York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway
The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway and the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interests controlled by George Hudson, the so-called Railway King. In collaboration with the York and North Midland Railway and other lines he controlled, he planned that the YN&BR would form the major part of a continuous railway between London and Edinburgh. At this stage the London terminal was Euston Square (nowadays called Euston) and the route was through Normanton. This was the genesis of the East Coast Main Line, but much remained to be done before the present-day route was formed, and the London terminus was altered to King's Cross.
The YN&BR completed the plans of its predecessors, including building a central passenger station in Newcastle, the High Level Bridge across the River Tyne, and the viaduct across the River Tweed, that was later named the Royal Border Bridge. These were prodigious undertakings.
George Hudson's business methods had always been uncompromising, and eventually serious irregularities in his financial dealings were exposed, which led to his disgrace and resignation from the chairmanship of the YN&BR in 1849.
Co-operation with other railways in the YN&BR area led to a traffic sharing agreement, and then to amalgamation; on 31 July 1854 the North Eastern Railway was formed by the merger of the YN&BR with the Leeds Northern Railway and the York & North Midland Railway, as well as the Malton and Driffield Junction Railway three months later.
Early railways edit
The abundant mineral deposits in the area of County Durham and Northumberland led early on to the construction of waggonways to convey the heavy ores to watercourses for onward transit, or to other means of reaching a point of sale.
Tanfield Waggonway edit
Although there appear to have been earlier waggonways from the high ground around Tanfield, the most notable line was the Tanfield Waggonway of 1725, from Tanfield Moor to Dunston, on the Tyne. This line had several rope-worked inclines, with more moderate gradients operated by horse traction. The rails were timber. In commercial terms it was remarkably successful, although wayleave charges (imposed by landowners) were heavy.[1]
The Stanhope and Tyne Railway edit
The Stanhope and Tyne Railroad Company was formed in 1832 as a partnership to build a railway between limestone quarries near Stanhope and the coal mines near Medomsley, and to connect to quays at South Shields.[2][3]
The line was opened in 1834. There were several rope-worked inclines on the route.[4][5][6]
Traffic levels did not reach expectations, some collieries on the route declining to use the line, and the heavy operating costs of the inclined planes lead to poor profitability. When it was discovered that the directors had been overstating the profitability of the concern, a financial crisis was precipitated. In 1842 it became obvious that the Stanhope and Tyne company could not continue and a new company was formed to take on the debt and operate the railway.
Pontop and South Shields Railway edit
The new company was the Pontop and South Shields Railway of 1842. The south-western part of the line from Stanhope to Carrhouse was sold to the Derwent Iron Company, which operated at Consett. It formed an alliance with the Stockton and Darlington Railway and in time a railway connection through Bishop Auckland and that section became part of the Stockton and Darlington Railway system.
From 1840 passenger traffic increased when through trains from London to Gateshead ran over part of the P&SSR line, in association with the Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway, the Durham Junction Railway, and the Brandling Junction Railway.[7]
The Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway acquired the Pontop and South Shields Railway on 1 January 1847.[8][9]
Brandling Junction Railway edit
John and Robert William Brandling had extensive mining interests in the area east of Gateshead and in the Tanfield area. They took steps to build a railway connecting their interests with quays at South Shields and Wearmouth, and in 1835 formed the Brandling Junction Railway.
It opened in 1839 from a Gateshead station at Oakwellgate, to South Shields and Wearmouth. The company also acquired the Tanfield Waggonway and modernised it. Its terminal on the Tyne at Dunston required the use of keels to convey the coal downstream to shipping berths, requiring transshipping, and the Brandling Junction Railway opened a connection from the Tanfield line to Oakwellgate too, to bring the Tanfield coal to deeper water. This required the use of a short section of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway near Redheugh. [10][11]
From 1840 passenger trains from London to Gateshead used the Brandling Junction line from Brockley Whins to Gateshead.
The Brandling Junction Railway was taken over by the Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway in 1844. A subsequent act of 1845 legalised the purchase.[12]
Hartlepool Dock & Railway edit
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The Hartlepool Dock & Railway (HD&R) was built to take coal from central County Durham mines to the docks at Hartlepool. A private bill was presented to Parliament seeking permission to build the railway and royal assent was given on 1 June 1832. The line was 14 miles (23 km) long with 9+1⁄4 miles (14.9 km) of branch line, and 65 acres (26 ha) of land for docks; a later Act gave authority for a branch to the City of Durham and the use of stationary engines. The line was not built beyond Haswell after no assurances could be obtained from the owners of Moorsley and Littletown collieries that they would use the line to send coal to Hartlepool. Services ran between Thornley pit and Castle Eden after January 1835; on 23 November that year the first train ran the 12+1⁄4 miles (19.7 km) between Haswell and Hartlepool. By the end of that year there was 14+1⁄2 miles (23.3 km) of line operational.[13]
The Great North of England, Clarence & Hartlepool Junction Railway (GNEC&HJR) was a 8+1⁄2-mile (13.7 km) extension of the HD&R from Wingate to the Great North of England Railway at Ferryhill and the Clarence Railway at Byers Green. An Act was obtained on 3 July 1837[14] and the line opened to Kelloe Bank in 1839.[15] The GNEC&HJR had neglected to obtain powers to cross the Clarence Railway's Sherburn branch and returned to Parliament after failing to come to agreement with the Clarence. Royal assent was given in 1843 for a bridge over the line, but the Clarence Railway still refused to cooperate building it, so it was 1846 before the railway was completed[16] The York & Newcastle Railway leased the HD&R and GNEC&HJR from 12 August 1846, and both were amalgamated with the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway on 22 July 1848.[9]
Durham Junction Railway edit
On 16 June 1834 the Durham Junction Railway (DJR) received permission to build a railway to transport coal from Moorsley in the Houghton-le-Spring area and the Hartlepool Dock & Railway to the River Tyne at Gateshead.[17][18] Leaving the Stanhope and Tyne line at Washington, the River Wear was crossed by Victoria Viaduct, 811 feet (247 m) long and 135 feet (41 m) above high-water mark, which was designed by Harrison and built in two years. The bridge was officially opened and named in honour of Queen Victoria on her coronation on 28 June 1838, and the railway opened to mineral traffic on 24 August 1838. The 4-mile-70-chain (7.8 km) long line was only laid as far as Rainton Meadows, 2 miles (3.2 km) short of Moorsley, and the Houghton-le-Spring branch was not built.[17][19]
Passengers were carried over the railway for the first time in March 1840 as one of the series of connecting services between Newcastle and Darlington.[20] On 14 September 1843 the company was bought by N&DJR, as its planned route between Newcastle and Darlington involved running over the railway and the DJR was operating at a loss and unable to upgrade the track.[21][22]
Durham & Sunderland Railway edit
The Durham & Sunderland Railway (D&SR) received permission on 13 August 1834 for a 13+1⁄4-mile (21.3 km) line from the South Dock in Sunderland to Murton, with branches to Durham and the Hartlepool Dock & Railway at Haswell, although there was initially no connection between the lines as they were at different levels and at right angles to each other.[23][24]
The line was worked by eight stationary engines at Sunderland, Seaton, Merton, Appleton, Hetton, Moorsley, Piddington and Sherburn. Rated at between 42 and 85 horsepower (31 and 63 kW), these pulled trains using ropes up to 2,450 fathoms (14,700 ft; 4,480 m) long and between 4 and 7+1⁄4 inches (100 and 180 mm) in circumference.[25] Services started on 5 July 1836, the line was formally opened on 30 August[23] and after October[26] passengers travelled in carriages with three compartments attached to coal trains; compartments for first class were enclosed whereas those for second class passengers were open on the sides. In 1838 The railway carried over 77,000 people on trains that travelled at an average speed of 8+1⁄2 miles per hour (13.7 km/h); Whishaw (1842) reports the passenger service was unpunctual and the carriages subject to jolts whenever the trains started.[27]
Permission was granted on 30 June 1837 to divert the line in Durham south to Shincliffe, and this opened on 28 June 1839.[23] The D&SR was taken over by the York & Newcastle Railway on 1 January 1847, and became part of the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway that year.[28]
East Coast Main Line edit
Great North of England Railway edit
On 13 October 1835 the York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was formed to connect York to London by building a line from York to a junction on the planned North Midland Railway at Normanton.[29] Two weeks later the Great North of England Railway (GNER) was formed during a meeting of representatives of the York & North Midland and Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR).[30] Joseph Pease of the S&DR had a plan for a line north from York to Newcastle that ran over 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) of the S&DR between Darlington and Croft-on-Tees.[31] To allow both sections to open at around 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 had specified a formation wide enough for four tracks, so that freight could be carried at 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and passengers at 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), and George Stephenson had detailed plans by November.[32]
The Act for the 34+1⁄2 miles (55.5 km) section from Newcastle to Darlington was given royal assent on 4 July 1836, but little work had been done by the time that the 43 miles (69 km) from Croft to York received permission on 12 July following year. In August a general meeting decided to start work on the southern section, but construction was delayed by poor labour relations with masons building the bridge over the River Tees at Croft,[33][34] and after several bridges collapsed the engineer Thomas Storey was replaced by Robert Stephenson. At York a joint GNER and Y&NMR terminus was built in the city, trains entering through a pointed arch in the city wall. On 4 January 1841 the railway opened for coal traffic using S&DR locomotives, but by the time the railway opened to passengers on 30 March its own locomotives had arrived from R & W Hawthorn.[33][34] From York, trains called at stations at
- Shipton, renamed Beningbrough in 1898
- Tollerton
- Alne
- Raskelf
- Sessay
- Thirsk
- Northallerton
- Cowton
- Croft, renamed Croft Spa in 1896
before terminating at a temporary station at Bank Top, near Darlington.[35]
In 1845 the Royal Commission's speed trials ran speed trials between York and Darlington as part of its comparison between lines built with Great Western Railway's 7 feet (2.1 m) gauge track and the 4 feet 8+1⁄2 inches (1.435 m) gauge track used by other British railways. A locomotive reached speeds of up to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), and reached 43+1⁄4 miles per hour (69.6 km/h) hauling 80 long tons (81 t). Trials with locomotives built for the wider gauge showed them to have better performance, but the Commission recommended that new lines should be built using the more common 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in gauge track.[36]
Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway edit
In 1841 it was possible to travel between Newcastle and Darlington by taking a train to Stockton, transferring by omnibus to the other railway station in the town and catching another train to Hartlepool. After changing trains at Hartlepool and at Haswell, at Sunderland an omnibus was taken across the Wear to Monkwearmouth to a Brandling Junction train to Redheugh, where the Tyne was crossed by omnibus to Newcastle.[36] There were three services a day and the journey took about six hours, about the same time as a horse and coach, but cheaper and more comfortable.[37] From November 1841 a Stockton & Darlington service was introduced between Darlington and Coxhoe, where an omnibus took passengers the 3+1⁄2 miles (5.6 km) to the Durham & Sunderland Railway at Shincliffe. This service was withdrawn in February 1842;[38] from May 1842 Newcastle could be reached in 3+1⁄4 hours via South Church station, south of Bishop Auckland, from where a four-house omnibus connected with Rainton on the Durham Junction Railway.[39]
Although the Great North of England Railway had authority for a railway from York to Newcastle, by 1841 it had spent all of the £1,330,000 of capital that had been authorised to build the line to Darlington 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 favouring a railway via the west coast. Railway financier George Hudson chaired a meeting of representatives of north-eastern railways who wished such a railway to be built via the east coast,[40] and Robert Stephenson was engaged to select a route between Darlington and Newcastle using the existing railways as much as possible. Stephenson's proposed route differed from the GNER route slightly in the southern section before joining the Durham Junction at Rainton and using the Pontop & South Shields from Washington to Brockley Whins, where a new curve onto the Brandling Junction would allow direct access to Gateshead. This required the construction of 25+1⁄2 miles (41.0 km) of new line, 9 miles (14 km) shorter than the GNER route, but trains would need to travel 7+1⁄2 miles (12.1 km) further. However, this bypassed the S&DR, even though the railway ran parallel to the S&DR for 5 miles (8.0 km). Joseph Pease argued that it should run over its lines as this would add only 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) to the route.[41] The bill was presented to Parliament in 1842, it was opposed by the S&DR and the Dean and Chapter of Durham, who were asking for £12,000 for land with the N&DJR offering only £2,400; eventually a jury valued this land at £3,500. The Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway Act received royal assent on 18 June 1842, but a second Act the following year was necessary to secure the deviations from the GNER route in the south recommended by Stephenson.[39][42]
The section from Rainton to Belmont and the 2+1⁄2-mile (4.0 km) long City of Durham branch opened on 15 April 1844. The line was carried on three timber viaducts, including one 660 feet (200 m) long over the Sherburn Valley, and terminated at a new Ionic order station at Greenesfield in Gateshead. The directors travelled over the route on 24 May 1844 in advance of the official opening date of 18 June 1844,[43] when a train with nine passengers left London Euston at 5:03 am, and travelling via Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield and Normanton, reached Gateshead at 2:24 pm. Three trains ran from Gateshead to Darlington to meet Hudson travelling on a train from York, before three locomotives hauling 39 first class carriages made a return journey over the line. Public services started the next day with rolling stock leased from the GNER; a journey from London took 12+1⁄2 hours, of which 2+3⁄4 hours was spent at stops on the way.[44][45] Intermediate stations opened on the newly built line at Aycliffe, Bradbury,[46] Ferryhill, Shincliffe, Sherburn, Belmont and Leamside.[47] Stations also opened on the Durham Junction Railway at Fencehouses and Penshaw,[47] and at Boldon on the Pontop and South Shields.[48] For three months, until the new curve opened in August, trains reversed at Brockley Whins; this was done by detaching the locomotive from a moving train about 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) from the junction, steaming ahead past it and reversing to take the loop line to allow the still moving carriages to pass.[49][50]
Newcastle and Berwick Railway edit
First proposals edit
In the first decades of the nineteenth century, attention turned to the possibility of a railway connection between the developing railways of England, and central Scotland. The topography of the region presented obstacles: the Cheviot Hills stood in the direct line between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and a more gentle course following the low-lying coastal strip appeared to be unreasonably circuitous. Crossing the River Tyne and serving Newcastle while avoiding interference with urban areas was also difficult. Viewed from Scotland it was by no means obvious that a connection to England had to pass through Newcastle, although any western route, through Carlisle, faced equally difficult terrain in the Scottish Southern Uplands.
On 1 March 1839 plans were deposited for a Great North British Railway from Newcastle to Edinburgh. The English part of the route had been designed by George Stephenson, and the Scottish end by the established Scottish railway engineers Thomas Grainger and John Miller. The Great North British Railway did not proceed to being authorised; the money market was not amenable to financing the scheme at the time. At the Scottish end, huge public debate was generated about the route from central Scotland to what was becoming the English network. For some time it was taken for granted that only one route was viable, and numerous schemes, many of doubtful practicality, were put forward. (Some of the proposals would build a direct route across mountainous terrain, with steep gradients and prodigiously long tunnels.) A Government commission, referred to as the Smith-Barlow Commission, was set up to determine the best route, but its slow deliberation and indecisive conclusion encouraged promoters to disregard it.
George Hudson was developing the network based on the York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) and the Great North of England Railway, to reach Gateshead. Meanwhile, Scottish interests had decided that a line from Edinburgh to Berwick could be financed, and in 1843 a provisional North British Railway was formed. George Hudson agreed to subscribe £50,000 through the Y&NMR. He saw that if he built a line from Newcastle to Berwick, he could gain control of the North British Railway and thereby control the entire route connecting York and Edinburgh.
So was created the proposals for the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. North of Alnmouth the proposed route intersected part of the lands owned by Earl Grey; he had been Prime Minister but now was retired. He decided he would not accept the interference with his lands, and his son Viscount Howick took up the fight to protect the estate. A deviation was put forward by him to put the railway out of sight of the residence, but it would have substantially increased the cost of construction, and Stephenson, and later Hudson, attempted to negotiate acceptance of the original route.
Howick remained implacably opposed to the routing of the railway, and the promoters of the N&BR line decided to go ahead with their original route, on the basis that Parliament was now unsympathetic to obstruction of large projects beneficial to the public interest, on purely personal grounds.
When Viscount Howick became persuaded that his objections to the Newcastle and Berwick Bill in Parliament were unlikely to prevail, he instead proposed a rival line, the Northumberland Railway, which would pass clear of the estate, to the west. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was engaged to engineer the line, and he decided to adopt the atmospheric system. This involved the laying of a tube between the rails; a partial vacuum was created in the tube by static pumping stations, and each train was headed by a "piston carriage" which carried a piston running in the tube. A leather flap sealed the necessary slot in the tube before and after passage of the train. The atmospheric system avoided the weight of a locomotive and its fuel and water in the train formation, and was in use without apparent difficulty on the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway.
The relevant railways connecting with the proposed Newcastle and Berwick Railway reached Gateshead, on the south bank of the Tyne, and it was necessary to cross the Tyne by a bridge. For some time it was not clear that the bridge needed to be in Newcastle itself, but as part of the process of gaining support (and of reducing the attractiveness of Howick's Northumberland Railway) Hudson agreed on the crossing at what became the High Level Bridge and a general, "Central" station in Newcastle. These works would cost about a third of the total cost of building