Stockton & Darlington: Better than the first

STOCKTON & DARLINGTON RAILWAY

2025 marks the bicentenary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. However, to understand why it is so significant, we first need to explore – perhaps perversely – what it is not. Historian ANTHONY DAWSON explains.

2025 marks 200 years since the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. For a railway that enjoys worldwide renown, naturally major celebrations and events are planned throughout the year across Britain, and enthusiasts the world over are gearing up to commemorate this illustrious milestone.

But while every enthusiast would arguably agree that the S&DR is special and that the bicentenary of its opening is a landmark worthy of celebration, how many of us truly understand why the S&DR is so momentous? Indeed, putting the Stockton & Darlington’s importance into context isn’t exactly straightforward, nor can it be boiled down to a particular ‘first’. Therefore, to understand why the Stockton & Darlington is so important, we need to look at what it wasn’t.

Simply, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, while the S&DR was not the beginning, it was the end of the beginning. Although it wasn’t the first of anything, as early railway historian the late Andy Guy put it, it was ‘better than the first.’

Was the Stockton & Darlington the first railway?

That depends on your definition of what a railway is, but Dr Michael Lewis summed it up nicely over 50 years ago as “a prepared track which so guides the vehicles running on it that they cannot leave the track”. A short, simple definition which means it can include the Diolkos of the Classical World, the rutways of 19th-century Australia, and the guide-pin railways developed in Germany and Austria in the Middle Ages.

The earliest evidence for railways in this country comes from the Lake District when German-speaking immigrants led by Daniel Hochstetter introduced them to silver mines at Caldbeck during the reign of Elizabeth I. These railways consisted of longitudinal planks which guided an iron pin secured to the bottom of a four-wheel mine cart, working rather like a slot-car.

But the first railway in England was very likely that built by Huntingdon Beaumont in 1604 to carry coal from his pits at Wollaton near Nottingham down to the River Trent. It was made entirely from wood and greatly improved the transport of coal for onward shipping by water. So pleased was Beaumont with this new technology, he invested heavily in four similar railways around Newcastle, which were built to carry coal down to the Tyne. Beaumont, however, failed to break into the local market. This, coupled with heavy investment in his new railways and his lavish lifestyle, led him to being declared bankrupt, ending his days in a debtors’ prison. But, despite this inglorious start, the seeds were sown. And, following the turmoil of the English Civil War and Commonwealth period, wooden railways began to spread across Shropshire where they took on the name ‘Railed Way’ and the North-East where they were known as ‘Waggonways’ – two different names for the same idea. Indeed, as excavations on the first railway in Scotland – the Tranent to Cockenzie Waggonway of 1722 – have shown, there was very little new in the technology of a wooden railway. It’s essentially a giant ladder laid on the ground. They used old ideas to provide a solution to a new problem.

The 18th Century saw a transport revolution on land and water. The early waggonways carried largely coal and other minerals down to a staithe or wharf on a river or canal for onward shipping. Thus, they grew hand in hand with the canal network and many canal companies even owned their own waggonways as feeder lines. There was a transport revolution on the roads as well with the growth of turnpikes. Taken together, this transport revolution fed and fuelled industrialisation and growing urbanisation, particularly in the north of England. Improved transport links meant coal could go to market quicker. It meant it was cheaper at the point of sale, which meant greater profits and, in turn, greater demand.

So, if the Stockton & Darlington wasn’t the first railway, was it the first to use iron rails?

Again, not really, no. Iron was first used almost as ‘armour plating’ for the wooden railways, apparently first at Coalbrookdale but possibly elsewhere where lengths of cast iron were nailed, later screwed, to the running surface of the wooden rails to improve their longevity. It was a logical evolution from these cast iron strips to the development of cast iron ‘bar rails’ which developed into both cast iron edge rails and to cast iron L-shaped ‘tramplates’.

Becoming popular from the 1790s, cast iron railways were superior to wooden railways in all but one respect – the rails were brittle and frequently broke. It meant loads carried on them had to be light, and it didn’t help that instead of being supported by transverse wooden sleepers, the ends of these rails were supported on large stone blocks. This meant that they were difficult to keep to gauge, and lacked any elasticity, and from the bumping and jolting of heavy horse-drawn coal wagons, meant rails – and early cast iron wheels – broke frequently.

What was needed was a superior type of rail, ones made from wrought iron. First rolled in any quantity in 1820 at Bedlington Iron Works, the Stockton & Darlington was probably the first railway to use wrought-iron rails on a large scale. Due to distrust of the new material, half of the line was laid with cast iron and half with wrought. It was a major technological breakthrough and one crucial to the development of the locomotive.

So, the Stockton Darlington wasn’t the first railway or the first to use iron. But was it the first railway authorised by an Act of Parliament?

The Stockton & Darlington was quite late to the game when it came to an Act of Parliament. The very first such Act was obtained by the Brandlings to confirm the route of their railway from coal pits at Hunslet down to staithes on the River Aire in 1758. This was the Middleton Railway which, as we will see later on, was a pioneer in more ways than one. The Act safeguarding the route of the railway also committed Brandling to selling coal at a fixed price in Leeds, as well as sending a regular tonnage down the line.

Getting such an Act was very expensive and required having a Parliamentary Agent and introducing a Private Members’ Bill. It would then have to go through both Houses and committee stage and, unless the Bill could demonstrate it was for the public good, could be thrown out at any stage. It was a big risk, but ultimately worth it. Even though the Middleton had an Act, it didn’t mean it was a public railway. It was owned by the Brandlings, to carry their coal to market. It wasn’t open to any other users, and wasn’t a public right of way.

So if the Stockton & Darlington wasn’t the first railway authorised by an Act of Parliament, surely it was the first public railway?

Not really. All the railways built in the 17th and 18th centuries were private railways, built over private land. But, for a railway to be public – to be public right-of-way – that meant it needed an Act of Parliament. It also meant that, until 1825 when the law was changed, an Act was also needed to form a joint-stock company.

The first public railway in England was the Lake Lock Railroad, formed in 1796. Opened in 1798 and linking collieries near Wakefield to the Aire & Calder Navigation, the LLRR was a public railway because it was open to any user upon payment of a toll and because its capital was held in publicly traded shares. In order to get around the law, the LLRR was operated under the auspices of a Trust Deed. It is probably the earliest example of a company established to build and operate a railway. The LLRR didn’t operate the railway itself, but rather allowed colliery owners to run their own trains on it, for which a toll was paid. In fact, anyone could run their wagon on the LLRR so long as they paid the toll and it was of the right gauge.

The other contender for the first public railway in England is the Surrey Iron Railway of 1803, which did have an Act of Parliament – as every other public railway would require. The first public railway in Scotland was the Kilmarnock & Troon of 1812, which was also the first public railway to use steam locomotives. Another first traditionally claimed for the Stockton & Darlington. Sorry.

Okay, so was the Stockton & Darlington the first to be designed and built for mechanical operation?

Well, yes and no. It was the first public railway designed to be worked mechanically. But it wasn’t the first to be operated mechanically. The Middleton Railway in Leeds was worked by locomotives from 1812 and, according to an American visitor writing in 1825, the entire transport system to get coal to the staithes was mechanical. The only human involvement was in the act of hewing the coal underground. Everything else was by machine.

Despite this technological progress, Middleton wasn’t designed or built to be worked mechanically. It had been an ordinary horse-worked railway until the arrival of John Blenkinsop in 1808 who did much to redesign the railway and ultimately mechanise it. The first railway to be designed from the beginning to be worked mechanically was the Hetton Railway of 1822. This was designed by George Stephenson and used a combination of stationary engines, rope haulages and level sections worked by locomotives. It was a masterpiece which clearly demonstrated the future direction of railways.

So, you’ve said the Stockton & Darlington wasn’t the first railway or Act or public railway. Surely it was the first to use locomotives?

Again, it depends how you define ‘use’ but the very first steam locomotive was run on the Pen-y-darren Tramway near Merthyr in South Wales in February 1804. It was a single-cylinder machine, with the cylinder immersed in the boiler. It had a return flue boiler and a geared drive. Despite popular depictions of it having a large flywheel and lofty chimney, it wouldn’t have been able to fit through the tunnel if it had possessed such features.

Trevithick’s locomotive operated at 50lb/sq. in and was based on his existing high-pressure stationary engine design. He built around a dozen such machines during the early 19th Century but ended his days, like so many pioneers, in penury.

However, the first railway to commercially use steam locomotives was that old pioneer, the Middleton Railway in Leeds, in 1812. Designed and built by Matthew Murray, four of them were built for use in Leeds, where they lasted – despite one blowing up – until the early 1830s. Three were built for use around Newcastle-upon-Tyne; three under licence for use near Wigan, and once for service in South Wales. A working model was sent to the Tsar of Russia and copies were built in modern-day Belgium and Poland. This means not only were they the first locomotives in commercial use, but the first built in any number and the first to be used in many countries around the world. A real triumph of engineering.

That said, however, prior to 1825 no one had ever attempted to run a locomotive as far as George Stephenson did; the furthest they had ever run was a few miles. George threw down the gauntlet to his detractors and locomotive naysayers and, such was the faith in steam power, that he designed and built a steam railway to be worked by locomotives not just for a couple of miles but for tens of miles. Twenty-six miles, in fact.

But these railways so far have all been coal-carrying lines. Was the Stockton & Darlington the first passenger railway?

Unofficial passenger carrying goes back into the 18th Century, on what were private mineral lines. The first public railway, as authorised by an Act of Parliament and which authorised the railway to do so was the Swansea & Mumbles Railway of 1807. This was a horse-drawn service, working to a timetable and, in 1812, saw the first railway station open in Swansea.

The first passenger service on a public railway in Scotland was in 1813, on the Kilmarnock & Troon. Again, it was horse-worked but like the Stockton & Darlington tickets could be bought from local inns along the line – as well as refreshments and parcels left there to be carried by the railway as well. There was a long history of public passenger railways before 1825; therefore, the Stockton & Darlington was tapping into an existing idea.

So, if not the first passenger railway, then was the S&DR the first to use steam for passenger trains?

Again, it depends how you define this. Yes, the opening train of the Stockton & Darlington was indeed pulled by a locomotive, and which included a purpose-built passenger carriage and passengers travelling in coal waggons, but that was a one-offevent. It wasn’t the start of a regular steam-worked passenger service. Indeed, the Stockton & Darlington’s passenger service was horse-worked until 1833.

However, even if it was only a one-off event, the S&DR’s inaugural train still can’t claim to be the first time that passengers had been conveyed by rail behind a steam locomotive. For that, we need to go right back to the beginning, to February 21 1804, when Trevithick’s Pen-y-Darren locomotive undertook its trail-blazing journey. On that day, it pulled a train of coal waggons carrying workmen and, so flushed with success were they, that a proposal was made to couple up a private carriage behind the engine and pull that. Sticking with Trevithick, his Catch Me Who Can of 1808 was pioneering in two ways – it was the first purpose-built passenger locomotive, as well as the first to haul fare-paying passengers when it operated on a circle of track close to what would become the site of Euston station in London. Furthermore, the first steam-worked train on the Middleton Railway also included passengers.

The first regular steam-worked passenger service wasn’t begun until 1830 – not on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, but the little Canterbury & Whitstable Railway which opened that May. Like the Stockton & Darlington, the line was worked by a combination of stationary engines and a single locomotive – the now preserved Invicta, designed and built by Robert Stephenson & Co in Leeds immediately after Rocket – and it was operated to a regular timetable, pre-dating the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in September 1830 by some months.

So, other than not being the first railway, nor the first iron railway, nor the first railway authorised by an Act of Parliament, nor the first to use locomotives, be designed for mechanical working, or the first to carry passengers, what has the Stockton & Darlington done for us?

The Stockton & Darlington could not have existed without the two centuries of railway history which came before it. During those two centuries, crucial ideas and crucial technologies were worked out from the track to locomotives, to carrying passengers and legal structures. So, while the Stockton & Darlington wasn’t really the first of anything, it was the culmination of that previous development and evolution. It represents the bringing together and synthesising of existing ideas into a new concept. A public railway, authorised by Act of Parliament, to carry passengers, to use steam locomotives and use iron rails. In many ways it was, as Andy Guy noted in 2016, ‘better than the first’.

But it wasn’t the first. It wasn’t the first railway, first steam railway, nor the first main line railway. But what it did do was put the railway squarely on the map and in the public consciousness showing what a steam-worked railway could do, laying the foundations for everything that came afterwards. The Liverpool & Manchester and the birth of main line railways as we know them simply wouldn’t have happened without the Stockton & Darlington. So, when we ask, ‘what exactly has the Stockton & Darlington done for us?’, the answer is rather a lot. Even it perhaps wasn’t totally the pioneer it is sometimes made out to be.