Gordon Edgar - Industrial Locomotives & Railways of the North East

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In this, the eighth book of the regional series examining the industrial railways of England, Wales and Scotland, we review the North East of England, covering a timescale of around six decades a period when Britains traditional heavy industries such as coal mining, steelmaking and shipbuilding were rapidly declining. The economic change and influence of global markets saw deep coal mining entirely eradicated in the region by 2005, and steelmaking on Teesside totally decimated, except for certain specialist products. The North East of England, widely acknowledged as the region in which the birth of the railways came about, was dealt a hammer blow and inflicted with swinging cuts and closures more than anywhere else in the country, especially with the disappearance of many private railways that once served those traditional heavy industries, including complex systems inherited from the pre-Nationalisation coal mining concerns such as the Lambton Railway, the Bowes Railway and the Hetton Railway. In fact, the Hetton Colliery Railway of 1822 was the doyen of the North East colliery railways and stretched for 8 miles over Warden Law, south of Sunderland, linking Hetton colliery with the staiths on the River Wear. Indeed, it was the first complete railway engineered by George Stephenson. The railway employed locomotives on the level stretches of line and stationary steam engines on the six inclines. Remarkably, it was around the surviving remnants of this early railway that industrial steam traction was to bow out in County Durham, at South Hetton colliery in 1976. In Northumberland regular steam activity would cease during the following year when, rather appropriately, a former BR wartime-built locomotive, J94 Class Austerity saddle tank No. 68078, would bring down the curtain on industrial steam in the North East, at Widdrington Disposal Point.

The end of BR steam in the North East had come about in September 1967, with some locomotives of two pre-Grouping classes, the J27 0-6-0 and Q6 0-8-0, soldiering on right until the very end. But after this time there were still several non-BR steam-worked railway systems of note surviving, along with numerous National Coal Board collieries and byproducts plants still regularly relying on steam traction. It is therefore not surprising that the attention of the steam railway enthusiast was then drawn to this region of the country, where everyday working steam could still be experienced in relative abundance, such as on the remarkable systems at Philadelphia, Derwenthaugh, Ashington and Backworth in the late 1960s. Some of these railways had direct access, or running rights over BR lines, to their own staiths or ports. Away from the collieries, Doxfords shipyard at Sunderland was home to a unique fleet of four-coupled crane tanks, clinging on to a tenuous existence supporting the vulnerable shipbuilding industry.

This shipyard, in the shadow of Sunderlands Queen Alexandra Bridge at Pallion, unsurprisingly proved to be a magnet for steam railway photographers. But sadly, time was quickly running out, and these havens for steam were gradually falling by the wayside one by one, either as a result of dieselisation or following complete closure. Arguably, the most notable loss of all was the former Lambton Railway at Philadelphia, steam bowing out in style there after heavy snowfall in mid-February 1969. Before its demise, if one could bear to draw oneself away from Philadelphia, just 6 miles further east were to be found the remarkable staiths at Seaham, connected to South Hetton and the modern Hawthorn Combined Colliery by the Cold Hesledon self-acting inclines, and having a line along the coast to Dawdon colliery. The Hesledon inclines, the last self-acting inclines to remain in commercial operation in the North East, were examples of many that at one time were in widespread use in County Durham, moving large volumes of coal to staiths on the rivers Tyne and Wear. The most numerous and arguably well-known examples were those integral to the Bowes Railway, connecting mines several miles inland in north-west Durham with Jarrow staiths on the River Tyne. These inclines remained virtually intact until 1968 and the heritage Bowes Railway today maintains two of them, both of which are scheduled ancient monuments. The Bowes Railway also operates a demonstration railway based on Springwell, including the historic Springwell wagon workshops and a fleet of around forty wagons. Further west, the former NCB Bowes Railways Marley Hill locomotive shed is the home of the Tanfield Railway, which provides steam services and occasionally operates demonstration coal trains between East Tanfield, Causey Arch, Andrews House and Sunniside.