The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near with and in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.
The was involved in building the East Coast Main Line between and Darlington, but its main expansion was at Middlesbrough Docks and west into Weardale and east to Redcar. It suffered severe financial difficulties at the end of the 1840s and was nearly taken over by the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, before the discovery of iron ore in Cleveland and the subsequent increase in revenue meant it could pay its debts. At the beginning of the 1860s it took over railways that had crossed the Pennines to join the West Coast Main Line at and Clifton, near .
The company was taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1863, transferring of line and about 160 locomotives, but continued to operate independently as the Darlington Section until 1876. The opening of the was seen as proof of steam railway effectiveness and its anniversary was celebrated in 1875, 1925, 1975 and 2025. Much of the original route is now served by the Tees Valley Line, operated by Northern.
Genesis
Origins
Coal from the inland mines in southern County Durham used to be taken away on packhorses and later on horse-drawn carts as the roads were improved. A canal was proposed by George Dixon in 1767 and again by John Rennie in 1815, but both schemes failed. The harbour of Stockton-on-Tees invested considerably during the early 19th century in straightening the Tees in order to improve navigation on the river downstream of the town and was subsequently looking for ways to increase trade to recoup those costs.
A few years later, a canal was proposed on a route that bypassed Darlington and Yarm, and a meeting was held in Yarm to oppose the route. The Welsh engineer George Overton was consulted, and he advised building a tramroad. Overton carried out a survey and planned a route from the Etherley and Witton Collieries to Shildon, and then passing to the north of Darlington to reach Stockton. The Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson was said to favour the railway, and the Quaker Edward Pease supported it at a public meeting in Darlington on 13 November 1818, promising a five per cent return on investment. Approximately two-thirds of the shares were sold locally, and the rest were bought by Quakers nationally. A private bill was presented to Parliament in March 1819, but as the route passed through Earl of Eldon's estate and one of the Earl of Darlington's fox coverts, it was opposed and defeated by 13 votes.
Overton surveyed a new line that avoided Darlington's estate and agreement was reached with Eldon, but another application was deferred early in 1820, as the death of King George III had made it unlikely a bill would pass that parliamentary year. The promoters lodged a bill on 30 September 1820, the route having changed again as agreement had not been reached with Viscount Barrington about the line passing over his land. The railway was unopposed this time, but the bill nearly failed to enter the committee stage as the required four-fifths of shares had not been sold. Pease subscribed £7,000; from that time he had considerable influence over the railway and it became known as "the Quaker line". The (1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. xliv), which received royal assent on 19 April 1821, allowed for a railway that could be used by anyone with suitably built vehicles on payment of a toll, that was closed at night, and with which land owners within could build branches and make junctions; no mention was made of steam locomotives. This new railway spurred the construction of more railway lines, causing significant developments in railway mapping and cartography, iron and steel manufacturing, as well as in any industries requiring more efficient transportation.
George Stephenson
Concerned about Overton's competence, Pease asked George Stephenson, an experienced enginewright of the collieries of Killingworth, to meet him in Darlington. On 12 May 1821 the shareholders appointed Thomas Meynell as chairman and Jonathan Backhouse as treasurer; a majority of the managing committee, which included Thomas Richardson, Edward Pease and his son Joseph Pease, were Quakers. The committee designed a seal, showing waggons being pulled by a horse, and adopted the Latin motto ("At private risk for public service"). By 23 July 1821 it had decided that the line would be a railway with edge rails, rather than a plateway, and appointed Stephenson to make a fresh survey of the line. Stephenson recommended using malleable iron rails, even though he owned a share of the patent for the alternative cast iron rails, and both types were used. Stephenson was assisted by his 18-year-old son Robert during the survey, and by the end of 1821 had reported that a usable line could be built within the bounds of the act of Parliament, but another route would be shorter by and avoid deep cuttings and tunnels. Overton had kept himself available, but had no further involvement and the shareholders elected Stephenson Engineer on 22 January 1822, with a salary of £660 per year. On 23 May 1822 a ceremony in Stockton celebrated the laying of the first track at St John's Well, the rails apart, the same gauge used by Stephenson on his Killingworth Railway.
Stephenson advocated the use of steam locomotives on the line. Pease visited Killingworth in mid-1822 and the directors visited Hetton colliery railway, on which Stephenson had introduced steam locomotives. A new bill was presented, requesting Stephenson's deviations from the original route and the use of "loco-motives or moveable engines", and this received royal assent on 23 May 1823 as the (4 Geo. 4. c. xxxiii). The line included embankments up to high, and Stephenson designed an iron truss bridge to cross the River Gaunless. The Skerne Bridge over the River Skerne was designed by the Durham architect Ignatius Bonomi.
In 1823, Stephenson and Pease opened Robert Stephenson and Company, a locomotive works at Forth Street, Newcastle, from which the following year the ordered two steam locomotives and two stationary engines. On 16 September 1825, with the stationary engines in place, the first locomotive, Locomotion No. 1, left the works, and the following day it was advertised that the railway would open on 27 September 1825.
Opening
The cost of building the railway had greatly exceeded the estimates. By September 1825, the company had borrowed £60,000 in short-term loans and needed to start earning an income to ward off its creditors. A railway coach, named Experiment, arrived on the evening of 26 September 1825 and was attached to Locomotion No. 1, which had been placed on the rails for the first time at Aycliffe Lane station following the completion of its journey by road from Newcastle earlier that same day. Pease, Stephenson and other members of the committee then made an experimental journey to Darlington before taking the locomotive and coach to Shildon in preparation for the opening day, with James Stephenson, George's elder brother, at the controls. On 27 September, between 7 am and 8 am, 12 waggons of coal were drawn up Etherley North Bank by a rope attached to the stationary engine at the top, and then let down the South Bank to St Helen's Auckland. A waggon of flour bags was attached and horses hauled the train across the Gaunless Bridge to the bottom of Brusselton West Bank, where thousands watched the second stationary engine draw the train up the incline. The train was let down the East Bank to Mason's Arms Crossing at Shildon Lane End, where Locomotion No. 1, Experiment and 21 new coal waggons fitted with seats were waiting.
The directors had allowed room for 300 passengers, but the train left carrying between 450 and 600 people, most travelling in empty waggons but some on top of waggons full of coal. Brakesmen were placed between the waggons, and the train set off, led by a man on horseback with a flag. It picked up speed on the gentle downward slope and reached , leaving behind men on field hunters (horses) who had tried to keep up with the procession. The train stopped when the waggon carrying the company surveyors and engineers lost a wheel; the waggon was left behind and the train continued. The train stopped again, this time for 35 minutes to repair the locomotive and the train set off again, reaching before it was welcomed by an estimated 10,000 people as it came to a stop at the Darlington branch junction. Eight and a half miles () had been covered in two hours, and subtracting the 55 minutes accounted by the two stops, it had travelled at an average speed of . Six waggons of coal were distributed to the poor, workers stopped for refreshments and many of the passengers from Brusselton alighted at Darlington, to be replaced by others.
Two waggons for the Yarm Band were attached, and at 12:30 pm the locomotive started for Stockton, now hauling 31 vehicles with 550 passengers. On the of nearly level track east of Darlington the train struggled to reach more than . At Eaglescliffe near Yarm crowds waited for the train to cross the Stockton to Yarm turnpike. Approaching Stockton, running alongside the turnpike as it skirted the western edge of Preston Park, it gained speed and reached again, before a man clinging to the outside of a waggon fell off and his foot was crushed by the following vehicle. As work on the final section of track to Stockton's quayside was still ongoing, the train halted at the temporary passenger terminus at St John's Well 3 hours, 7 minutes after leaving Darlington. The opening ceremony was considered a success and that evening 102 people sat down to a celebratory dinner at the Town Hall.
Early operations The railway that opened in September 1825 was long and ran from Phoenix Pit, Old Etherley Colliery, to Cottage Row, Stockton; there was also a branch to the depot at Darlington, of the Hagger Leases branch, and a branch to Yarm. Most of the track used malleable iron rails, and of cast iron rails were used for junctions. The line was single track with four passing loops each mile; square sleepers supported each rail separately so that horses could walk between them. Stone was used for the sleepers to the west of Darlington and oak to the east; Stephenson would have preferred all of them to have been stone, but the transport cost was too high as they were quarried in the Auckland area. The railway opened with the company owing money and unable to raise further loans; Pease advanced money twice early in 1826 so the workers could be paid. By August 1827 the company had paid its debts and was able to raise more money; that month the Black Boy branch opened and construction began on the Croft and Hagger Leases branches. During 1827 shares rose from £120 at the start to £160 at the end.