 16]

In 1852, the Leeds Northern Railway (LNR) built a line from Northallerton to a junction with the Stockton to Hartlepool line and a section of the route ran parallel to the S&DR alongside the Yarm to Stockton Road. The S&DR was originally on the east side of the road, but the LNR built its line with four tracks on the other side of the road, leasing two to the S&DR for a rental of 1s a year. On 25 January 1853, the LNR and SD&R opened a joint station at Eaglescliffe with an island platform between the tracks, and one side was used by S&DR trains and the other by the LNR. Rather than allow trains to approach the platform line from either direction, the Board of Trade inspecting officer ruled that trains approaching on a line without a platform must first pass through and then reverse into the platform line.[157]

 
The railways in Cleveland in 1863, the Cleveland Railway shown in red

Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway Act 1852
Act of Parliament
 
Citation15 & 16 Vict. c. lxxiii
Dates
Royal assent17 June 1852
Other legislation
Repealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

The Middlesbrough & Guisborough Railway, with two branches into the iron-rich hills, was approved by Parliament on 17 June 1852; Pease had to guarantee dividends to raise the finance needed. The 9+1⁄2-mile (15.3 km) single-track railway was worked by the S&DR, and opened to minerals on 11 November 1853 and passengers on 25 February 1854. With electric telegraph installed between stations, passenger trains were not permitted to leave a station until confirmation had been received that the line was clear.[154][158]

Stockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858
Act of Parliament
 
Citation21 & 22 Vict. c. cxvi

By 1857, a blast furnace had opened close to the Durham coalfield on the north side of the Tees. Backed by the rival West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway, the Durham & Cleveland Union Railway proposed a line from the mines in Skinningrove and Staithes, via Guisborough and a bridge over the Middlesbrough & Redcar Railway to a jetty at Cargo Fleet, from where a ferry would carry the ore across the Tees to the blast furnaces. When the proposal was before Parliament the S&DR suggested that their Middlesbrough & Redcar could be extended to Saltburn, and the Tees crossed by a swing bridge. The Cleveland Railway received permission for a line from Skinningrove as far as Guisborough, and the S&DR permission for an extension to Saltburn and a branch to a mine at Skelton. This Stockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858 (21 & 22 Vict. c. cxvi) also authorised the merger of the S&DR with the railways it held on lease.[159]

An application to Parliament for a jetty in the following year was unsuccessful,[160] but in 1860 the Upsall, Normanby & Ormesby Railway received permission for a line with access to the river, the S&DR claim of exclusive rights to the foreshore having been rejected.[161] The jetty was also opposed by the Tees Conservancy Commissioners and they moored barges along the foreshore to obstruct construction. In what became known as the Battle of the Tees, a fight broke out when a steam tug sent by the Commissioners interrupted men moving the barges. The barges were successfully moved, but a more serious fight developed the following night when three of the Commissioners' steam tugs arrived. The police then kept watch on the works until they were finished.[162]

Henry Pease, a S&DR director and Quaker, visited his brother Joseph in mid-1859 at his house by the sea at Marske-by-the-Sea. Returning late for dinner, he explained he had walked to Saltburn, then a group of fisherman's cottages, where he had had a "sort of prophetic vision" of a town with gardens. With other S&DR directors he planned the town, with gardens and Zetland Hotel by the station, and bought a house at 5 Britannia Terrace, where he stayed for a few weeks every summer.[163] The extension opened in 1861, a station on the through line replacing the terminus at Redcar.[160][164]

Over Stainmore edit

Main articles: South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway and Eden Valley Railway

A railway to serve Barnard Castle, from the S&DR at a junction near North Road station and along the River Tees, was proposed in 1852; this route bypassed as far as possible the Duke of Cleveland's estate, as he had opposed an earlier railway. An application that year failed, but the Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway Act 1854 was given royal assent on 3 July 1854 and the 15+1⁄4-mile (24.5 km) railway opened on 8 July 1856.[165]

 
The SD&LUR viaduct over the Tees Valley in 1858

Cleveland iron ore is high in phosphorus and needs to be mixed with purer ores, such as those on the west coast in Cumberland and Lancashire.[166] In the early 1850s, this ore was travelling the long way round over the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway to the Barrow-in-Furness area, and Durham coke was returning.[167] Both the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway (SD&LUR) and the Eden Valley Railway (EVR) companies were formed on 20 September 1856. Taking advantage of the new railway at Barnard Castle, the SD&LUR crossed the Pennines via Kirkby Stephen to meet the West Coast Main Line (WCML) at Tebay, on the section then controlled by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, and also linked Barnard Castle with West Auckland. The EVR was a branch from Kirkby Stephen to the WCML near Penrith via Appleby. The routes were surveyed by Thomas Bouch and SD&LUR received permission on 13 July 1857. The EVR route followed the east bank of the River Eden, a mile longer than a more expensive route on the west bank, and its act received royal assent on 21 May 1858.[167]

Bouch had laid out an economical route that followed the contours and avoided tunnels, but there were formidable gradients up to the 1,370-foot-high (420 m) Stainmore Summit. Land for two tracks was purchased, and a single track line was laid; valleys were crossed by viaducts, three made from wrought iron, including the Belah Viaduct, 1,040 feet (320 m) long and 196 feet (60 m) high.[168][169] A new station was built to replace the terminus at Barnard Castle.[170] A mineral train ran between Barnard Castle and Barras on 26 March 1861, and mineral traffic worked through to Tebay from 4 July 1861. There was an opening ceremony on 7 August 1861 and the SD&LUR west of Barnard Castle opened to passengers the following day.[171] Two 4-4-0 locomotives with enclosed cabs had been built for the line in 1860 by Stephenson and Co,[172] and the S&DR worked traffic from the start: two return services a day were provided for passengers. The EVR opened to mineral traffic on 8 April 1862 and passengers on 9 June 1862, to the south-facing junction at Clifton (later Clifton & Lowther). The S&DR had presented a bill in 1861 to provide better connections for passengers on the WCML by extending the line up to Penrith, and to link up with the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway to provide access for mineral traffic to Cumberland. The L&CR agreed to allow the S&DR running rights over its line and services were extended to Penrith from 1 August 1863.[171][173]

Progress and amalgamation edit

 
Christmas Day timetable for 1856

In 1854, there were five or six trains a day between Darlington and Redcar and three a day between Darlington and Frosterley. Travelling at average speeds of 19–24 miles per hour (31–39 km/h), passengers were charged from 1d per mile for third class to 2.2d per mile for first.[174] Horses were still used on trains in the mid-1850s: a horse-drawn coach was still independently operated between Middlesbrough and Stockton in 1854 on Sundays, as the only S&DR services that run on that day were the mail trains,[175] and locomotives replaced horses on passenger trains to West Auckland in 1856.[148][note 17] The S&DR opened a carriage works south of Darlington North Road station in 1853[176] and later it built a locomotive works nearby to replace its works at Shildon. Designed by William Bouch, who had taken over from Hackworth as Locomotive Supervisor in 1840, it completed its first locomotive in 1864.[177][178] In 1858 the Brusselton Inclines were bypassed by a line from the north end of Shildon Tunnel; the same year a passenger service started on the Hagger Leases branch and a mineral line opened from Crook via two inclines to Waterhouse. The section of the SD&LUR between West Auckland and Barnard Castle opened for minerals in July 1863 and passengers on 1 August 1863, together with a direct line from Bishop Auckland to West Auckland. Stations at Evenwood and Cockfield replaced stations on the Hagger Leases branch.[171][179]

 
The seal of the North Eastern Railway

In 1859, a company had been formed to link the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway with the SD&R via the Derwent Valley; by 1860 this had grown into the Newcastle, Derwent & Weardale Railway, which now bypassed the SD&R and linked with the SD&LUR, and the North British and London and North Western (LNWR) railways were providing two-thirds of the capital. The LNWR proposed to build warehouses in Hartlepool and buy shares in the West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway.[180] The North Eastern Railway (NER), formed in 1854 by amalgamation, at the time was the largest railway company in the country and controlled the East Coast Main Line from Knottingley, south of York, through Darlington to Berwick-upon-Tweed.[181] When they approached the S&DR with a proposal to merge, the directors deciding they preferred a merger with the NER than eventually becoming part of the LNWR, entered negotiations.[182] Opposed by the NER, the Newcastle, Derwent & Weardale Railway bill was approved by the House of Commons in 1861, but the line was eventually rejected by the House of Lords.[183][184] The SD&LUR and EVR were absorbed by the S&DR on 30 June 1862.[185]

With 200 route miles (320 km) of line and about 160 locomotives,[186] the Stockton and Darlington Railway became part of the North Eastern Railway on 13 July 1863. Due to a clause in the Act, the railway was managed as the independent Darlington Section until 1876, when the lines became the NER's Central Division.[187][188] After the restoration of the dividend in 1851, by the end of 1854 payments had recovered to 8 per cent and then had not dropped below 7+1⁄2 per cent.[151]

Later history edit

The NER had built a branch in the late 1850s from Durham to Bishop Auckland, but used a separate station in the town until December 1867, when all services began to use the S&DR station. The Sunniside Incline was replaced by a deviation, albeit with gradients of 1 in 51 and 1 in 52, which opened for mineral traffic on 10 April 1867 and for passengers on 2 March 1868;[189] after 1868 trains on this line were extended to serve Benfieldside station (later known as Blackhill and then Consett).[190] In Cleveland, a branch from Nunthorpe to Battersby opened on 1 June 1864; passengers were carried from 1 April 1868.[191] A branch from Barnard Castle to Middleton-in-Teesdale opened on 12 May 1868.[192]

The locomotive works at Darlington operated independently under Bouch until 1875, the locomotives having been renumbered by the NER a few years earlier. A variety of locomotives were used, the most common type were the 0-6-0s used on mineral trains. Later locomotives were of the Stephenson long boilered type. Most passenger locomotives were 2-4-0s, though some were 2-2-2s. Bouch designed two 4-4-0 locomotives for the line over Stainmore in 1860, and another fourteen with this wheel arrangement had been built by 1874.[193][194] S&DR services and those on the ECML called at different stations in Darlington until 1887, when S&DR trains were diverted through a rebuilt Darlington Bank Top station, rejoining the route to Stockton from a junction south of Darlington and a new line to Oak Tree Junction.[195][196] An extension from Stanhope to Wearhead opened in 1895,[197] and the line over Stainmore to Tebay was doubled by the end of the century.[198]

 
The former S&DR, shown in red, as part of the larger NER network of 1904

From 1913 former S&DR lines were electrified with 1,500 VDC overhead lines and electric locomotives hauled coal trains between Shildon and Erimus Marshalling Yard, which had opened in 1908 between Middlesbrough and Thornaby. The trains took the former S&DR line from Shildon to Simpasture Junction, joining the former Clarence Railway line to Carlton, where a later line allowed access to the Stockton to Middlesbrough extension. The locomotives operated for 20 years, but then coal traffic had reduced, which made it uneconomical to maintain the electrification system.[199]

As a result of the Railways Act 1921, on 1 January 1923 the North Eastern Railway became the North Eastern area of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).[200][201] The passenger service was withdrawn north of Tow Law on 1 May 1939.[144] Britain's railways were nationalised on 1 January 1948 and the lines were placed under the control of British Railways.[200] In the early 1950s control was split between the North Eastern and London Midland regions with Kirkby Stephen as the boundary.[202] Local passenger trains were withdrawn between Kirkby Stephen and Tebay on 1 December 1952.[203] The service along Weardale was withdrawn on 29 June 1953[204] and services north of Crook on 11 June 1956.[144]

 
A diesel locomotive stands at Thornaby station in 1961

The 1955 Modernisation Plan, known formally as the "Modernisation and Re-Equipment of the British Railways", was published in December 1954. With the aim of increasing speed and reliability steam trains were replaced with electric and diesel traction.[205] From 1954 diesel multiple units took over passenger services in the north east except those on the ECML,[206] and were introduced to the line over Stainmore in February 1958.[202] The passenger service was withdrawn between Barnard Castle and Penrith on 20 January 1962,[207] and between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle on 12 June 1962.[208]

In 1963, Richard Beeching published his report The Reshaping of British Railways, which recommended closing the network's least used stations and lines. This included the remaining former S&DR lines except for the line between Darlington and Saltburn via Stockton and Middlesbrough.[209] Passenger service between Nunthorpe and Guisborough was withdrawn in 1964; the service between Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe was retained.[210] The line between Darlington and Barnard Castle and the branch to Middleton-in-Teesdale were closed to passengers on 30 November 1964.[211] Trains were withdrawn north of Bishop Auckland on 8 March 1965,[144] but the passenger service to Bishop Auckland was saved because of regional development concerns.[212]

Locomotives edit

Main article: Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington Railway

Accidents and incidents edit

  • On 5 March 1827, an unnamed woman described as "a blind American beggar" was fatally injured by a train on the railway. This was the first recorded death due to a railway locomotive, coming three years before the more widely reported death of William Huskisson at the Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.[213]
  • On 19 March 1828, the boiler of locomotive No. 5 exploded at Simpasture Junction. One of the two firemen was killed, the other severely scalded. The driver (George Stephenson's older brother) was unharmed.[214]
  • On 1 July 1828, the boiler of Locomotion No. 1 exploded at Aycliffe Lane station, killing the driver.[214]
  • On 4 April 1865 at Hartburn (Stockton), the 3:55 pm passenger train from Darlington to Saltburn collided with some chaldron wagons which had become detached from a Shildon to Middlesbrough coal train. Though this was not a serious accident it was to result in the S&DR adopting the block system, well before their colleagues at the NER headquarters in York felt this to be necessary. At a conference the next day attended by several company officials including Thomas MacNay and William Bouch it was noted that one of the options to achieve greater security was ‘to adopt the ‘block’ system of telegraph at intervals of 2 or 3 miles; that is not to allow an engine to pass any of such stations until it has been signalled that the previous train was past the station to which it was approaching.’[215]

Anniversary celebrations edit

 
The Exhibition of the Locomotives as shown in the Illustrated London News in 1875

The Stockton and Darlington was not the first railway and a train had previously carried passengers, but its opening in 1825 was seen as proof of the effectiveness of steam railways as a means of public transport.[216][note 18] A jubilee was held on 27 and 28 September 1875 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the world's first steam operated public railway: the Darlington North Road workshops housed a locomotive exhibition, a statue of Joseph Pease was unveiled in Darlington, his portrait presented to the Darlington Corporation and a banquet held.[218] Fifty years later centenary celebrations were held in July to allow guests from foreign countries visiting the International Railway Congress to take part. An exhibition of rolling stock at the new Faverdale Wagon Works in Darlington was opened by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and the Queen Mother).[219] The following day the royal couple watched as procession of locomotives passed between Stockton and Oak Tree Junction, starting with a Hetton Colliery locomotive that had been built in 1822 and finishing with a replica train of ten chaldron waggons and "the company's coach" hauled by Locomotive No.1 propelled by a petrol engine in a specially built tender.[220]

 
Locomotion No 1 at Shildon, 1975

A festival was held in Belle Vue, Manchester on 27 September 1925, a Sunday to allow railwaymen to attend, where a pageant showed how transport had changed through time, beginning with a group of ancient Britons dragging a log with their belongings on top and ending with Stephenson's Rocket; another procession included Locomotion No.1, propelled by its tender, and more modern locomotives.[221][222] On 31 August 1975, to celebrate the 150th anniversary, a cavalcade was held between Shildon and Heighington, where a replica of Locomotion headed a procession of locomotives, which was completed by the prototype high-speed train.[223] In the same year the National Railway Museum opened in York, combining exhibits from the former LNER museum in York, which had opened after the 1875 festivities, and from the National Transport Museum at Clapham.[219][224]

Legacy edit

Heritage edit

 
Skerne Bridge

At North Road, the station buildings and goods shed are Grade II* listed[225] as the Head of Steam museum.[226][227] Nearby, the former carriage works are now used as workshops for steam locomotives.[228] A little further east is Skerne Bridge, the oldest railway bridge in continuous use in the world. At Shildon is the Locomotion Museum, part of the National Railway Museum group, which contains heritage railway vehicles, including Locomotion No. 1. The site includes Timothy Hackworth's house, the Soho Workshop and a former coal drops,[229] which are listed buildings.[230] The heritage Weardale Railway runs special services over its line from Bishop Auckland to Eastgate-in-Weardale.[231]

On 14 June 2007, during excavations for road building, some of the original stone sleepers used by the railway in 1825 were discovered intact near Lingfield Point. The stones each weigh about 75 pounds (34 kg) and have bolt holes for the chairs that secured the rail. Officials involved in the road project hope to preserve the stones along a new bicycle path.[232]

Modern services edit

The current Tees Valley Line uses the most of the former Stockton and Darlington Railway between Bishop Auckland and Saltburn.[233] From Bishop Auckland the non-electrified line is single track to Shildon, double track to Heighington, and single track to the junction with the East Coast Main Line north of Darlington. This section is a Community Rail service called the Bishop line, and is sometimes known as the Heritage Line because of its links with the S&DR.[234] South of Darlington, trains take the 1887 line before joining the original 1825 route to Stockton at the site of Oak Tree Junction.[235] The line is 8 miles (13 km) to Eaglescliffe South Junction,[236] where the 1853 Leeds Northern route is taken through Eaglescliffe station to Stockton Cut Junction.[84][237] The non-electrified line then follows the S&DR route for 19 miles (31 km) to Saltburn, except for later deviations at Thornaby (1908) and Redcar (1978).[238][210] The former Middlesbrough & Guisborough Railway line is open between Guisborough Junction and Nunthorpe as part of the Community Rail Esk Valley Line to Whitby.[84][239]

 
Northern Rail diesel multiple unit on the Tees Valley Line at Redcar East

As of July 2016 a two train per hour off-peak service is provided by Northern between Saltburn and Darlington, and ten trains a day continue to Bishop Auckland. One train per hour leaves Middlesbrough going south to Manchester Airport via Yarm and another travels north to Newcastle via Sunderland. There are eighteen trains a day between Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe, and four of these continue to Whitby.[240][241] Tees Valley Unlimited, the local enterprise partnership, published in December 2013 its ambition to improve passenger services,[242] with the priority of an all day two trains an hour service over the Darlington to Saltburn and Nunthorpe to Hartlepool routes using new trains; additional platforms are needed at Darlington station to allow this service frequency.[243] A station serving James Cook University Hospital opened in May 2014.[244] A Hitachi train plant opened in September 2015 at Newton Aycliffe to build trains for the Intercity Express Programme.[245]

Notes and references edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ In the 19th century members of the Society of Friends travelled to attend regular meetings and came to know Quakers elsewhere, this leading to marriages and business partnerships. The Society of Friends published guidance on conduct that included honesty in business matters, and this gave Quakers the confidence to invest in the dealings of a devout member.[9]
  2. ^ "In the mean time, a bill is to be brought into Parliament to carry a rail-way from Bishop Auckland to Darlington and Stockton. Mr. Stevenson ... has been called ... to give an opinion as to the best line. The work is estimated at 120,000l., a great part of which is already subscribed."[10]
  3. ^ Smiles (1904, p. 150) indicates that Stephenson visited Pease uninvited, but Nicholas Wood, who had accompanied Stephenson, stated shortly after Stephenson's death that the meeting was by appointment.[17]
  4. ^ a b Before decimal currency was introduced there were 12 old pence (d) in a shilling (s) and 20s in a pound (£). One penny in 1825 was worth the same in 2021 as approximately 36p, and 1s about £4.37.[22]
  5. ^ Malleable iron rails cost £12 10s[note 4] and cast iron rails £6 15s per ton, but malleable iron rails could be less than half the weight for the same strength.[21]
  6. ^ Smiles (1904, p. 160) states that early tramroads had rails 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm) apart, but Tomlinson (1915, pp. 82–83) challenges this, stating that the most common gauge of the early tramroads and waggonways was about 4 ft (1,219 mm), and some, such as the Wylam waggonway, had the rails 5 ft (1,524 mm) apart. The gauge of the S&DR was given in early documents as 4 ft 8 in (1,422 mm), but the distance between the rails was later measured as 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), and this became the standard gauge used by 60 per cent of railways worldwide. The difference of 1⁄2 inch (13 mm) is a mystery.[26][27]
  7. ^ The Skerne bridge was shown on the reverse of the Series E five-pound note that featured George Stephenson, issued by the Bank of England between 1990 and 2003.[32] Allen (1974, p. 22) and Tomlinson (1915, pp. 93–95) state that Bonomi was directly appointed by the directors after Stephenson had ignored suggestions to consult him, but Rolt (1984, p. 75) does not mention this.
  8. ^ Smiles (1904, p. 166) has an image of this railway coach and describes it as "a somewhat uncouth machine", even though the Illustrated London News had discounted in 1875 an earlier publication of Smiles' image, stating that coach used on the opening day was a similar to a road coach.[35] Tomlinson (1915, pp. 109–110) describes the coach as having a table, cushioned seats and carpets, and criticises the Smiles image for the lack of roof seats, having the wheels outside the coach frame and says that the drawing in Smiles does not look like a vehicle that was built for £80 (approximately £7000 in 2021).[22]
  9. ^ These waggons (known as wagons after about 1830)[37] were designed to carry a Newcastle chaldron (pronounced chalder in Newcastle) of coal, about 53 long cwt (5,900 lb; 2,700 kg). This differed from the London chaldron, which was 36 bushels or 25+1⁄2 long cwt (2,860 lb; 1,300 kg).[38][39]
  10. ^ An imperial or long ton is the same as 1.016 metric tonnes and 1.120 short tons, the US customary unit.
  11. ^ A staith is an elevated platform used to transfer minerals such as coal from railway waggons onto ships.[51]
  12. ^ In an appendix in A Chapter in the History of Railway Locomotion, with Memoir of Timothy Hackworth, etc. 1892. p. 25.[56] John Wesley Hackworth was a descendant of Timothy.[57]
  13. ^ Compare Tomlinson (1915, pp. 141–142) and Rolt (1984, p. 143)
  14. ^ In Young, Robert (1923). Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive, cited by Kirby.
  15. ^ Passenger accommodation was sometimes classified as inside and outside following the practice on stage-coaches; express trains with premium fares were known as first-class trains. The S&DR introduced third class accommodation on some trains in 1835 as people unable to afford a second class ticket had been walking along the tracks.[118]
  16. ^ In the year ending June 1849, they carried 21 million ton miles, which rose to 48 million in the year ending December 1853. Ironstone shipments increased from 28,000 tons in the six months before December 1849 to 231,000 tons in the six months before December 1852.[156]
  17. ^ Kirby (2002, pp. 94–95) states that these were the last horses to be used on the line, but Allen (1974, p. 112) states that a horse-drawn four compartment railway carriage operated between Stockton and Middlesbrough until 1864; Tomlinson (1915, p. 529) is unclear.
  18. ^ The Surrey Iron Railway was the first public railway in 1801, a locomotive hauled a coach in Merthyr Tydfil in 1804 and they were being used commercially by the Middleton Colliery in 1812; passengers were carried on the Kilmarnock & Troon Railway in 1818.[216][217]

References edit

  1. ^ Kirby 2002, back page.
  2. ^ Tomlinson 1915, pp. 40–41.
  3. ^ "Efforts that kept the mines afloat". The Northern Echo. Newsquest (North East) Ltd. 16 June 2008. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  4. ^ Allen 1974, p. 16.
  5. ^ Tomlinson 1915, pp. 45–47.
  6. ^ Allen 1974, pp. 16–17.
  7. ^ Tomlinson 1915, pp. 55, 63.
  8. ^ Kirby 2002, p. 33.
  9. ^ Kirby 2002, pp. 52, 79–80, 128.
  10. ^ Thomson 1819.
  11. ^ Allen 1974, p. 17.
  12. ^ Tomlinson 1915, pp. 64–67.
  13. ^ Tomlinson 1915, p. 70.
  14. ^ Kirby 2002, p. 37.
  15. ^ a b Allen 1974, p. 19.
  16. ^ Challis, David Milbank; Rush, Andy (2009). "The Railways Of Britain: An Unstudied Map Corpus". Imago Mundi. 61 (2): 186–214. doi:10.1080/03085690902923614. S2CID 128691305.
  17. ^ Rolt 1984, p. 65.
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Sources edit

  • Allen, Cecil J. (1974) [1964]. The North Eastern Railway. Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0495-1.
  • Awdry, Christopher (1990). Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies. Patrick Stephens. ISBN 1-85260-049-7.
  • Cobb, Colonel M.H. (2006). The Railways of Great Britain: A Historical Atlas. Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-3236-1.
  • Cook, C.W.F., ed. (September 1975). Cavalcade Reflections: Official British Rail Eastern Region Souvenir. British Rail. ISBN 0-7003-0029-5.
  • Hedges, Martin, ed. (1981). 150 years of British Railways. Hamlyn. ISBN 0-600-37655-9.
  • Hewison, Christian H. (1983). Locomotive Boiler Explosions. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-8305-1.
  • Hoole, K. (1974a). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Volume IV The North East. David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-6439-1.
  • Hoole, K. (1974b). Stockton and Darlington Railway: Anniversary Celebrations of the World's first steam worked public railway. Dalesman. ISBN 0-85206-254-0.
  • Kirby, Maurice W. (4 July 2002). The Origins of Railway Enterprise: The Stockton and Darlington Railway 1821–1863. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89280-3.
  • Lee, Charles Edward (1946). Passenger Class Distinctions. Railway Gazette. OCLC 12040938.
  • Rolt, L.T.C. (1984). George and Robert Stephenson: The Railway Revolution. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-007646-8.
  • Smiles, Samuel (1904). Lives of the Engineers. The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson. John Murray. OCLC 220796785.
  • Thomson, Thomas, ed. (March 1819). "Durham Coal Field". Annals of Philosophy. Vol. XIII. London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy. p. 223. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
  • Tomlinson, William Weaver (1915). The North Eastern Railway: Its rise and development. Andrew Reid and Company. OCLC 504251788.
  • Walton, Peter (1992). The Stainmore and Eden Valley Railways. Oxford Publishing. ISBN 0-86093-306-7.
  • Whishaw, Francis (1842). The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Practically Described and Illustrated (2nd ed.). London: John Weale. OCLC 833076248.
  • Route Specifications – London North Eastern. Network Rail. 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  • (PDF). Tees Valley Unlimited. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 October 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2013.

Further reading edit

  • Jeans, James Stephen (1875). Jubilee Memorial of the Railway System: A History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Longmans, Green, and co. OCLC 2295793.
  • Ransom, Philip John Greer (1990). The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-434-98083-3.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stockton and Darlington Railway.
  • Original report by George Stephenson on the proposal to construct the railway (Network Rail)
  • The History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (North East History)
  • The Bishop Line to Bishop Auckland
  • March 1843 Timetable . Bradshaw's Guides – via Wikisource.
  • Historic Environment Audit October 2016 (2019 revision)

January 01, 1970
stockton, darlington, railway, current, line, that, uses, most, this, railway, route, tees, valley, line, railway, company, that, operated, north, east, england, from, 1825, 1863, world, first, public, railway, steam, locomotives, first, line, connected, colli. For the current line that uses most of this railway s route see Tees Valley Line The Stockton and Darlington Railway S amp DR was a railway company that operated in north east England from 1825 to 1863 The world s first public railway to use steam locomotives 1 its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham and was officially opened on 27 September 1825 The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833 Stockton and Darlington RailwayMap of the original planned route of the railway taken from the prospectus of 1821In the Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway a watercolour painted in the 1880s by John Dobbin crowds are watching the inaugural train cross the Skerne Bridge in Darlington OverviewLocaleCounty DurhamDates of operation1825 1863SuccessorNorth Eastern Railway The S amp DR was involved in building the East Coast Main Line between York and Darlington but its main expansion was at Middlesbrough Docks and west into Weardale and east to Redcar It suffered severe financial difficulties at the end of the 1840s and was nearly taken over by the York Newcastle and Berwick Railway before the discovery of iron ore in Cleveland and the subsequent increase in revenue meant it could pay its debts At the beginning of the 1860s it took over railways that had crossed the Pennines to join the West Coast Main Line at Tebay and Clifton near Penrith The company was taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1863 transferring 200 route miles 320 route kilometres of line and about 160 locomotives but continued to operate independently as the Darlington Section until 1876 S amp DR opening was seen as proof of steam railway effectiveness and its anniversary was celebrated in 1875 1925 and 1975 Much of the original route is now served by the Tees Valley Line operated by Northern Contents 1 Genesis 1 1 Origins 1 2 George Stephenson 1 3 Opening 1 4 Early operations 2 Founding of Middlesbrough 3 Railway improvements 4 The way north 4 1 Great North of England Railway 4 2 Railway operations in the 1830s 4 3 Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway 5 Wear Valley Railway 6 Cleveland iron ore 7 Over Stainmore 8 Progress and amalgamation 9 Later history 10 Locomotives 11 Accidents and incidents 12 Anniversary celebrations 13 Legacy 13 1 Heritage 13 2 Modern services 14 Notes and references 14 1 Notes 14 2 References 14 3 Sources 15 Further reading 16 External linksGenesis editOrigins edit nbsp The seal of the Stockton amp Darlington Railway Coal from the inland mines in southern County Durham used to be taken away on packhorses and then horse and carts as the roads were improved A canal was proposed by George Dixon in 1767 and again by John Rennie in 1815 but both schemes failed 2 3 The harbour of Stockton on Tees invested considerably during the early 19th century in straightening the Tees in order to improve navigation on the river downstream of the town and was subsequently looking for ways to increase trade to recoup those costs A few years later a canal was proposed on a route that bypassed Darlington and Yarm and a meeting was held in Yarm to oppose the route 4 The Welsh engineer George Overton was consulted and he advised building a tramroad Overton carried out a survey 5 and planned a route from the Etherley and Witton Collieries to Shildon and then passing to the north of Darlington to reach Stockton The Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson was said to favour the railway and the Quaker Edward Pease supported it at a public meeting in Darlington on 13 November 1818 promising a five per cent return on investment 6 7 Approximately two thirds of the shares were sold locally and the rest were bought by Quakers nationally 8 note 1 note 2 A private bill was presented to Parliament in March 1819 but as the route passed through Earl of Eldon s estate and one of the Earl of Darlington s fox coverts it was opposed and defeated by 13 votes 11 Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1821Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomCitation1 amp 2 Geo 4 c xliv Overton surveyed a new line that avoided Darlington s estate and agreement was reached with Eldon but another application was deferred early in 1820 as the death of King George III had made it unlikely a bill would pass that parliamentary year The promoters lodged a bill on 30 September 1820 the route having changed again as agreement had not been reached with Viscount Barrington about the line passing over his land 12 The railway was unopposed this time but the bill nearly failed to enter the committee stage as the required four fifths of shares had not been sold Pease subscribed 7 000 from that time he had considerable influence over the railway and it became known as the Quaker line The act that received royal assent on 19 April 1821 allowed for a railway that could be used by anyone with suitably built vehicles on payment of a toll that was closed at night and with which land owners within 5 miles 8 km could build branches and make junctions 13 14 no mention was made of steam locomotives 15 This new railway initiated the construction of more railway lines causing significant developments in railway mapping and cartography iron and steel manufacturing as well as in any industries requiring more efficient transportation 16 George Stephenson edit Concerned about Overton s competence Pease asked George Stephenson an experienced enginewright of the collieries of Killingworth to meet him in Darlington note 3 On 12 May 1821 the shareholders appointed Thomas Meynell as chairman and Jonathan Backhouse as treasurer a majority of the managing committee which included Thomas Richardson Edward Pease and his son Joseph Pease were Quakers The committee designed a seal showing waggons being pulled by a horse and adopted the Latin motto Periculum privatum utilitas publica At private risk for public service 18 19 By 23 July 1821 it had decided that the line would be a railway with edge rails rather than a plateway and appointed Stephenson to make a fresh survey of the line 20 Stephenson recommended using malleable iron rails even though he owned a share of the patent for the alternative cast iron rails and both types were used 21 note 5 Stephenson was assisted by his 18 year old son Robert during the survey 23 and by the end of 1821 had reported that a usable line could be built within the bounds of the act but another route would be shorter by 3 miles 5 km and avoid deep cuttings and tunnels 24 Overton had kept himself available but had no further involvement and the shareholders elected Stephenson Engineer on 22 January 1822 with a salary of 660 per year 25 On 23 May 1822 a ceremony in Stockton celebrated the laying of the first track at St John s Well the rails 4 ft 8 in 1 422 mm apart note 6 the same gauge used by Stephenson on his Killingworth Railway 24 nbsp Stephenson s iron bridge across the Gaunless Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1823Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomCitation4 Geo 4 c xxxiiiDatesRoyal assent23 May 1823Other legislationRepealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Consolidation of Acts Increase of Capital and Purchase of Middlesbrough Dock Act 1849Status RepealedText of statute as originally enacted Stephenson advocated the use of steam locomotives on the line 15 Pease visited Killingworth in mid 1822 28 and the directors visited Hetton colliery railway on which Stephenson had introduced steam locomotives 29 A new bill was presented requesting Stephenson s deviations from the original route and the use of loco motives or moveable engines and this received assent on 23 May 1823 30 The line included embankments up to 48 feet 15 m high and Stephenson designed an iron truss bridge to cross the River Gaunless The Skerne Bridge over the River Skerne was designed by the Durham architect Ignatius Bonomi 31 note 7 In 1823 Stephenson and Pease opened Robert Stephenson and Company a locomotive works at Forth Street Newcastle from which the following year the S amp DR ordered two steam locomotives and two stationary engines 33 On 16 September 1825 with the stationary engines in place the first locomotive Locomotion No 1 left the works and the following day it was advertised that the railway would open on 27 September 1825 34 Opening edit nbsp The opening procession of the Stockton and Darlington Railway crosses the Skerne bridge The cost of building the railway had greatly exceeded the estimates By September 1825 the company had borrowed 60 000 in short term loans and needed to start earning an income to ward off its creditors A railway coach named Experiment note 8 arrived on the evening of 26 September 1825 and was attached to Locomotion No 1 which had been placed on the rails for the first time at Aycliffe Lane station following the completion of its journey by road from Newcastle earlier that same day Pease Stephenson and other members of the committee then made an experimental journey to Darlington before taking the locomotive and coach to Shildon in preparation for the opening day with James Stephenson George s elder brother at the controls 36 On 27 September between 7 am and 8 am 12 waggons of coal note 9 were drawn up Etherley North Bank by a rope attached to the stationary engine at the top and then let down the South Bank to St Helen s Auckland A waggon of flour bags was attached and horses hauled the train across the Gaunless Bridge to the bottom of Brusselton West Bank where thousands watched the second stationary engine draw the train up the incline The train was let down the East Bank to Mason s Arms Crossing at Shildon Lane End where Locomotion No 1 Experiment and 21 new coal waggons fitted with seats were waiting 40 The directors had allowed room for 300 passengers but the train left carrying between 450 and 600 people most travelling in empty waggons but some on top of waggons full of coal Brakesmen were placed between the waggons and the train set off led by a man on horseback with a flag It picked up speed on the gentle downward slope and reached 10 to 12 miles per hour 16 to 19 km h leaving behind men on field hunters horses who had tried to keep up with the procession The train stopped when the waggon carrying the company surveyors and engineers lost a wheel the waggon was left behind and the train continued The train stopped again this time for 35 minutes to repair the locomotive and the train set off again reaching 15 mph 24 km h before it was welcomed by an estimated 10 000 people as it came to a stop at the Darlington branch junction Eight and a half miles 14 km had been covered in two hours and subtracting the 55 minutes accounted by the two stops it had travelled at an average speed of 8 mph 13 km h Six waggons of coal were distributed to the poor workers stopped for refreshments and many of the passengers from Brusselton alighted at Darlington to be replaced by others 41 42 Two waggons for the Yarm Band were attached and at 12 30 pm the locomotive started for Stockton now hauling 31 vehicles with 550 passengers On the 5 miles 8 km of nearly level track east of Darlington the train struggled to reach more than 4 mph 6 4 km h At Eaglescliffe near Yarm crowds waited for the train to cross the Stockton to Yarm turnpike Approaching Stockton running alongside the turnpike as it skirted the western edge of Preston Park it gained speed and reached 15 mph 24 km h again before a man clinging to the outside of a waggon fell off and his foot was crushed by the following vehicle As work on the final section of track to Stockton s quayside was still ongoing the train halted at the temporary passenger terminus at St John s Well 3 hours 7 minutes after leaving Darlington The opening ceremony was considered a success and that evening 102 people sat down to a celebratory dinner at the Town Hall 43 Early operations edit The railway that opened in September 1825 was 25 miles 40 km long and ran from Phoenix Pit Old Etherley Colliery to Cottage Row Stockton there was also a 1 2 mile 800 m branch to the depot at Darlington 1 2 mile 800 m of the Hagger Leases branch and a 3 4 mile 1 200 m branch to Yarm 44 Most of the track used 28 pounds per yard 13 9 kg m malleable iron rails and 4 miles 6 4 km of 57 1 2 lb yd 28 5 kg m cast iron rails were used for junctions 45 The line was single track with four passing loops each mile 46 square sleepers supported each rail separately so that horses could walk between them 31 Stone was used for the sleepers to the west of Darlington and oak to the east Stephenson would have preferred all of them to have been stone but the transport cost was too high as they were quarried in the Auckland area 47 The railway opened with the company owing money and unable to raise further loans Pease advanced money twice early in 1826 so the workers could be paid By August 1827 the company had paid its debts and was able to raise more money that month the Black Boy branch opened and construction began on the Croft and Hagger Leases branches During 1827 shares rose from 120 at the start to 160 at the end 48 nbsp The route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1827 shown in black with today s railway lines shown in red The line was initially used to carry coal to Darlington and Stockton carrying 10 000 tons note 10 in the first three months and earning nearly 2 000 In Stockton the price of coal dropped from 18 to 12 shillings and by the beginning of 1827 was 8 shillings 6 pence 8s 6d 49 note 4 At first the drivers had been paid a daily wage but after February 1826 they were paid 1 4 d per ton per mile from this they had to pay assistants and fireman and to buy coal for the locomotive 50 The 1821 Act had received opposition from the owners of collieries on the River Wear who supplied London and feared competition and it had been necessary to restrict the rate for transporting coal destined for ships to 1 2 d per ton per mile which had been assumed would make the business uneconomic There was interest from London for 100 000 tons a year so the company began investigations in September 1825 In January 1826 the first staith note 11 opened at Stockton designed so waggons over a ship s hold could discharge coal from the bottom 52 About 18 500 tons of coal was transported to ships in the year ending June 1827 and this increased to over 52 000 tons the following year 44 5 of the total carried 53 The locomotives were unreliable at first Soon after opening Locomotion No 1 broke a wheel and it was not ready for traffic until 12 or 13 October Hope the second locomotive arrived in November 1825 but needed a week to ready it for the line the cast iron wheels were a source of trouble 54 Two more locomotives of a similar design arrived in 1826 that August 16s 9d was spent on ale to motivate the men maintaining the engines 54 By the end of 1827 the company had also bought Chittaprat from Robert Wilson and Experiment from Stephenson Timothy Hackworth locomotive superintendent used the boiler from the unsuccessful Chittaprat to build the Royal George in the works at Shildon it started work at the end of November 55 John Wesley Hackworth later published an account note 12 stating that locomotives would have been abandoned were it not for the fact that Pease and Thomas Richardson were partners with Stephenson in the Newcastle works and that when Timothy Hackworth was commissioned to rebuild Chittaprat it was as a last experiment to make an engine in his own way 57 58 Both Tomlinson and Rolt note 13 state this claim was unfounded and the company had shown earlier that locomotives were superior to horses Tomlinson showing that coal was being moved using locomotives at half the cost of horses Robert Young note 14 states that the company was unsure as to the real costs as they reported to shareholders in 1828 that the saving using locomotives was 30 per cent Young also showed that Pease and Richardson were both concerned about their investment in the Newcastle works and Pease unsuccessfully tried to sell his share to George Stephenson 59 New locomotives were ordered from Stephenson s but the first was too heavy when it arrived in February 1828 It was rebuilt with six wheels and hailed as a great improvement Hackworth being told to convert the remaining locomotives as soon as possible In 1828 two locomotive boilers exploded within four months both killing the driver and both due to the safety valves being left fixed down while the engine was stationary 60 Horses were also used on the line and they could haul up to four waggons The dandy waggon was introduced in mid 1828 it was a small cart at the end of the train that carried the horse downhill allowing it to rest while the train descended under gravity The S amp DR made their use compulsory from November 1828 46 61 nbsp The Union coach as shown in an advertisement Passenger traffic started on 10 October 1825 after the required licence was purchased using the Experiment coach hauled by a horse The coach was initially timetabled to travel from Stockton to Darlington in two hours with a fare of 1s and made a return journey four days a week and a one way journey on Tuesdays and Saturdays In April 1826 the operation of the coach was contracted for 200 a year by then the timetabled journey time had been reduced to 1 hour 15 minutes and passengers were allowed to travel on the outside for 9d A more comfortable coach Express started the same month and charged 1s 6d for travel inside 62 Innkeepers began running coaches two to Shildon from July and the Union which served the Yarm branch from 16 October 63 There were no stations 64 in Darlington the coaches picked up passengers near the north road crossing whereas in Stockton they picked up at different places on the quay 65 Between 30 000 and 40 000 passengers were carried between July 1826 and June 1827 66 Founding of Middlesbrough editThe export of coal had become the railway s main business but the staiths at Stockton had inadequate storage and the size of ships was limited by the depth of the Tees A branch from Stockton to Haverton on the north bank of the Tees was proposed in 1826 and the engineer Thomas Storey proposed a shorter and cheaper line to Middlesbrough south of the Tees in July 1827 Later approved by George Stephenson this plan was ratified by the shareholders on 26 October 67 68 The Tees Navigation Company was about to improve the river and proposed that the railway delay application to Parliament but despite opposition at a meeting in January 1828 it was decided to proceed 67 69 A more direct northerly route from Auckland to the Tees had been considered since 1819 and the Tees amp Weardale Railway had applied unsuccessfully to Parliament for permission for such a line in 1823 1824 and 1825 67 70 This now became a 11 1 2 mile 18 5 km line linking Simpasture on the S amp DR s line near today s Newton Aycliffe station with Haverton and Stockton via a route that was 6 miles 10 km shorter than via the route of the S amp DR and named the Clarence Railway in honour of the Duke of Clarence later King William IV Meetings held in Stockton in early 1828 supported the Tees Navigation and the Clarence Railway 71 but the S amp DR received permission for its branch on 23 May 1828 after promising to complete the Hagger Leases Branch and to build a bridge across the Tees at least 72 feet 22 m wide and 19 feet 5 8 m above low water so as not to affect shipping 72 Two members of the management committee resigned as they felt that Stockton would be adversely affected by the line and Meynell the S amp DR chairman stepped down from leadership 73 The Clarence Railway was approved a few days later with the same gauge as the S amp DR 74 The route of the Clarence Railway was afterwards amended to reach Samphire Batts later known as Port Clarence 75 and traffic started in August 1833 by the middle of 1834 Port Clarence had opened and 28 miles 45 km of line was in use 76 The S amp DR charged the 2 1 4 d per ton per mile landsale rate for coal it carried the 10 miles 16 km from the collieries to Simpasture for forwarding to Port Clarence rather than the lower shipping rate 77 By July 1834 the Exchequer Loan Commissioners had taken control of the Clarence Railway 76 nbsp The suspension bridge over the Tees The Croft branch opened in October 1829 78 Construction of the suspension bridge across the Tees started in July 1829 but was suspended in October after the Tees Navigation Company pointed out the S amp DR had no permission to cross the Old Channel of the Tees The S amp DR prepared to return to Parliament but withdrew after a design for a drawbridge was agreed with the Navigation Company 79 The line to Middlesbrough was laid with malleable iron rails weighing 33 lb yd 16 kg m resting on oak blocks 80 The suspension bridge had been designed to carry 150 tons but the cast iron retaining plates split when it was tested with just 66 tons and loaded trains had to cross with the waggons split into groups of four linked by a 9 yard long 8 2 m chain 81 82 For the opening ceremony on 27 December 1830 Globe a new locomotive designed by Hackworth for passenger trains hauled people in carriages and waggons fitted with seats across the bridge to the staiths at Port Darlington which had berths for six ships 83 Stockton continued to be served by a station on the line to the quay until 1848 when it was replaced by a station on the Middlesbrough line on the other side of the Tees 84 Before May 1829 Thomas Richardson had bought about 500 acres 200 ha near Port Darlington and with Joseph and Edward Pease and others he formed the Owners of the Middlesbrough Estate to develop it 85 86 Middlesbrough had only a few houses before the coming of the railway 87 but a year later had a population of over 2 000 and at the 2011 census had over 138 000 people 88 89 Railway improvements edit nbsp S amp DR offices in Darlington In 1830 the company opened new offices at the corner of Northgate and Union Street in Darlington 90 Between 1831 and 1832 a second track was laid between Stockton and the foot of Brusselton Bank Workshops were built at Shildon for the maintenance and construction of locomotives 91 In 1830 approximately 50 horses shared the traffic with 19 locomotives but travelled at different speeds so to help regulate traffic horse drawn trains were required to operate in groups of four or five This had led to horses startled by a passing locomotive and coming off their dandy cart being run down by the following train On one occasion a driver fell asleep in the dandy cart of the preceding train and his horse no longer being led came to a stop and was run down by a locomotive The rule book stated that locomotive hauled trains had precedence over horse drawn trains but some horse drivers refused to give way and on one occasion a locomotive had to follow a horse drawn train for over 2 miles 3 km 92 93 The committee decided in 1828 to replace horses with locomotives on the main line starting with the coal trains but there was resistance from some colliery owners After the S amp DR bought out the coach companies in August 1832 a mixed passenger and small goods service began between Stockton and Darlington on 7 September 1833 travelling at 12 14 miles per hour 19 23 km h locomotive hauled services began to Shildon in December 1833 and to Middlesbrough on 7 April 1834 94 95 The company had returned the five per cent dividend that had been promised by Edward Pease and this had increased to eight per cent by the time he retired in 1832 96 When the treasurer Jonathan Backhouse retired in 1833 to become a Quaker minister he was replaced by Joseph Pease 97 The way north editGreat North of England Railway edit nbsp The north entrance to Shildon Tunnel which opened in 1842 On 13 October 1835 the York and North Midland Railway Y amp NMR was formed to connect York to London by a line to a junction with the planned North Midland Railway 98 Representatives of the Y amp NMR and S amp DR met two weeks later and formed the Great North of England Railway GNER 99 a line from York to Newcastle that used the route of the 1 1 2 mile 2 4 km Croft branch at Darlington 100 The railway was to be built in sections and to allow both to open at the same time permission for the more difficult line through the hills from Darlington to Newcastle was to be sought in 1836 and a bill for the easier line south of Darlington to York presented the following year Pease specified a formation wide enough for four tracks so freight could be carried at 30 miles per hour 48 km h and passengers at 60 mph 97 km h and George Stephenson had drawn up detailed plans by November 101 The Act for the 34 1 2 miles 55 5 km from Newcastle to Darlington was given royal assent on 4 July 1836 but little work had been done by the time the 43 miles 69 km from Croft to York received permission on 12 July the following year In August a general meeting decided to start work on the southern section but construction was delayed and after several bridges collapsed the engineer Thomas Storey was replaced by Robert Stephenson 102 103 The S amp DR sold its Croft branch to the GNER 104 and the railway opened for coal traffic on 4 January 1841 using S amp DR locomotives The railway opened to passengers with its own locomotives on 30 March 102 103 Between November 1841 and February 1842 the S amp DR introduced a service between Darlington and Coxhoe on the Clarence Railway where an omnibus took passengers the 3 1 2 miles 5 6 km to the Durham amp Sunderland Railway at Shincliffe 105 Early in 1842 the nominally independent Shildon Tunnel Company opened its 1 225 yard 1 120 m tunnel through the hills at Shildon to the Wear basin and after laying 2 miles 3 2 km of track to South Church station south of Bishop Auckland opened in May 1842 106 In 1846 the S amp DR installed Alexander Bain s I and V electric telegraph to regulate the passage of trains through the tunnel 107 The SD amp R provided a 3 1 4 hour service between Darlington and Newcastle with a four horse omnibus from South Church to Rainton Meadows on the Durham Junction Railway from where trains ran to Gateshead on the south side of the River Tyne near Newcastle 108 Railway operations in the 1830s edit By 1839 the track had been upgraded with rails weighing 64 lb yd 32 kg m 109 The railway had about 30 steam locomotives most of them six coupled 110 that ran with four wheeled tenders with two water butts each capable of holding 600 imperial gallons 2 700 L 720 US gal of water 111 The line descended from Shildon to Stockton assisting the trains that carried coal to the docks at a maximum speed of 6 mph 9 7 km h the drivers were fined if caught travelling faster than 8 mph 13 km h 112 and one was dismissed for completing the forty mile return journey in 4 1 2 hours 113 On average there were about 40 coal trains a day hauling 28 waggons with a weight of 116 tons 114 There were about 5 000 privately owned waggons and at any one time about 1 000 stood at Shildon depot 115 nbsp One of several six coupled steam locomotives operated by the railway The railway had modern passenger locomotives some with four wheels 116 There were passenger stations at Stockton Middlesbrough Darlington Shildon and West Auckland and trains also stopped at Middlesbrough Junction Yarm Junction Fighting Cocks and Heighington 117 Some of the modified road coaches were still in use but there were also modern railway carriages some first class with three compartments each seating eight passengers and second class carriages that seated up to 40 117 note 15 Luggage and sometimes the guard travelled on the carriage roof 119 a passenger travelling third class suffered serious injuries after falling from the roof in 1840 120 Passenger trains averaged 22 25 mph 35 40 km h and a speed of 42 mph 68 km h was recorded Over 200 000 passengers were carried in the year to 1 October 1838 110 and in 1839 there were twelve trains each day between Middlesbrough and Stockton six trains between Stockton and Darlington and three between Darlington and Shildon where a carriage was fitted with Rankine s self acting brake taken over the Brussleton Inclines and then drawn by a horse to St Helen Auckland 121 The Bradshaw s railway guide for March 1843 after South Church opened shows five services a day between Darlington and South Church via Shildon with three between Shildon and St Helens Also listed were six trains between Stockton and Hartlepool via Seaton 122 over the Clarence Railway and the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway that had opened in 1841 123 By this time Port Darlington had become overwhelmed by the volume of imports and exports and work started in 1839 on Middlesbrough Dock which had been laid out by William Cubitt capable of holding 150 ships and built by resident civil engineer George Turnbull 89 The suspension bridge across the Tees was replaced by a cast iron bridge on masonry piers in 1841 124 After three years and an expenditure of 122 000 equivalent to 9 65m at 2011 prices the formal opening of the new dock took place on 12 May 1842 125 89 The S amp DR provided most of the finance and the dock was absorbed by the company in 1849 126 Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway edit nbsp The N amp DJR crossed the Sherburn with a timber viaduct The GNER had authority for a railway from York to Newcastle it opened to Darlington in 1841 having spent all of its authorised capital and could not start work on the extension to Newcastle At the time Parliament was considering the route of a railway between England and Scotland and favoured a railway via the west coast Railway financier George Hudson chaired a meeting of representatives of north eastern railways that wished a railway to be built via the east coast 127 In the 1830s a number of railways had opened in the area between Darlington and Newcastle and Robert Stephenson was engaged to select a route using these railways as much as possible The Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway N amp DJR differed slightly from the GNER route in the southern section before joining the Durham Junction Railway at Rainton and using the Pontop amp South Shields Railway from Washington to Brockley Whins where a new curve onto the Brandling Junction Railway allowed direct access to Gateshead This required the construction of 25 1 2 miles 41 0 km of new line 9 miles 14 km less than the GNER route but trains would need to travel 7 1 2 miles 12 1 km further 128 This route ran parallel to S amp DR lines for 5 miles 8 0 km and Pease argued that it should run over these as it would add only 1 1 2 miles 2 4 km 128 The bill was presented unchanged to Parliament in 1842 and was opposed by the S amp DR Despite this the Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway Act received royal assent on 18 June 1842 and a second Act the following year secured the deviations from the GNER route in the south recommended by Stephenson 108 129 After the opening celebration on 18 June 1844 through services ran from London to Gateshead the following day 130 The N amp DJR made an offer to lease the GNER and buy it within five years and GNER shares increased in value by 44 per cent as the N amp DJR took over on 1 July 1845 the N amp DJR became part of the larger York Newcastle and Berwick Railway YN amp BR in 1847 131 Wear Valley Railway edit nbsp The Wear Valley Railway in 1847 nbsp Preferential share certificate of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company issued 24 September 1858 Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway Act 1837Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomLong titleAn Act for incorporating certain Persons for the making and maintaining a Railway from near the Black Boy Branch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the Township of Saint Andrew Auckland to or near to Wilton Park Colliery with a Branch therefrom all in the County of Durham to be called The Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway Citation7 Will 4 amp 1 Vict c cxxiiDatesRoyal assent15 July 1837Other legislationRepealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858Status Repealed The Bishop Auckland amp Weardale Railway BA amp WR received permission in July 1837 to build an 8 1 4 mile 13 3 km line from South Church to Crook The line opened on 8 November 1843 with a station at Bishop Auckland 132 133 The Stanhope and Tyne Railway a 33 3 4 mile 54 3 km line between South Shields and Stanhope had opened in 1834 134 Steam locomotives worked the section east of Annfield and in the western section inclines were worked by stationary engines or gravity with horses hauling waggons over level track 135 The lime kilns and the line between Stanhope and Carrhouse closed in 1840 and with the Stanhope to Annfield section losing money the insolvent railway company was dissolved on 5 February 1841 The northern section became the Pontop and South Shields Railway and the southern section from Stanhope to Carrhouse was bought by the newly formed Derwent Iron Company at Consett 136 137 renamed the Wear amp Derwent Railway and used to transport limestone from quarries in the Stanhope area to its works at Consett 138 The Weardale Extension Railway ran from Waskerley on the Wear amp Derwent to Crook on the BA amp WR and included the Sunniside Incline worked by a stationary engine Sponsored by the Derwent Iron Company the 10 mile 16 km line was built by the S amp DR and opened on 16 May 1845 139 140 A passenger service started to Hownes Gill and Stanhope Crawley on 1 September 1845 the Stanhope service was withdrawn at the end of 1846 141 Travelling north from Crook the carriages and waggons were drawn up the Sunniside Incline a locomotive hauled the mixed train to Waskerley Park Junction then they were let down Nanny Mayor s Incline and a locomotive took them forward When returning regulations required that the carriages run loose down the Sunniside Incline and they were let to run into Crook station controlled by the guard using the carriage brakes 142 Later a 730 feet 220 m viaduct replaced the two inclines at Hownes Gill ravine on 1 July 1858 143 A deviation replacing Nanny s Mayor s Incline as well as a curve that allowed trains from Crook direct access to Rowley was opened for freight on 23 May 1859 and for passenger traffic on 4 July 1859 144 Wear Valley Railway Act 1845Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomLong titleAn Act for making a Railway to be called The Wear Valley Railway from and out of the Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway to Frosterley with a Branch terminating at or near Bishopley Crag in Stan hope in Weardale all in the County of Durham Citation8 amp 9 Vict c cliiDatesRoyal assent31 July 1845Other legislationRepealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858Status Repealed The Middlesbrough amp Redcar Railway a short extension to Redcar received permission on 21 July 1845 The line branched off before the Middlesbrough terminus which was closed and a new through station opened with the line on 4 June 1846 145 84 Also authorised in July 1845 was the Wear Valley Railway a 12 mile 19 km line 146 from the Bishop Auckland amp Weardale line to Frosterley The line opened on 3 August 1847 and the Act also gave the S amp DR permission for the Bishopley branch over which 500 000 tons of limestone travelled in 1868 The line was extended in 1862 from Frosterley to Stanhope 147 Just before the line opened on 22 July 1847 the Wear Valley Railway absorbed the Shildon Tunnel Bishop Auckland amp Weardale Railway Weardale Extension Railway and Wear amp Derwent Railway 148 and then the S amp DR leased the Wear Valley Railway and Middlesbrough amp Redcar Railways for 999 years This required a payment of 47 000 each year exceeding the SD amp R s net revenue 149 traffic from the Derwent Iron Company was reduced during a period of financial difficulty and the Black Boy colliery switched to sending its coal to Hartlepool 150 No dividend was paid in 1848 and the next few years 151 lease payments were made out of reserves 149 The S amp DR announced a bill in November 1848 to permit a lease by and amalgamation with the YN amp BR but this was withdrawn after the YN amp BR share price crashed and its chairman Hudson resigned after questions were raised about his share dealings 152 In 1850 the S amp DR had share capital of 250 000 but owed 650 000 most of this without the authority of Parliament until 1849 the debt was converted into shares in 1851 153 Cleveland iron ore editIn mid 1850 Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan discovered a seam of iron ore at Eston They opened a mine laid a branch line to the Middlesbrough amp Redcar Railway and started hauling ironstone over the S amp DR to their blast furnaces west of Bishop Auckland By 1851 Derwent Iron had opened a mine in the area and began moving ironstone 54 miles 87 km to Consett 154 and the S amp DR had paid the arrears on its debt and was able to pay a dividend the following year albeit only 4 per cent between 1849 and 1853 the traffic more than doubled 155 note 16 In 1852 the Leeds Northern Railway LNR built a line from Northallerton to a junction with the Stockton to Hartlepool line and a section of the route ran parallel to the S amp DR alongside the Yarm to Stockton Road The S amp DR was originally on the east side of the road but the LNR built its line with four tracks on the other side of the road leasing two to the S amp DR for a rental of 1s a year On 25 January 1853 the LNR and SD amp R opened a joint station at Eaglescliffe with an island platform between the tracks and one side was used by S amp DR trains and the other by the LNR Rather than allow trains to approach the platform line from either direction the Board of Trade inspecting officer ruled that trains approaching on a line without a platform must first pass through and then reverse into the platform line 157 nbsp The railways in Cleveland in 1863 the Cleveland Railway shown in red Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway Act 1852Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomCitation15 amp 16 Vict c lxxiiiDatesRoyal assent17 June 1852Other legislationRepealed byStockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858Status RepealedText of statute as originally enacted The Middlesbrough amp Guisborough Railway with two branches into the iron rich hills was approved by Parliament on 17 June 1852 Pease had to guarantee dividends to raise the finance needed The 9 1 2 mile 15 3 km single track railway was worked by the S amp DR and opened to minerals on 11 November 1853 and passengers on 25 February 1854 With electric telegraph installed between stations passenger trains were not permitted to leave a station until confirmation had been received that the line was clear 154 158 Stockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858Act of Parliament nbsp Parliament of the United KingdomCitation21 amp 22 Vict c cxvi By 1857 a blast furnace had opened close to the Durham coalfield on the north side of the Tees Backed by the rival West Hartlepool Harbour amp Railway the Durham amp Cleveland Union Railway proposed a line from the mines in Skinningrove and Staithes via Guisborough and a bridge over the Middlesbrough amp Redcar Railway to a jetty at Cargo Fleet from where a ferry would carry the ore across the Tees to the blast furnaces When the proposal was before Parliament the S amp DR suggested that their Middlesbrough amp Redcar could be extended to Saltburn and the Tees crossed by a swing bridge The Cleveland Railway received permission for a line from Skinningrove as far as Guisborough and the S amp DR permission for an extension to Saltburn and a branch to a mine at Skelton This Stockton and Darlington Railway Amalgamation Act 1858 21 amp 22 Vict c cxvi also authorised the merger of the S amp DR with the railways it held on lease 159 An application to Parliament for a jetty in the following year was unsuccessful 160 but in 1860 the Upsall Normanby amp Ormesby Railway received permission for a line with access to the river the S amp DR claim of exclusive rights to the foreshore having been rejected 161 The jetty was also opposed by the Tees Conservancy Commissioners and they moored barges along the foreshore to obstruct construction In what became known as the Battle of the Tees a fight broke out when a steam tug sent by the Commissioners interrupted men moving the barges The barges were successfully moved but a more serious fight developed the following night when three of the Commissioners steam tugs arrived The police then kept watch on the works until they were finished 162 Henry Pease a S amp DR director and Quaker visited his brother Joseph in mid 1859 at his house by the sea at Marske by the Sea Returning late for dinner he explained he had walked to Saltburn then a group of fisherman s cottages where he had had a sort of prophetic vision of a town with gardens With other S amp DR directors he planned the town with gardens and Zetland Hotel by the station and bought a house at 5 Britannia Terrace where he stayed for a few weeks every summer 163 The extension opened in 1861 a station on the through line replacing the terminus at Redcar 160 164 Over Stainmore editMain articles South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway and Eden Valley Railway A railway to serve Barnard Castle from the S amp DR at a junction near North Road station and along the River Tees was proposed in 1852 this route bypassed as far as possible the Duke of Cleveland s estate as he had opposed an earlier railway An application that year failed but the Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway Act 1854 was given royal assent on 3 July 1854 and the 15 1 4 mile 24 5 km railway opened on 8 July 1856 165 nbsp The SD amp LUR viaduct over the Tees Valley in 1858 Cleveland iron ore is high in phosphorus and needs to be mixed with purer ores such as those on the west coast in Cumberland and Lancashire 166 In the early 1850s this ore was travelling the long way round over the Newcastle amp Carlisle Railway to the Barrow in Furness area and Durham coke was returning 167 Both the South Durham amp Lancashire Union Railway SD amp LUR and the Eden Valley Railway EVR companies were formed on 20 September 1856 Taking advantage of the new railway at Barnard Castle the SD amp LUR crossed the Pennines via Kirkby Stephen to meet the West Coast Main Line WCML at Tebay on the section then controlled by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway and also linked Barnard Castle with West Auckland The EVR was a branch from Kirkby Stephen to the WCML near Penrith via Appleby The routes were surveyed by Thomas Bouch and SD amp LUR received permission on 13 July 1857 The EVR route followed the east bank of the River Eden a mile longer than a more expensive route on the west bank and its act received royal assent on 21 May 1858 167 Bouch had laid out an economical route that followed the contours and avoided tunnels but there were formidable gradients up to the 1 370 foot high 420 m Stainmore Summit Land for two tracks was purchased and a single track line was laid valleys were crossed by viaducts three made from wrought iron including the Belah Viaduct 1 040 feet 320 m long and 196 feet 60 m high 168 169 A new station was built to replace the terminus at Barnard Castle 170 A mineral train ran between Barnard Castle and Barras on 26 March 1861 and mineral traffic worked through to Tebay from 4 July 1861 There was an opening ceremony on 7 August 1861 and the SD amp LUR west of Barnard Castle opened to passengers the following day 171 Two 4 4 0 locomotives with enclosed cabs had been built for the line in 1860 by Stephenson and Co 172 and the S amp DR worked traffic from the start two return services a day were provided for passengers The EVR opened to mineral traffic on 8 April 1862 and passengers on 9 June 1862 to the south facing junction at Clifton later Clifton amp Lowther The S amp DR had presented a bill in 1861 to provide better connections for passengers on the WCML by extending the line up to Penrith and to link up with the Cockermouth Keswick and Penrith Railway to provide access for mineral traffic to Cumberland The L amp CR agreed to allow the S amp DR running rights over its line and services were extended to Penrith from 1 August 1863 171 173 Progress and amalgamation edit nbsp Christmas Day timetable for 1856 In 1854 there were five or six trains a day between Darlington and Redcar and three a day between Darlington and Frosterley Travelling at average speeds of 19 24 miles per hour 31 39 km h passengers were charged from 1d per mile for third class to 2 2d per mile for first 174 Horses were still used on trains in the mid 1850s a horse drawn coach was still independently operated between Middlesbrough and Stockton in 1854 on Sundays as the only S amp DR services that run on that day were the mail trains 175 and locomotives replaced horses on passenger trains to West Auckland in 1856 148 note 17 The S amp DR opened a carriage works south of Darlington North Road station in 1853 176 and later it built a locomotive works nearby to replace its works at Shildon Designed by William Bouch who had taken over from Hackworth as Locomotive Supervisor in 1840 it completed its first locomotive in 1864 177 178 In 1858 the Brusselton Inclines were bypassed by a line from the north end of Shildon Tunnel the same year a passenger service started on the Hagger Leases branch and a mineral line opened from Crook via two inclines to Waterhouse The section of the SD amp LUR between West Auckland and Barnard Castle opened for minerals in July 1863 and passengers on 1 August 1863 together with a direct line from Bishop Auckland to West Auckland Stations at Evenwood and Cockfield replaced stations on the Hagger Leases branch 171 179 nbsp The seal of the North Eastern Railway In 1859 a company had been formed to link the Newcastle amp Carlisle Railway with the SD amp R via the Derwent Valley by 1860 this had grown into the Newcastle Derwent amp Weardale Railway which now bypassed the SD amp R and linked with the SD amp LUR and the North British and London and North Western LNWR railways were providing two thirds of the capital The LNWR proposed to build warehouses in Hartlepool and buy shares in the West Hartlepool Harbour amp Railway 180 The North Eastern Railway NER formed in 1854 by amalgamation at the time was the largest railway company in the country and controlled the East Coast Main Line from Knottingley south of York through Darlington to Berwick upon Tweed 181 When they approached the S amp DR with a proposal to merge the directors deciding they preferred a merger with the NER than eventually becoming part of the LNWR entered negotiations 182 Opposed by the NER the Newcastle Derwent amp Weardale Railway bill was approved by the House of Commons in 1861 but the line was eventually rejected by the House of Lords 183 184 The SD amp LUR and EVR were absorbed by the S amp DR on 30 June 1862 185 With 200 route miles 320 km of line and about 160 locomotives 186 the Stockton and Darlington Railway became part of the North Eastern Railway on 13 July 1863 Due to a clause in the Act the railway was managed as the independent Darlington Section until 1876 when the lines became the NER s Central Division 187 188 After the restoration of the dividend in 1851 by the end of 1854 payments had recovered to 8 per cent and then had not dropped below 7 1 2 per cent 151 Later history editThe NER had built a branch in the late 1850s from Durham to Bishop Auckland but used a separate station in the town until December 1867 when all services began to use the S amp DR station The Sunniside Incline was replaced by a deviation albeit with gradients of 1 in 51 and 1 in 52 which opened for mineral traffic on 10 April 1867 and for passengers on 2 March 1868 189 after 1868 trains on this line were extended to serve Benfieldside station later known as Blackhill and then Consett 190 In Cleveland a branch from Nunthorpe to Battersby opened on 1 June 1864 passengers were carried from 1 April 1868 191 A branch from Barnard Castle to Middleton in Teesdale opened on 12 May 1868 192 The locomotive works at Darlington operated independently under Bouch until 1875 the locomotives having been renumbered by the NER a few years earlier A variety of locomotives were used the most common type were the 0 6 0 s used on mineral trains Later locomotives were of the Stephenson long boilered type Most passenger locomotives were 2 4 0 s though some were 2 2 2 s Bouch designed two 4 4 0 locomotives for the line over Stainmore in 1860 and another fourteen with this wheel arrangement had been built by 1874 193 194 S amp DR services and those on the ECML called at different stations in Darlington until 1887 when S amp DR trains were diverted through a rebuilt Darlington Bank Top station rejoining the route to Stockton from a junction south of Darlington and a new line to Oak Tree Junction 195 196 An extension from Stanhope to Wearhead opened in 1895 197 and the line over Stainmore to Tebay was doubled by the end of the century 198 nbsp The former S amp DR shown in red as part of the larger NER network of 1904 From 1913 former S amp DR lines were electrified with 1 500 VDC overhead lines and electric locomotives hauled coal trains between Shildon and Erimus Marshalling Yard which had opened in 1908 between Middlesbrough and Thornaby The trains took the former S amp DR line from Shildon to Simpasture Junction joining the former Clarence Railway line to Carlton where a later line allowed access to the Stockton to Middlesbrough extension The locomotives operated for 20 years but then coal traffic had reduced which made it uneconomical to maintain the electrification system 199 As a result of the Railways Act 1921 on 1 January 1923 the North Eastern Railway became the North Eastern area of the London and North Eastern Railway LNER 200 201 The passenger service was withdrawn north of Tow Law on 1 May 1939 144 Britain s railways were nationalised on 1 January 1948 and the lines were placed under the control of British Railways 200 In the early 1950s control was split between the North Eastern and London Midland regions with Kirkby Stephen as the boundary 202 Local passenger trains were withdrawn between Kirkby Stephen and Tebay on 1 December 1952 203 The service along Weardale was withdrawn on 29 June 1953 204 and services north of Crook on 11 June 1956 144 nbsp A diesel locomotive stands at Thornaby station in 1961 The 1955 Modernisation Plan known formally as the Modernisation and Re Equipment of the British Railways was published in December 1954 With the aim of increasing speed and reliability steam trains were replaced with electric and diesel traction 205 From 1954 diesel multiple units took over passenger services in the north east except those on the ECML 206 and were introduced to the line over Stainmore in February 1958 202 The passenger service was withdrawn between Barnard Castle and Penrith on 20 January 1962 207 and between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle on 12 June 1962 208 In 1963 Richard Beeching published his report The Reshaping of British Railways which recommended closing the network s least used stations and lines This included the remaining former S amp DR lines except for the line between Darlington and Saltburn via Stockton and Middlesbrough 209 Passenger service between Nunthorpe and Guisborough was withdrawn in 1964 the service between Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe was retained 210 The line between Darlington and Barnard Castle and the branch to Middleton in Teesdale were closed to passengers on 30 November 1964 211 Trains were withdrawn north of Bishop Auckland on 8 March 1965 144 but the passenger service to Bishop Auckland was saved because of regional development concerns 212 Locomotives editMain article Locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington RailwayAccidents and incidents editOn 5 March 1827 an unnamed woman described as a blind American beggar was fatally injured by a train on the railway This was the first recorded death due to a railway locomotive coming three years before the more widely reported death of William Huskisson at the Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway 213 On 19 March 1828 the boiler of locomotive No 5 exploded at Simpasture Junction One of the two firemen was killed the other severely scalded The driver George Stephenson s older brother was unharmed 214 On 1 July 1828 the boiler of Locomotion No 1 exploded at Aycliffe Lane station killing the driver 214 On 4 April 1865 at Hartburn Stockton the 3 55 pm passenger train from Darlington to Saltburn collided with some chaldron wagons which had become detached from a Shildon to Middlesbrough coal train Though this was not a serious accident it was to result in the S amp DR adopting the block system well before their colleagues at the NER headquarters in York felt this to be necessary At a conference the next day attended by several company officials including Thomas MacNay and William Bouch it was noted that one of the options to achieve greater security was to adopt the block system of telegraph at intervals of 2 or 3 miles that is not to allow an engine to pass any of such stations until it has been signalled that the previous train was past the station to which it was approaching 215 Anniversary celebrations edit nbsp The Exhibition of the Locomotives as shown in the Illustrated London News in 1875 The Stockton and Darlington was not the first railway and a train had previously carried passengers but its opening in 1825 was seen as proof of the effectiveness of steam railways as a means of public transport 216 note 18 A jubilee was held on 27 and 28 September 1875 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the world s first steam operated public railway the Darlington North Road workshops housed a locomotive exhibition a statue of Joseph Pease was unveiled in Darlington his portrait presented to the Darlington Corporation and a banquet held 218 Fifty years later centenary celebrations were held in July to allow guests from foreign countries visiting the International Railway Congress to take part An exhibition of rolling stock at the new Faverdale Wagon Works in Darlington was opened by the Duke and Duchess of York later King George VI and the Queen Mother 219 The following day the royal couple watched as procession of locomotives passed between Stockton and Oak Tree Junction starting with a Hetton Colliery locomotive that had been built in 1822 and finishing with a replica train of ten chaldron waggons and the company s coach hauled by Locomotive No 1 propelled by a petrol engine in a specially built tender 220 nbsp Locomotion No 1 at Shildon 1975 A festival was held in Belle Vue Manchester on 27 September 1925 a Sunday to allow railwaymen to attend where a pageant showed how transport had changed through time beginning with a group of ancient Britons dragging a log with their belongings on top and ending with Stephenson s Rocket another procession included Locomotion No 1 propelled by its tender and more modern locomotives 221 222 On 31 August 1975 to celebrate the 150th anniversary a cavalcade was held between Shildon and Heighington where a replica of Locomotion headed a procession of locomotives which was completed by the prototype high speed train 223 In the same year the National Railway Museum opened in York combining exhibits from the former LNER museum in York which had opened after the 1875 festivities and from the National Transport Museum at Clapham 219 224 Legacy editHeritage edit nbsp Skerne Bridge At North Road the station buildings and goods shed are Grade II listed 225 as the Head of Steam museum 226 227 Nearby the former carriage works are now used as workshops for steam locomotives 228 A little further east is Skerne Bridge the oldest railway bridge in continuous use in the world At Shildon is the Locomotion Museum part of the National Railway Museum group which contains heritage railway vehicles including Locomotion No 1 The site includes Timothy Hackworth s house the Soho Workshop and a former coal drops 229 which are listed buildings 230 The heritage Weardale Railway runs special services over its line from Bishop Auckland to Eastgate in Weardale 231 On 14 June 2007 during excavations for road building some of the original stone sleepers used by the railway in 1825 were discovered intact near Lingfield Point The stones each weigh about 75 pounds 34 kg and have bolt holes for the chairs that secured the rail Officials involved in the road project hope to preserve the stones along a new bicycle path 232 Modern services edit The current Tees Valley Line uses the most of the former Stockton and Darlington Railway between Bishop Auckland and Saltburn 233 From Bishop Auckland the non electrified line is single track to Shildon double track to Heighington and single track to the junction with the East Coast Main Line north of Darlington This section is a Community Rail service called the Bishop line and is sometimes known as the Heritage Line because of its links with the S amp DR 234 South of Darlington trains take the 1887 line before joining the original 1825 route to Stockton at the site of Oak Tree Junction 235 The line is 8 miles 13 km to Eaglescliffe South Junction 236 where the 1853 Leeds Northern route is taken through Eaglescliffe station to Stockton Cut Junction 84 237 The non electrified line then follows the S amp DR route for 19 miles 31 km to Saltburn except for later deviations at Thornaby 1908 and Redcar 1978 238 210 The former Middlesbrough amp Guisborough Railway line is open between Guisborough Junction and Nunthorpe as part of the Community Rail Esk Valley Line to Whitby 84 239 nbsp Northern Rail diesel multiple unit on the Tees Valley Line at Redcar East As of July 2016 update a two train per hour off peak service is provided by Northern between Saltburn and Darlington and ten trains a day continue to Bishop Auckland One train per hour leaves Middlesbrough going south to Manchester Airport via Yarm and another travels north to Newcastle via Sunderland There are eighteen trains a day between Middlesbrough and Nunthorpe and four of these continue to Whitby 240 241 Tees Valley Unlimited the local enterprise partnership published in December 2013 update its ambition to improve passenger services 242 with the priority of an all day two trains an hour service over the Darlington to Saltburn and Nunthorpe to Hartlepool routes using new trains additional platforms are needed at Darlington station to allow this service frequency 243 A station serving James Cook University Hospital opened in May 2014 244 A Hitachi train plant opened in September 2015 at Newton Aycliffe to build trains for the Intercity Express Programme 245 Notes and references editNotes edit In the 19th century members of the Society of Friends travelled to attend regular meetings and came to know Quakers elsewhere this leading to marriages and business partnerships The Society of Friends published guidance on conduct that included honesty in business matters and this gave Quakers the confidence to invest in the dealings of a devout member 9 In the mean time a bill is to be brought into Parliament to carry a rail way from Bishop Auckland to Darlington and Stockton Mr Stevenson has been called to give an opinion as to the best line The work is estimated at 120 000l a great part of which is already subscribed 10 Smiles 1904 p 150 indicates that Stephenson visited Pease uninvited but Nicholas Wood who had accompanied Stephenson stated shortly after Stephenson s death that the meeting was by appointment 17 a b Before decimal currency was introduced there were 12 old pence d in a shilling s and 20s in a pound One penny in 1825 was worth the same in 2021 as approximately 36p and 1s about 4 37 22 Malleable iron rails cost 12 10s note 4 and cast iron rails 6 15s per ton but malleable iron rails could be less than half the weight for the same strength 21 Smiles 1904 p 160 states that early tramroads had rails 4 ft 8 in 1 422 mm apart but Tomlinson 1915 pp 82 83 challenges this stating that the most common gauge of the early tramroads and waggonways was about 4 ft 1 219 mm and some such as the Wylam waggonway had the rails 5 ft 1 524 mm apart The gauge of the S amp DR was given in early documents as 4 ft 8 in 1 422 mm but the distance between the rails was later measured as 4 ft 8 1 2 in 1 435 mm and this became the standard gauge used by 60 per cent of railways worldwide The difference of 1 2 inch 13 mm is a mystery 26 27 The Skerne bridge was shown on the reverse of the Series E five pound note that featured George Stephenson issued by the Bank of England between 1990 and 2003 32 Allen 1974 p 22 and Tomlinson 1915 pp 93 95 state that Bonomi was directly appointed by the directors after Stephenson had ignored suggestions to consult him but Rolt 1984 p 75 does not mention this Smiles 1904 p 166 has an image of this railway coach and describes it as a somewhat uncouth machine even though the Illustrated London News had discounted in 1875 an earlier publication of Smiles image stating that coach used on the opening day was a similar to a road coach 35 Tomlinson 1915 pp 109 110 describes the coach as having a table cushioned seats and carpets and criticises the Smiles image for the lack of roof seats having the wheels outside the coach frame and says that the drawing in Smiles does not look like a vehicle that was built for 80 approximately 7000 in 2021 22 These waggons known as wagons after about 1830 37 were designed to carry a Newcastle chaldron pronounced chalder in Newcastle of coal about 53 long cwt 5 900 lb 2 700 kg This differed from the London chaldron which was 36 bushels or 25 1 2 long cwt 2 860 lb 1 300 kg 38 39 An imperial or long ton is the same as 1 016 metric tonnes and 1 120 short tons the US customary unit A staith is an elevated platform used to transfer minerals such as coal from railway waggons onto ships 51 In an appendix in A Chapter in the History of Railway Locomotion with Memoir of Timothy Hackworth etc 1892 p 25 56 John Wesley Hackworth was a descendant of Timothy 57 Compare Tomlinson 1915 pp 141 142 and Rolt 1984 p 143 In Young Robert 1923 Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive cited by Kirby Passenger accommodation was sometimes classified as inside and outside following the practice on stage coaches express trains with premium fares were known as first class trains The S amp DR introduced third class accommodation on some trains in 1835 as people unable to afford a second class ticket had been walking along the tracks 118 In the year ending June 1849 they carried 21 million ton miles which rose to 48 million in the year ending December 1853 Ironstone shipments increased from 28 000 tons in the six months before December 1849 to 231 000 tons in the six months before December 1852 156 Kirby 2002 pp 94 95 states that these were the last horses to be used on the line but Allen 1974 p 112 states that a horse drawn four compartment railway carriage operated between Stockton and Middlesbrough until 1864 Tomlinson 1915 p 529 is unclear The Surrey Iron Railway was the first public railway in 1801 a locomotive hauled a coach in Merthyr Tydfil in 1804 and they were being used commercially by the Middleton Colliery in 1812 passengers were carried on the Kilmarnock amp Troon Railway in 1818 216 217 References edit Kirby 2002 back page Tomlinson 1915 pp 40 41 Efforts that kept the mines afloat The Northern Echo Newsquest North East Ltd 16 June 2008 Retrieved 12 September 2013 Allen 1974 p 16 Tomlinson 1915 pp 45 47 Allen 1974 pp 16 17 Tomlinson 1915 pp 55 63 Kirby 2002 p 33 Kirby 2002 pp 52 79 80 128 Thomson 1819 Allen 1974 p 17 Tomlinson 1915 pp 64 67 Tomlinson 1915 p 70 Kirby 2002 p 37 a b Allen 1974 p 19 Challis David Milbank Rush Andy 2009 The Railways Of Britain An Unstudied Map Corpus Imago Mundi 61 2 186 214 doi 10 1080 03085690902923614 S2CID 128691305 Rolt 1984 p 65 Tomlinson 1915 p 73 Kirby 2002 p 184 Tomlinson 1915 p 74 a b Rolt 1984 p 74 a b UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark Gregory 2017 The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain 1209 to Present New Series MeasuringWorth Retrieved 11 June 2022 Tomlinson 1915 p 76 a b Allen 1974 p 20 Tomlinson 1915 pp 79 80 Davis Hunter 1975 George Stephenson A Biographical Study of the Father of Railways Weidenfeld and Nicolson p 75 ISBN 0 297 76934 0 Robert Stephenson 1803 1859 Network Rail Archived from the original on 26 February 2014 Retrieved 25 March 2014 Smiles 1904 p 154 Tomlinson 1915 p 83 Tomlinson 1915 pp 85 86 a b Rolt 1984 p 75 Withdrawn Banknotes Reference Guide PDF Report Bank of England p 27 Retrieved 12 September 2015 Tomlinson 1915 pp 95 96 Tomlinson 1915 p 105 Railway Jubilee at Darlington Illustrated London News 2 October 1875 p 342 Tomlinson 1915 pp 105 106 Jackson Alan Arthur 1992 The Railway Dictionary An A Z of Railway Terminology Alan Sutton p 322 ISBN 978 0 7509 0038 6 Griffiths Bill 2005 A Dictionary of North East Dialect Northumbria University Press p 30 ISBN 978 1 904794 16 5 Tomlinson 1915 p 120 Tomlinson 1915 pp 109 110 Tomlinson 1915 pp 110 112 Rolt 1984 p 85 Tomlinson 1915 pp 112 114 Tomlinson 1915 p 106 Tomlinson 1915 pp 89 90 a b Allen 1974 p 27 Tomlinson 1915 p 91 Tomlinson 1915 pp 138 140 Tomlinson 1915 pp 117 119 Tomlinson 1915 p 132 staith Webster s Unabridged Dictionary Project Gutenberg Retrieved 8 March 2014 Tomlinson 1915 pp 120 121 Tomlinson 1915 p 136 a b Tomlinson 1915 pp 118 119 142 Tomlinson 1915 pp 116 142 143 Tomlinson 1915 p 141 a b Kirby 2002 p 61 Tomlinson 1915 p 142 Kirby 2002 pp 61 63 Tomlinson 1915 pp 146 148 Tomlinson 1915 pp 154 156 Tomlinson 1915 pp 122 126 Tomlinson 1915 pp 126 127 Hoole 1974a p 117 Tomlinson 1915 p 130 Tomlinson 1915 p 131 a b c Allen 1974 p 30 Tomlinson 1915 pp 166 167 Tomlinson 1915 p 169 Hoole 1974a p 128 Allen 1974 pp 30 31 Tomlinson 1915 pp 172 173 Kirby 2002 p 75 Tomlinson 1915 p 175 Tomlinson 1915 pp 179 180 239 a b Allen 1974 p 42 Tomlinson 1915 p 237 Hoole 1974a pp 122 124 Tomlinson 1915 pp 182 185 Tomlinson 1915 p 188 Tomlinson 1915 p 187 Kirby 2002 p 74 Tomlinson 1915 pp 187 190 a b c d Cobb 2006 p 449 Tomlinson 1915 p 190 Reid H G ed 1881 Middlesbrough and Its Jubilee A History of the Iron and Steel Industries with Biographies of Pioneers The Gazette p 11 Hoole 1974a p 118 Census 2011 Middlesbrough Council Retrieved 27 December 2013 a b c Delplanque Paul 17 November 2011 Middlesbrough Dock 1839 1980 Middlesbrough Gazette Retrieved 24 March 2013 Tomlinson 1915 p 189 Tomlinson 1915 pp 235 236 Tomlinson 1915 pp 383 384 Kirby 2002 pp 91 94 Tomlinson 1915 pp 384 385 Kirby 2002 p 68 Kirby 2002 pp 87 88 Kirby 2002 p 80 Allen 1974 p 59 Allen 1974 p 64 Tomlinson 1915 p 278 Allen 1974 pp 64 65 a b Hoole 1974a pp 93 94 a b Allen 1974 pp 67 69 Whishaw 1842 p 414 Hoole 1974a p 165 Tomlinson 1915 pp 435 437 Mackay A N ed 2016 A History of North Eastern Railway Signalling North Eastern Railway Association pp 52 53 ISBN 9781873513996 a b Allen 1974 p 74 Whishaw 1842 p 415 a b Whishaw 1842 p 419 Whishaw 1842 p 422 Whishaw 1842 pp 415 422 Rolt 1984 pp 136 137 Whishaw 1842 p 423 Whishaw 1842 pp 417 418 Whishaw 1842 pp 421 422 a b Whishaw 1842 p 416 Lee 1946 p 9 Tomlinson 1915 p 423 Tomlinson 1915 p 400 Whishaw 1842 p 418 Bradshaw s Monthly General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide March 1843 p 16 Hoole 1974a pp 146 147 Hoole 1974a pp 118 119 Tomlinson 1915 p 437 Tomlinson 1915 p 508 Allen 1974 pp 67 71 a b Allen 1974 pp 71 72 Tomlinson 1915 p 439 Allen 1974 pp 76 78 Allen 1974 p 90 Hoole 1974a pp 173 174 Tomlinson 1915 p 298 Hoole 1974a p 188 Hoole 1974a pp 188 190 Allen 1974 p 75 Stanhope and Tyne Railroad Company RAIL 663 The National Archives Hoole 1974a pp 174 175 Hoole 1974a pp 175 176 Tomlinson 1915 p 474 Hoole 1974a p 191 Tomlinson 1915 pp 529 530 Hoole 1974a pp 191 192 a b c d Hoole 1974a p 177 Awdry 1990 p 148 Tomlinson 1915 p 463 Hoole 1974a p 183 a b Hoole 1974a p 122 a b Tomlinson 1915 pp 507 508 Kirby 2002 p 139 a b Kirby 2002 Appendix 1 Tomlinson 1915 pp 488 493 494 497 498 Tomlinson 1915 pp 508 509 a b Allen 1974 p 113 Kirby 2002 pp 152 153 and appendix 1 Kirby 2002 p 153 Hoole 1974a pp 126 127 Tomlinson 1915 pp 532 533 Allen 1974 pp 114 115 a b Allen 1974 p 115 Tomlinson 1915 p 572 Allen 1974 pp 116 117 Lloyd Chris 8 March 2011 Saltburn 150 Pt V The founder s memories The Northern Echo Newsquest North East Ltd Archived from the original on 6 January 2014 Retrieved 1 January 2014 Cobb 2006 p 450 Tomlinson 1915 pp 523 525 Allen 1974 pp 119 120 a b Walton 1992 pp 10 11 Walton 1992 pp 75 76 Allen 1974 pp 121 122 Walton 1992 p 76 a b c Walton 1992 p 148 Walton 1992 pp 163 164 Tomlinson 1915 pp 595 596 Tomlinson 1915 p 544 Tomlinson 1915 p 529 Historic England Details from listed building database 1121229 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 14 January 2014 Hoole 1974b p 8 Darlington North Road Locomotive Works RCTS 24 August 2012 Archived from the original on 15 January 2014 Retrieved 14 January 2014 Hoole 1974a pp 122 123 177 182 183 Allen 1974 pp 125 126 Allen 1974 pp 105 107 Allen 1974 p 127 Allen 1974 pp 125 129 Tomlinson 1915 p 594 Walton 1992 pp 148 149 Walton 1992 p 167 Hoole 1974b p 9 Allen 1974 p 133 Hoole 1974a p 176 Hoole 1974a pp 174 191 192 Hoole 1974a pp 90 91 Tomlinson 1915 pp 136 137 Allen 1974 pp 187 189 Walton 1992 pp 163 166 167 Hoole 1974a p 125 Tomlinson 1915 pp 699 701 Hoole 1974a pp 183 184 Walton 1992 p 78 Allen 1974 pp 204 205 a b Hedges 1981 pp 88 113 114 Allen 1974 p 234 a b Walton 1992 p 189 Walton 1992 p 150 Hoole 1974a p 184 British Transport Commission 1954 Modernisation and Re Equipment of British Rail The Railways Archive Originally published by the British Transport Commission Retrieved 25 November 2006 Hoole 1974a p 219 Walton 1992 p 192 Hoole 1974a p 137 Beeching Richard 1963 The Reshaping of British Railways PDF HMSO p 103 Retrieved 4 January 2014 Beeching Richard 1963 The Reshaping of British Railways maps PDF HMSO map 9 Retrieved 4 January 2014 a b Cobb 2006 pp 449 450 Hoole 1974a p 136 Loft Charles 15 October 2004 Government the Railways and the Modernization of Britain Beeching s Last Trains Psychology Press p 96 ISBN 978 0 203 64305 1 Huskisson Statue National Conservation Centre Liverpool National Museums Liverpool Archived from the original on 9 October 2012 Retrieved 28 November 2010 a b Hewison 1983 p 26 The National Archives RAIL 667 212 Stockton amp Darlington Railway Meeting Minutes taken by T MacNay a b Tomlinson 1915 p 114 Kirby 2002 pp 1 189 Allen 1974 pp 157 158 a b Hoole 1974b pp 12 13 Hoole 1974b pp 42 48 Railway Pageant Centenary display in Manchester The Times No 44078 London 28 September 1925 p 11 Cook 1975 p 11 Cook 1975 pp 5 7 Kershaw Roland 27 September 1975 Future care of railways past secured The Times No 59512 London p 14 Historic England Details from listed building database 1121262 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 1 January 2014 Historic England Details from listed building database 1322962 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 1 January 2014 Head of Steam Darlington Borough Council Retrieved 1 January 2014 WATCH Locomotion No 1 arrives in Shildon The Northern Echo Retrieved 15 May 2021 Hopetown Carriage Works History North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group Retrieved 1 January 2014 NRM Shildon Collection building National Railway Museum Archived from the original on 2 January 2014 Retrieved 1 January 2014 NRM Shildon Museum map National Railway Museum Archived from the original on 2 January 2014 Retrieved 1 January 2014 Historic England Details from listed building database 1310628 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 1 January 2014 Historic England Details from listed building database 1160335 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 1 January 2014 Historic England Details from listed building database 1160320 National Heritage List for England Retrieved 1 January 2014 The Weardale Railway Project Weardale Railway Retrieved 1 January 2014 Uncovered sleeping giants of first railway The Northern Echo Newsquest North East Ltd 14 June 2007 Retrieved 14 June 2007 Named railway lines National Rail Retrieved 31 December 2013 Network Rail 2012 pp 53 54 Cobb 2006 p 448 Network Rail 2012 pp 68 69 Network Rail 2012 p 60 Network Rail 2012 pp 71 73 Network Rail 2012 pp 57 58 Network Rail 2012 pp 53 54 73 Table 44 National Rail timetable May 2015Table 45 National Rail timetable May 2015 Tees Valley Unlimited 2013 pp 1 2 Tees Valley Unlimited 2013 pp 7 8 Middlesbrough James Cook Hospital railway station opens BBC News 18 May 2014 Retrieved 26 September 2014 Newton Aycliffe s Hitachi train plant opens BBC News Tees BBC 3 September 2015 Retrieved 12 September 2015 Sources edit Allen Cecil J 1974 1964 The North Eastern Railway Ian Allan ISBN 0 7110 0495 1 Awdry Christopher 1990 Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies Patrick Stephens ISBN 1 85260 049 7 Cobb Colonel M H 2006 The Railways of Great Britain A Historical Atlas Ian Allan ISBN 978 0 7110 3236 1 Cook C W F ed September 1975 Cavalcade Reflections Official British Rail Eastern Region Souvenir British Rail ISBN 0 7003 0029 5 Hedges Martin ed 1981 150 years of British Railways Hamlyn ISBN 0 600 37655 9 Hewison Christian H 1983 Locomotive Boiler Explosions Newton Abbot David amp Charles ISBN 0 7153 8305 1 Hoole K 1974a A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain Volume IV The North East David amp Charles ISBN 0 7153 6439 1 Hoole K 1974b Stockton and Darlington Railway Anniversary Celebrations of the World s first steam worked public railway Dalesman ISBN 0 85206 254 0 Kirby Maurice W 4 July 2002 The Origins of Railway Enterprise The Stockton and Darlington Railway 1821 1863 Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 89280 3 Lee Charles Edward 1946 Passenger Class Distinctions Railway Gazette OCLC 12040938 Rolt L T C 1984 George and Robert Stephenson The Railway Revolution Penguin ISBN 0 14 007646 8 Smiles Samuel 1904 Lives of the Engineers The Locomotive George and Robert Stephenson John Murray OCLC 220796785 Thomson Thomas ed March 1819 Durham Coal Field Annals of Philosophy Vol XIII London Baldwin Cradock and Joy p 223 Retrieved 25 July 2015 Tomlinson William Weaver 1915 The North Eastern Railway Its rise and development Andrew Reid and Company OCLC 504251788 Walton Peter 1992 The Stainmore and Eden Valley Railways Oxford Publishing ISBN 0 86093 306 7 Whishaw Francis 1842 The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Practically Described and Illustrated 2nd ed London John Weale OCLC 833076248 Route Specifications London North Eastern Network Rail 2012 Retrieved 28 September 2013 Tees Valley Unlimited Progress Report December 2013 PDF Tees Valley Unlimited Archived from the original PDF on 4 October 2015 Retrieved 31 December 2013 Further reading editJeans James Stephen 1875 Jubilee Memorial of the Railway System A History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Longmans Green and co OCLC 2295793 Ransom Philip John Greer 1990 The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved Heinemann ISBN 978 0 434 98083 3 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stockton and Darlington Railway Original report by George Stephenson on the proposal to construct the railway Network Rail The History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway North East History The Stockton and Darlington Railway The Bishop Line to Bishop Auckland March 1843 Timetable Bradshaw s Guides via Wikisource Historic Environment Audit October 2016 2019 revision Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Stockton and Darlington Railway amp oldid 1220016449, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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