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R.o.B
Main Line Railways
The
Stockton & Darlington Railway
Introduction: On
the border of County Durham
and North Yorkshire, in the North East of England, is
the town of Darlington. During the
early 19th century the town was famous for its colouring of cotton and wool.
The town had mills and was at the time quite small by modern standards but at
that time was quite large. Then in 1825, local businessmen who had interests in
the coal mines of South Durham opened a 26 mile long
railway from Shildon to Stockton
via Darlington. The Railway Became known as the Stockton
and Darlington Railway laying claim to the first public passenger railway to
use a steam engine to pull a passenger train for revenue earning service. From
that day railways which were predominantly used in and around collieries
developed, leading to the Liverpool and Manchester railway, the first
inter-city railway, and then on to the network of railways that cover the world
today.
Overton's route: The idea for a transport
connection from the Coal mines of south Durham
around Shildon to the docks at Stockton
on Tees was originally thought of in the early 1800s. At
the time Coal was transported on horses using panniers. Obviously this was time
consuming and expensive as well as un-economical but at the time this was the
only reasonable mode of transport. The coal upon arrival at Stockton
was loaded on to ships that would take the coal to London.
Local
businessmen wanted to find away to make the transportation process quicker and
cheaper. At the time canals were the most economical and rapid mode of transit
for heavy goods. Therefore it was decided that a survey for a canal should be
undertaken. However some people thought that a railway would be better as they
had been used to good effect in collieries and also with the improvement off
the steam locomotive. This was also given thought and a survey for this was
also carried out. Early maps of the canal show that what became the route of
the Stockton and Darlington
railway was also the planned route for the canal. However the original plan for
the railway, developed by a Mr. Overton, placed the railway some miles to the
north of the town of Darlington, on
a route that was to eventually to become the Overhead electrified route between
Shildon and Newport docks.
Stephenson's route: Needless to say the business
men of Darlington were not to happy about this as they
wanted their town served by the railway as they were footing a good quantity of
the bill. So along comes George Stephenson from his Colliery at Wylam (His house
still stands in the village of Wylam, a railway line actually ran straight past
its front door until the 1960s and the track bed can be followed. Wylam is on
the line from Newcastle to Carlisle).
Stephenson altered Overton's route enough to make a difference from Shildon by
the line deviating at what is now Aycliffe station, on the line from Darlington
to Bishop Auckland, to Darlington by the line proceeding to Heighington (Where
Locomotion was first put on the rails) and thus in to the towns northern
extremity. However the line still passed 1 mile to the north of the town. In
the end most of Stephenson's line between the colliery at Witton park and Stockton was either
slightly or totally different to Overton's except at Stockton
where the plans did converge.
The Line-Witton Colliery to Aycliffe: The line
started at Witton Colliery which was at the top of the hills, so Stationary
winding engines were placed at Witton
Park and Brusselton inclines. The
full loaded wagons were winched down to the main line where horses were
attached to the train of 'tubs' which were filled with coal. The horses would
then take these to Stockton.
Locomotives were not used very often at first, but over a short time started to
take over from the horses. Unfortunately Locomotion, the first engine on the
line and the first to pull passengers on the open day, was not a great success
and kept breaking down. The line then joined its present path on the Darlington
to Bishop Auckland line, at where the new National
Railway Museum
is built, and headed in a south easterly direction to the proposed site of
Overton's route at Aycliffe.
The line-Heighington to Oak tree Junction: From Sim
pasture junction what is now Newton Aycliffe station, Stephenson's
line continued to Heighington and on to what is now known as Hopetown in
Darlington, which as mentioned above was 1 mile north of the actual town, where
a branch split from the main line and proceeded for 500 yards to the towns coal
staithes. The line then swung eastwards towards Stockton passing over the turnpike road between London
and Edinburgh on a level crossing,
at this point was the original North road station. The line then passed over
the river Skerne on the Skerne bridge pictured on the 5 pound note. At
the time of course the SDR was the only line there and there was virtually no
housing. The line proceeded to Fighting Cocks, which was a pub on the outskirts
of the village of Middleton
St George, the pub is still open!! Though the
line has now gone at this point. A little further on is what is now known as
Oak tree junction as a deviation to the line was built west bound to serve the
North Eastern railways new town station of Bank top, see below.
The line-Oak tree junction to Eaglescliffe: The
line from Oak tree junction is now part of the line from Darlington
to Middlesbrough. At the station known as Allens west
which at one time was for Military personnel and employees of the Navy stores
that were sighted nearby and had a rail connection a branch used to swing south
to coal drops for the town of Yarm which was on the Southern, North Yorkshire
side, of the river Tees. Just before what is now Eaglescliffe station, which is
a major junction for trains from Northallerton to Middlesbrough and a diversion
route for the East coast main line, the S&DR line kept going straight
ahead. The line, now, twists to the left to enter the alignment from
Northallerton of the Leeds Northern railway who built a line from Northallerton
to Stockton. The realignment was
partly due to the land owner of Preston Hall whose land the railway ran on,
complained that the Steam engines scared his horses.
The line-Eaglescliffe to Stockton: The line
continued very close to its present alignment but at Bowesfield Junction where
the present line continues to Stockton or turns sharply eastwards over the Tees
and to Middlesbrough, the original line broke to the North from what is now the
Middlesbrough line and ran along side the river to the docks.
To finish: I hope the above makes sense to those
who do not know the route. But if you get the chance to do it or you are in the
north east with a day to spare the line is well worth a visit and surprisingly
a lot of it is still there and in use as a railway. However a lot of it has
also gone for practical reasons such as the crossover at Haughton road where
the SDR crossed the East coast main line where trains pass through at 100 mph
now.
The Stockton and
Darlington Railway in 1863 amalgamated with the North eastern railway who they
had been working with since 1861; prior to this the SDR had been an independent
railway. The North eastern was formed in 1854 from an amalgamation of the York
and north Midland railway, York, Newcastle and Berwick which had absorbed the Great
North Eatern and Newcastle and Darlington Junction, the Leeds Northern
and the Malton and Driffield Railway companies.