The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was an early British mineral railway that ran from Stanhope to South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne in County Durham, England. It ran through the towns of Birtley, Chester-le-Street, West Stanley and Consett. The object was to convey limestone from Stanhope and coal from West Consett and elsewhere to the Tyne, and to local consumers. Passengers were later carried on parts of the line.
The line opened on 15 May 1834, but it was not financially successful. It had been formed by a partnership, and the heavily indebted partners floated a new company, the Pontop and South Shields Railway, to continue operation and take over the debt. Part of the line was bought by the Derwent Iron Company, which later became the Consett Iron Company.
Much of the S&TR system was built through hilly, sparsely populated terrain across the moors of County Durham, and it incorporated several rope-worked inclines as well as using horse traction and steam locomotives on level sections.
Dependent on the activity of mineral workings, and subject to competition from more modern routes, the line closed in stages in the 20th century, although a short section near South Shields is still extant; today much of the route is used as the Consett and Sunderland Railway Path, part of the national Sustrans foot and cycle path network.
Waggonways
The Durham and Northumberland coalfield was rich in the mineral, and it was extracted in increasing volumes from the Middle Ages. Transport of the heavy mineral to market was expensive and difficult; water transport, on rivers and by coastal shipping was the most practicable, and the earliest pits were close to waterways, particularly the River Tyne and the River Wear. The deposits very close to the waterways soon became worked out, and the location of the mining moved progressively away in the seventeenth century, requiring longer transits overland.
The mineral could be conveyed to a quay by cart. Even in the early decades of the nineteenth century, there were very few public roads, and the carts made their way across private land, paying a wayleave to the landowner. The wayleave was a contract for permission to cross the land in return for a payment, usually based on a rate per unit of weight.
Even so, crossing undeveloped land by cart was slow and difficult, and waggonways were developed; at first they consisted of wooden rails, and individual wagons were hauled along the route by horse traction. In the course of time a considerable number of such waggonways were constructed in the area. The waggonways too required wayleaves to traverse privately held land.A F Snaith and Charles E Lee, The Stanhope & Tyne Railway: 1 — History and Description, in Railway Magazine, July and August 1942Gordon Biddle. The Railway Surveyors, Ian Allan Limited, Shepperton, 1990, M J T Lewis, Early Wooden Railways, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974, K Hoole, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 4: The North East, David and Charles, Dawlish, 1965
Formation of the Stanhope and Tyne Early in 1831, Pontop Colliery (a landsale pitLandsale pit: one whose output was expected to be sold locally and not shipped away from the district.) at Medomsley was advertised to be let. William Wallis of Westoe (near South Shields) found the potential attractive and later in the year he agreed to leases of coal seams at West Consett and Medomsley, and limestone quarries at Stanhope. A railway would be needed to connect those places, and a partnership was formed. They arranged wayleaves to get their line from Consett to Stanhope, avoiding the expense of obtaining an act of Parliament. Stanhope was the location of extensive reserves of limestone, required in the process of smelting iron ore. At this stage, the plan was to use the Tanfield WaggonwayAccording to Snaith and Lee; Hoole says "the old Pontop Waggonway". Tomlinson says (page 212) "probably down the old Pontop waggonway." to transport the materials to the Tyne. As well as the limestone quarries at Stanhope, there were limekilns, producing quicklime.William Weaver Tomlinson, The North Eastern Railway: Its Rise and Development, Andrew Reid and Company, 1915
The partnership was formalised as the Stanhope Railroad Company under the deed of 30 January 1832 and the company reviewed the means of reaching the Tyne. The waggonway had the disadvantage of reaching the Tyne at the mouth of the River Derwent. As this was upstream of Newcastle bridge, the size of vessels reaching the berth was seriously limited, and it was decided to make an independent railway to a downstream location, at South Shields.
This would require considerably more capital than had been envisaged so far, and on 20 April 1832 an unincorporated company, the Stanhope and Tyne Railroad Company, was formed for the purpose. This much more ambitious scheme required engineering expertise, and Thomas Elliot Harrison was appointed as the company's engineer. Harrison later became the first General Manager of the North Eastern Railway. Robert Stephenson was appointed consulting engineer, and he accepted his fee of £1,000 in stock of the company.
Although the scheme was now to be a considerable railway with an estimated capital of £150,000, in the interests of keeping confidential the rich mineral resources to be exploited, the company decided to continue the practice of arranging wayleaves rather than applying to Parliament for authority to build the line. In the event this resulted in massive charges being demanded by the landowners on the eastern section, averaging £300 a mile annually. The wild hills of the western section were less useful agriculturally and the wayleave fees were considerably less. Nonetheless the annual wayleave charge was about £5,600. Most of the capital required for the construction was found by London financiers.
Construction and opening
The terrain at the western end of the line was exceedingly difficult due to its hilly nature and the high altitude; construction at Stanhope started in July 1832.
The eastern section across much easier terrain was begun in May 1833. From Kyo (near Annfield Plain) eastward to the Durham turnpike road near Pelaw Grange, it had been intended to take over the Beamish Colliery Railway and use it for the line. The Beamish had recently been converted from wooden rails to iron rails; it was to be reached along the old Shield Row waggonway. However the negotiations with Morton John Davison for the purchase of his railway fell through, and the Stanhope and Tyne was forced to fall back upon a line running by way of West Stanley to Stella Gill and thence to the Durham road. On 17 May the tenders were let, and the works began very soon afterwards. The South Shields Improvement Commissioners objected to the railway passing through the town at street level, and the company was forced to alter the line to run at a higher level, crossing the main roads by bridges; these were completed in November 1833.
Early in May 1834, the first locomotive (built by Robert Stephenson and Company) was placed on the line at South Shields,On 1 May; Tomlinson, page 241 and on 15 May the upper part of the line, a section of from Stanhope to Annfield, was opened for traffic.
The day was marred when a shackle broke on a set of four wagons, conveying 40 people, on the Weatherhill incline. The wagons ran away down the incline and were diverted into a siding containing spare wagons; a man and a boy were killed.
The eastern section was opened on 10 September 1834, the first public railway on Tyneside.Hoole, page 188 Horse traction was used as well as locomotives, and in the hilly section there were inclines worked by stationary engines as well as self-acting inclines. The first consignment of coal was brought from the Medomsley collieries in a train of 100 wagons, and was loaded on a ship named "Sally".Dr Tom Bell, Railways of the North Pennines, The History Press, Stroud, 2015,
There were three drops or staiths at the South Shields quays, of a design considered to be advanced for the period; they were capable of dealing with 25 to 35 chaldrons per hour, and the berths could take vessels at low water of spring tides. The chaldrons were lowered to the ship on a swinging derrick; as they descended the tension on the restraining cable increased; a 5-ton chain was housed in a shaft, and at first it was coiled on the base. As the load descended the chain was increasingly pulled up, neatly counterbalancing the weight of the loaded chaldron; when the chaldron was discharged the weight of the chain pulled it back up.Tomlinson, page 248
The main line was in length; there was a branch to Medomsley Colliery (), and in 1835 a branch to Tanfield Moor colliery was opened, partly by restoration of an earlier waggonway, , this was known as the Harelaw branch. There were no large towns on the line of route, which was planned purely for mineral transport. The rails used on the line were of fish-bellied form, weighing , on stone blocks. The gauge of the line was .
In operation
The original proprietors had forecast considerable profits but this did not prove to be the case. Dividends of 5% were declared in 1835 and 1836, but these were paid from capital, not income. The finances of the company were mismanaged and traffic did not reach expected volumes.
The company burnt lime at Stanhope and Annfield, consuming nearly 10,000 tons of coal in the process; the resultant quicklime was distributed at seven depots, and it was a significant traffic in the early years, but it was not profitable and it was discontinued in 1839.
Except for one locomotive with four uncoupled wheels, the S&T had 0-4-2 locomotives, of which eight were built by Robert Stephenson and Company.Tomlinson, pages 392 and 393 There were seven locomotives on the line by 1837.G F Whittle, The Railways of Consett and North-West Durham, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971,
On 16 April 1835, the railway began to carry passengers, between South Shields and Durham Road, near the corner of Lambton Park. At first this was free of charge in coal wagons, but later in open carriages attached to the coal trains. The landowners now demanded higher charges for the wayleaves on the grounds that the earlier arrangement had been for the carriage of minerals only.
The engineer of the line, T. E. Harrison, recorded:
It as only the force of circumstances that compelled us to take passengers at all. We had constant applications from poor people to ride on the coal waggons and, at first, permission was granted them to ride on the waggons without any payment at all, then passenger carriages were put on the way to save the trouble of these applications and to obviate the risk of accidents. We first put on an open carriage attached to the coal train, afterwards we ran a coach once a fortnight on pay days with an engine at considerable loss. In 1835, from 16 April, we carried 2,814 passengers. There was a considerable loss that year by carrying passengers, not less than £220. In 1838 we carried 17,490 passengers. There was an apparent gain that year of £117 15s. In 1839 we carried 15,010 passengers. In that year I consider the loss was £166 6s. 10d. Up to the close of 1839 I think there was distinctly a loss to the Company and I recommended the directors to discontinue it. They thought it a great public convenience and determined not to discontinue it.Tomlinson, pages 366 and 367
Route
The quarries at Stanhope are at an altitude of above sea level. The railway left the quarry sidings and turned north up the hillside, by rope worked inclines. From Stanhope to the Crawley engine was long on gradients of 1 in 8 and 1 in 12, passing through Hog Hill tunnel, about long. At the Crawley engine ( above sea level) the ropes were changed and the sets of wagons were drawn up to the Weatherhill engine, over away, over gradients of 1 in 21 and 1 in 13.