The Brandling Junction Railway was an early railway in County Durham, England. It took over the Tanfield Waggonway of 1725 that was built to bring coal from Tanfield to staiths on the River Tyne at Dunston. The Brandling Junction Railway itself opened in stages from 1839, running from Gateshead to Wearmouth and South Shields. Wearmouth was regarded at the time as the "Sunderland" terminal.
The Tanfield Waggonway was modernised and connected to the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway near Redheugh, and onward transit to the main line of the Brandling Junction Railway was by a rope-worked incline from Redheugh to a Gateshead station. The Brandling Junction Railway modernised the Tanfield Waggonway route, although it remained a difficult route, with numerous rope-worked inclines.
The Brandling Junction Railway was conceived as a mainly mineral railway, but passenger traffic was surprisingly buoyant. From 1841 until 1850 main line passenger trains from London to Gateshead ran over part of the line (from Brockley Whins) and after that date from Pelaw to Gateshead, until 1868.
Most of the network closed in the middle years of the twentieth century, although the route from Gateshead to Monkwearmouth is still in use; a heritage railway operates on a section of the former Tanfield Waggonway.
The Tanfield Waggonway
In the 17th century coal was being mined in the ground south of the River Tyne, south west of Gateshead. Transport of the mineral to market generally involved getting it overland to a waterway. The overland portion of the journey, by pack horse or cart, was slow and expensive. As the easy seams were worked out, the site of mining moved south, further from the Tyne, and the land transport problem worsened. About 1671 a waggonway was built to Dunston from the Ravensworth estate, a few miles south of Dunston.The date 1632 is often given by authors, but Lewis explains (page 93) that this is confusion with the operation of road wains, and, later, another waggonway. The Dunston waggonway later fell into disuse.K Hoole, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 4: The North East, David and Charles, Dawlish, 1965M J T Lewis, Early Wooden Railways, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1974,
The Tanfield Waggonway originated in a waggonway laid across Tanfield Moor, about seven miles south west of Gateshead. It was opened in 1712 by Sir John Clavering and Thomas Brumell from collieries they owned at Lintz and Buck's Nook, and George Pitt of Strathfieldsaye was encouraged to develop what became the great Tanfield coalfield, using the waggonway.
At this period there were few public roads in the area and coal owners requiring to get their product to a waterway had to arrange a wayleave with owners of intermediate land. This was an agreement to pay a fee, usually per unit of mineral transported. The further the coalpit was from the waterway, the more had to be paid to secure wayleaves. Tomlinson records that the landowners made "themselves masters of the wayleaves and great part of the collieries, and thereby got near £3,000 per annum for one colliery (three-fifths more than ever the owners received to their own use)."Tomlinson, quoting Spearman’s Inquiry, 1729, page 112
Construction of the waggonway led to a legal dispute: Clavering had contracts for wayleaves for conveying coal to the Tyne by "carts or wains, and did not include waggons" (that is, waggonway vehicles). This made the waggonway unusable, and frustration among coal owners generally led to the formation of a powerful group known informally as the Grand Allies: Hon. Sidney Wortley Montagu, his son, the Hon. Edward Wortley Montagu, and Thomas Ord, of Newcastle upon Tyne; Sir Henry Liddell and Colonel George Liddell of Ravensworth Castle; and George Bowes, of Gibside.
These men began to construct "at the expense of many thousand pounds the longest and most remarkable waggonway which had so far been laid down. Besides some large cuttings, the works comprised a huge embankment across the valley of the Berkley Burn, which rendered necessary the making of a drift through the solid rock for the course of the diverted stream, and the building of a stone bridge of a single arch 102 feet in span over the stream higher up, famous as the Causey Bridge or Tanfield Arch..." It was also known as Dawson's Bridge.William Weaver Tomlinson, The North Eastern Railway: Its rise and development, Andrew Reid and Company, Newcastle, 1915
Lewis explains (page 158) that the original route may have followed the west bank: "A substantial and long-disused waggonway is traceable from the west end of Causey Arch along the west bank to Tanfield pits, which is quite possibly the original Tanfield line of 1725. If this is so, Causey Arch was built to carry a main line, not a branch."
The line had a 1 in 40 ruling gradient, and there were several inclined planes on it. Lobley Hill self-acting incline south of Dunston was 50 chains long at 1 in 16 to 1 in 18. The Fugar (or Sunnyside) incline, also self-acting, was one mile four chains in length at a maximum of 1 in 11. At Tanfield Moor the incline was up to 1 in 9. There were three inclines worked by stationary engines: at Bowes Bridge at 1 in 40 northwards and Causey East Bank southwards at 1 in 57, worked by the same engine; There was also a more moderate Causey West Bank running northward from Tanfield East. Horse worked the intermediate sections.
The Causey Bridge The "Old Way" of the Tanfield Waggonway was north of Bryan's Leap, but it was extended southwards, forming the majority of the later network, in 1725 - 1727. It crossed the Beckley Burn near Causey by the Causey Arch, to reach Dawson's Drift colliery; this is often referred to as the world's oldest railway bridge.G F Whittle, The Railways of Consett and North-West Durham, David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1971,
Sykes described the bridge in 1833: Tanfield Arch, in the county of Durham, a remarkable structure, was built by Colonel Liddell and the Hon. Charles Montague, the founders of the partnership now vulgarly called the Grand Allies, to obtain a level for the passage of coal-waggons. It is frequently called Cawsey Bridge, from its being built over the deep and romantic dell of Cawsey burn, near Tanfield. The span of the arch is 103 feet; it springs from abutments about nine feet high, and being semicircular, the entire elevation is above 60 feet; it cost £12,000. The architect was Ralph Wood, a common mason, who, having built a former arch of wood, that fell for want of weight, committed suicide from a fear of this beautiful structure experiencing a similar fate. On a sun dial, on one of the piers, is the following: "Ra. Wood, mason, 1727". This arch was built for a waggon-way to a colliery, which was set on fire, and has long been unwrought. It has been many years neglected, and is falling to ruins.John Sykes, Local Records, or Historical Register of Remarkable Events, published by John Sykes, Newcastle, 1833
The engineer M F Barbey is more accurate on technical detail:
Reputed to be the oldest 'railway' bridge in the world ... claimed to be the fifth largest span masonry bridge in Britain, even today , it remained the largest stone span for 30 years ... the arch so of semi-elliptical form, 35 ft high from springing to soffit, with a span of 105ft, its height is 80ft and it would seem to have been designed to carry a double track.M F Barbey, Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England, Thomas Telford, London, 1981,
The Causey Arch carried trains until that branch closed in 1962.
Traffic on the waggonway Traffic on the Tanfield waggonway was heavy. A year after opening a third track was required: nonetheless the old main way was worn out in four years.
Gabriel Jars reported:
The longest road belongs to a very rich company, which Lord Bute, a former minister, is one of the main proprietors. This company is not only the owner of the Royalty of several mines, but it leases many others on the route. Evidently it extracts considerable volumes of coal, because the line is almost always covered with wagons. The company has spared no expense in arranging easy operation and reaching the market for the mineral it extracts."Le chemin le plus long appartient à une compagnie très riche, dont Milord Bute, ancien ministre, est un des principaux intéressés. Cette compagnie est non-seulement propriétaire du Royalty de plusieurs mines, mais encore elle en afferme une très grande quantité sur toute la route. Elle doit extraire immensément de charbon, car le chemin est presque toujours couvert de chariots. Cette compagnie n’est pas dans le cas d’épargner la dépense pour faciliter son exploitation & le débouche des matières qu’elle en tire." Gabriel Jars, Voyages Metalurgiques, self-published, Paris, 1774, page 205.
Practically the whole of the coals from the Tanfield and South Moor districts came down to the River Tyne at Dunston, and the Grand Allies built special facilities there for the purpose. The Tanfield Waggonway was later extended to Shield Row colliery, eight miles from the Tyne.C F Dendy Marshall, A History of British Railways Down to the Year 1830, Oxford university Press, London, 1938, reprinted 1971
By the early years of the nineteenth century the Main Way of the waggonway south of Rowland's Gill fell into disuse, but it had extended its Thornley branch from Winlaton Mill eastwards to Spen (Garesfeld). The Tanfield line reached to South Moor and Pontop and had a short branch to Marley Hill colliery.
Newcastle and Carlisle Railway
The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway (N&CR) was formed in 1829 to build a line linking the two towns. The company was slow to finalise its route and slow to complete construction, but in September 1836 the decided to make its eastern terminus at Redheugh, on the south bank of the River Tyne, a little short of Gateshead. The route was to intersect the Tanfield waggonway near Dunston without making a junction.
An independent company, the Blaydon, Gateshead and Hebburn Railway (BG&HR) was formed in May 1834 to build a line from Blaydon to Gateshead, joining the and ascending by a rope worked incline to cross Gateshead High Street, then descending by another rope worked incline to wharves at Gateshead. The intention was to extend to Hebburn where deep water berths were available; this would avoid the transshipping into keels.
The company approached the owners of Tanfield Lea Colliery on 2 July 1834, for the carriage of their coals: the Railway Company would take over the Tanfield Lea waggonway from its junction with the South Moor Colliery line to the Pit, paying the wayleaves, etc., and carrying the coals from the Bute Pit to Hebburn Quay for 5s. 9d. per chaldron. An agreement was subsequently drawn up on these lines binding the company to relay the old Tanfield and Tanfield Lea waggonways, thus making a new branch about 6 miles in length, before 31 December 1836.
In fact the company was very slow to construct its authorised lines: of miles it only built miles, and the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway exercised its right to take over the construction.
Stanhope and Tyne Railway Promoters had brought forward the Stanhope and Tyne Railway to connect with limestone quarries near Stanhope, and collieries near Carrhouse and Medomsley (in the vicinity of the later Consett Steel Works), bringing the minerals to South Shields for transfer to shipping. The line opened in 1834. In its length it had several rope worked inclines as well as horse-worked and locomotive sections.
Brandling's private railway