Where can you find the origins of the modern railway? In County Durham, where The Architecture the Railways Built is heading in its new series.
County Durham is rich in railway heritage – so much that it dates back further than most of our Victorian railway, to the Georgian era. Join historian and presenter Tim Dunn in episode four on Yesterday at a wooded gorge near Stanley for striking views of the world’s oldest surviving single-span railway arch.
Tim says: “This modern structure demands no fanfare but its functional and simple looks are deceiving. Because this Grade I listed Georgian bridge is a triumph of industry over nature.”
The Causey Arch – over the Causey Burn – is considered the world’s first railway bridge. It’s an example of the Northumberland and Durham coalfield engineers’ early technological skills, according to Historic England, and has been listed since 1950.
Charity the National Transport Trust says on its website that the bridge was built between 1725 and 1726. It was the country’s longest single-span bridge at the time and held that record for 30 years.
But this bridge wasn’t used for anything resembling the modern railway. The National Transport Trust says that every day, more than 900 horse-drawn wagons crossed the arch using the Tanfield Railway. One track took coal to the nearby River Tyne while the other carried returning empty wagons.
This practice over the arch declined after 1739, when a fire destroyed Tanfield Colliery. Today, The nearby cliffs are a popular destination for climbers and the Tanfield Railway runs as a heritage railway, meaning it’s the world’s oldest working railway.
A new era – George Stephenson’s Stockton and Darlington Railway
So where did the modern passenger railway come from? The Stockton and Darlington Railway in County Durham is widely considered to be the first railway to use passenger locomotives. Its design came from ‘the father of the railways’, George Stephenson, who outlined his ground-breaking plans in a notebook that has become one of the world’s most historically important railway artefects.
Incredibly, we rediscovered it in 2018 after more than 50years. The notebook, dated1822, was found by John Page, a records assistant atour archive in York. It sets out Stephenson’s redesign of and budget for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and became the blueprint for the railways that followed.
John uncovered the notebook, which had not been seen since the 1950s, while searching for documents in the archive’s deeds room. There are about 20,000 documents on the shelves; the Stephenson notebook is number 350.
He said: “Because it is a historical document it would never have been loaned out or requested as it didn’t impact the running of the railway so since the 1950s, it has sat on a shelf unnoticed amongst hundreds of other packets.
“I was looking for a deed for one of our internal colleagues and purely out of curiosity decided to look through the packets, and there it was, and what a thrill it was to find.”
The notebook shows Stephenson’s survey of fellow engineer George Overton’s original 1821 line and the amendments he recommended to it.
There were significant changes to the Overton design. Overton’s plan had sharp inclines, steep curves and tunnels whereas Stephenson favoured gradual inclines and eased curves. Stephenson also proposed the use of spoil excavated from the cuttings to create the embankments, avoiding the need for a tunnel Overton had recommended. This would shorten the Darlington branch by three miles.
Click here to find out more about the notebook.
Read more:
Incredible Stephenson railway history rediscovered
Read the George Stephenson notebook online
An overview of our history
Working with railway heritage
The Architecture the Railways Built – Royal Albert Bridge
The Architecture the Railways Built – Wemyss Bay
The Architecture the Railways Built: Severn Bridge Junction
The Architecture the Railways Built – Ribblehead Viaduct
The Architecture the Railways Built – Ffestiniog Railway
FAQs
The oldest railway in continuous use is the Tanfield Railway in County Durham, England. This began life in 1725 as a wooden waggonway worked with horse power and developed by private coal owners and included the construction of the Causey Arch, the world's oldest purpose built railway bridge.
Who presents the architecture the railways built? ›
| The Architecture the Railways Built |
|---|
| Genre | Factual |
| Presented by | Tim Dunn |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 4 |
8 more rowsOn February 21, 1804, British mining engineer, inventor and explorer Richard Trevithick debuted the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive in the Welsh mining town of Merthyr Tydfil. Following that debut, locomotives have been powered by a myriad of fuels, including wood, coal and oil.
How does a train work? ›
A train comprises of vehicles that moves on the track. Collectively, all these vehicles are referred to as “rolling stock”. Rolling stock has two primary components – a powered vehicle that pulls (or pushes) the train, and other vehicles that have no power of their own but are normally pulled by the powered vehicle.
Who originally built the railroad? ›
John Stevens is considered to be the father of American railroads. In 1826 Stevens demonstrated the feasibility of steam locomotion on a circular experimental track constructed on his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey, three years before George Stephenson perfected a practical steam locomotive in England.
What was the railway built for? ›
The railway — completed in 1885 — connected Eastern Canada to British Columbia and played an important role in the development of the nation. Built in dangerous conditions by thousands of labourers, including 15,000 Chinese temporary workers, the railway facilitated communication and transportation across the country.
Who ordered the railway to be built? ›
Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 into law on July 1. It authorized creation of two companies, the Central Pacific in the west and the Union Pacific in the mid-west, to build the railroad.
Who helped build the railway? ›
Most CPR labourers came from Europe, the United States and eastern Canada. In British Columbia, however, an estimated 15,000 Chinese men and boys worked on the railway. While most labourers earned between $1 and $2.50 a day, Chinese labourers earned less: between $0.75 and $1.25.
Who built the railways? ›
But who took on the hard graft of building them? That task fell to vast gangs of itinerant labourers, also known as navvies. By 1850 a quarter of a million workers—a force bigger than the Army and Navy combined—had laid down 3,000 miles of railway line across Britain, connecting people like never before.
Which is the oldest railway in the world? ›
The Middleton Railway is the world's oldest continuously working railway, situated in the English city of Leeds. It was founded in 1758 and is now a heritage railway, run by volunteers from The Middleton Railway Trust Ltd.
Coal-powered trains worked the rails in the United States for 175 years, starting in the 1830's, and were an integral part of America's westward expansion and industrial revolution. The Strasburg Rail Road is the oldest operating railroad in the United States.
Is A train faster than a car? ›
Trains are Reliable and Stress Free
With high-speed rail, train travel is always faster than driving. In many cases, it's even faster than flying, once you factor in the whole air travel song-and-dance. And if you do need to catch a plane, trains make it easier to get to the airport.
What is a train in slang? ›
As early as 1949, train was used to refer to group sex involving one woman and multiple men who had sex with her in sequence. Pulling a train typically meant submitting a woman to this treatment without her consent, a form of gang rape.
Do trains still run on coal? ›
While trains historically used to run on coal, the use of coal as a primary fuel source for trains has significantly declined over the years. Most modern trains have shifted away from coal and now primarily rely on other types of fuel, such as diesel or electricity.
Where was the first railroad in the world? ›
1798 – The Lake Lock Rail Road, arguably the world's first public railway, opened in 1798 to carry coal from the Outwood area to the Aire and Calder navigation canal at Lake Lock near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, a distance of approximately 3 miles. The load of three wagons was hauled by one horse.
Where is the oldest railroad in America? ›
STRASBURG RAIL ROAD'S HISTORY: HOW WE BECAME AMERICA'S OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY OPERATING RAILROAD. If you Google Strasburg, Pennsylvania, it's impossible not to find a mention of its railroad.
Where was the birthplace of the transcontinental railroad? ›
Construction begun
The engraving depicts the driving of the 'Golden Spike' at Promontory, Utah, where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads came together in 1869. The Central Pacific broke ground on January 8, 1863.
