R.o.B Introduction
Introduction
The Railways and Tramways of Darlington
Darlington in County Durham is situated in a natural bowl on the tip of county Durham and the border of North Yorkshire the river Tees at the town's south edge sited on the Great North Road that once passed through the centre of the town, now the A1(M) passes along the towns western edge. The town has a long history as a settlement and also as an agricultural Market place. By the late 18th century the town was also becoming famous for its cloth dying processes and quality of the material it produced. Then in 1825 with the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway the town started to grow and develop as a centre of industry being at a centre point between the south Durham coal fields and the iron ore mines of Cleveland. This saw heavy industries opening up along side the more established mills bringing hundreds of job opportunities to the town which started to grow at a tremendous rate. Before the railways the town had been little more than 1 mile across with out lying villages, even though it was the most important town in south Durham.
With the railway and industry the outlying villages were soon swallowed up in to the town and when the railway link from York to Darlington and then Darlington to Newcastle was opened in the 1840's, more growth came to the town. The problem with all of this growth was that the Stockton and Darlington railway station, still an important place at that time was someway from the town centre, indeed when the railway opened its was approximately one mile out of the town on the Great North Road. To cater for passenger traffic along the road and to allow better access to the town local businessmen proposed and built Britain's third horse tramway which is little remembered today as it only lasted a few years before having to close the previous two being at Birkenhead and London. The town was not to do without a tramway for long as in 1879 another proposal was put forward for new tramways in the town. Some of the proposals were accepted and were built most remaining in use until 1904 when the town Corporation took over converting the tramways to electric traction. With World war one and the world depression that followed as well as the continued growth and development of the town it was soon found that the tramway was becoming more and more isolated and unable to handle the growth in traffic that the growing town created. So in the early 1920's when track renewal was essential the Corporation looked in to alternative forms of passenger transport and in 1926 Darlington's last tram ran, services being replaced by trolleybus the next day.