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The Stockton and Darlington Railway The little County Durham line built by George Stephenson and his son Robert was the place where the world’s railway infrastructure really began.

In two parts

1825
King George IV 1820-1830
Music: John Field

© James E. Petts, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0. Source

About this picture …

A carriage from the Stockton and Darlington Railway, introduced in the 1840s. It was around this time that the railway fractionally widened the gauge used by George Stephenson to the now-familiar ‘standard gauge’ of 4ft 8½in.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway

Part 1 of 2

George Stephenson had already built over a dozen steam locomotives and engineered colliery railways at Killingworth in Northumberland, and Hetton in County Durham. Now his growing reputation had brought him another challenge, a little further south at Shildon, and on September 27th, 1825, the world’s railways began to take their now familiar shape.

THE Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first public railway in the world to be licensed to carry fare-paying passengers behind a steam locomotive.* But passengers were not the line’s real business. That was to trundle long train-loads of coal from the coalfields of County Durham to the Tees at Stockton; and to meet the demands of this heavy freight, George Stephenson and his son Robert convinced Edward Pease, the line’s chief investor, to use steam power, establishing a new locomotive works at Forth Street in Newcastle. When the line officially opened on September 27th, 1825, Forth Street’s steam locomotive Locomotion No. 1 stood proudly at the head of a carriage named ‘Experiment’ and twenty-one coal wagons temporarily fitted out with seats.

The organisers budgeted for three hundred passengers, but almost twice as many piled into the train, reassured that the locomotive would remain meekly behind a flag-bearer on horseback to restrict speeds. Thousands of lineside spectators cheered the train on as Locomotion No. 1 took three hours to rumble eight and a half miles from Shildon to Darlington, where ten thousand more greeted it, and another three for the five miles to Stockton, now hauling thirty-one vehicles with five hundred and fifty passengers.

Jump to Part 2

The Stockton and Darlington’s was not the first to use steam locomotives, nor was it the first railway to carry passengers; but it was the first to do both on a commercial basis. “What then was the Stockton and Darlington?” mused local historian Michael Heavisides in 1912. “It was not the first public railway, nor even the first railway over which a locomotive engine had passed, but it was the first public railway on which locomotives did the haulage, and was the true germ of our present railway system.”

That is, 1s 6d or one shilling and six pence. There were 20 shillings to the pound, and twelve pence to the shilling. In 1849, a hewer (worker at the coalface) received about 4s a day. See Durham Mining Museum. Meanwhile in London, a 1lb loaf of bread sold for a penny farthing (1¼ pence). See Old Bailey Online.

Précis

In 1822, George Stephenson was engaged to build a new railway, powered by steam locomotives, from Shildon to Stockton via Darlington in County Durham. Chiefly intended for transporting coal, it was also the first line to offer passenger services to the fare-paying general public, and opened on September 27, 1825. (47 / 60 words)

Part Two

© Gilletts Crossing, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. Source

About this picture …

Stephenson’s original ‘Locomotion No. 1’ now lives at the railway museum in Shildon, having been on display for many years at the mainline station at Darlington.

Despite the sedate pace overall, so the story goes, Stephenson could not resist dismissing the horseman and touching fifteen miles per hour in one short burst.* At last the train clanked into Stockton, the Yarm band struck up God Save the King, and the opening day was declared a triumphant success.*

At once the line was busy with passengers: over 30,000 travelled the line in twelve months from July 1826, mostly in horse-drawn carriages running on the rails, at one-and-six per head.* But it was the increased coal traffic that transformed the region. Within three years, Durham pits were sending over 50,000 tons of coal over the line to staithes at Stockton on the River Tees, bound for London.* In Stockton itself, the price of coal had halved. Soon, ever-larger collier ships required the deeper waters of the Tees estuary at Middlesbrough; and twelve months after the railway reached it, the tiny village had swollen to a busy town of two thousand. As the railway spawned more branches, the 4ft 8in gauge Stephenson had brought over from Killingworth and Hetton became (with an extra half inch) the standard, for the region and for the world. Today, nearly sixty percent of the world’s railways, and most high-speed lines, use the Stockton and Darlington’s gauge — the width of a Killingworth pit pony.

Copy Book

The slow times were owing in part to stoppages: that first three hours had included three shoppages totalling some fifty-five minutes. “At Darlington, the train halted for half-an-hour” local historian Michael Heavisides recorded. “No. 1 was taken to a company’s reservoir to replenish her water barrel. Six waggons of coals and twenty-three of the horse waggons, laden with workmen, left the main line, and were taken down to the depot. The horses were taken out to bait. The coals were distributed to the poor of the town, and the workmen were entertained to a right good dinner, washed down with copious libations of ale in the various public-houses in the town. No. 1 having filled her water barrel, the six waggons of coal having been taken off, and the waggons containing Mr Meynell’s famous Yarm band, having been coupled on, the train started.”

For one man it was a bitter-sweet day, and that was Edward Pease, the farsighted and open-handed owner of the line. “That day Edward Pease’s son Isaac died,” wrote railway historian W. J. Gordon, “and in the silent room he heard the distant cheers telling him how his work had received its completion in the hour of his bereavement.”

A staithe is a (wooden) construction built over a river, designed for wagons to drop coal down into ships beneath. The most extensive staithes remaining today are those at Dunston in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Précis

On the opening day, Stephenson’s steam locomotive ‘Locomotion No. 1’ covered the thirteen and a half miles from Shildon to Stockton in a total of six hours, hailed as a great success. In a few years, the line was prospering with both passenger and freight traffic, transforming the region and setting the standards for worldwide railway engineering thereafter. (58 / 60 words)

Related Video

Below is a short video of a working replica of Locomotion No. 1, at Beamish Museum in County Durham.

Suggested Music

1 2

Piano Concerto No. 2 In A-flat Major

2: Molto espressivo

John Field (1782-1837)

Played by Miceal O’Rourke, with the London Mozart Players, conducted by Matthias Bamert

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Piano Concerto No. 2 In A-flat Major

3: Moderato innocente

John Field (1782-1837)

Played by Miceal O’Rourke, with the London Mozart Players, conducted by Matthias Bamert

Media not showing? Let me know!

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