Celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the first passenger rail journey are taking place up and down the UK, with this weekend particularly special.
On 27 September, 1825, the first passenger train departed on the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The engine was stylishly named ‘Locomotion No. 1’ – the carriage disconcertingly named ‘Experiment’. In tow were nameless trucks, into which gleeful passengers piled, perching atop coal and sacks of flour.
Some 26 miles later, the journey ended in triumph, although, in a wider sense, that journey is ongoing today, in the countless lines that proliferate and encircle the world. That first departure of the Stockton and Darlington Railway is regarded as marking the genesis of modern railways – a watershed for humankind, who would henceforth roam far and freely in a new mechanised age.
Two hundred years later, you might expect that hallowed place to be graced with golden sleepers: for chariots of the rails to roll forth to perpetual fanfare. But no. No-one notices my 1980s-era Super Sprinter as it hauls into Darlington station two minutes late. Its windows are sepia-hued with grubbiness; under the tables are strata of chewing gum. It’s recently been updated with the wrong kind of USB ports. That’s because the Modern Tees Valley line that largely traces the route of the old Stockton and Darlington Railway is now operated by Northern – reliably among the most unreliable of train companies.
But this is Britain, a country in which railways are like an errant family member – a source of constant disappointment but into whose arms we continually return. And which, against our better judgement, we love without condition. Especially this birthday year, when they mark their bicentennial.
Some 20 minutes after departing Darlington, I disembark at Shildon. The exact spot where the world’s first train made its famed departure that distant September day.
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Today Shildon is the location for Locomotion – part of the National Railway Museum, which first opened in 2004 and has effectively doubled in size in time for the big anniversary. On the weekend of September 27, it will welcome a replica of the Locomotion steam engine to once again run along the original tracks. While the trip is sold out, there are several viewing points along the route where you can watch the engine puff by.
Whenever you visit, you'll find two aircraft hangar-sized spaces here packed with centuries’ worth of railwayana. A great temple to steam, diesel and electric engines (plus a rare battery-powered engine that gave off poisonous fumes if charged for too long).
In the midst are celebrities, including the locomotive that hauled Winston Churchill’s funeral train and the futuristic tilting APT service (which proved too futuristic for its own good, and was promptly axed). Intriguing histories have been shunted to the fore for ordinary visitors. Reading the information boards you might learn: ‘The oldest rail-mounted crane in the world [was] restored using timbers recycled from a French monastery…’, ‘When it was no-longer needed [the carriage] became a cricket pavilion...’ and: ‘Unfortunately the guard had to sit on the roof in all weathers.’
Eventually, I found the museum canteen, where food, in the finest railway tradition, was both tepid and scarce. By 12.59 there was a single tuna melt left – I ate it with a scone which, if strategically placed, was dense enough to cause a derailment. But the canteen offered a perfect vantage point – from here you could observe the many tribes coming to Locomotion.
There were kids on school holidays, testing the enforcement of the trains’ DO NOT CLIMB signs. There were the dedicated trainspotters, arriving with cagoule and flask, standing in solemn reverence beneath diesel cabs. And there were others, for whom luxury carriages with soft beds and polished oak were a spur to romance, for whom the whisper of the ‘night train to France’ still came freighted with adventure. It is to its credit that Locomotion speaks to all of them.
There are other railway attractions along the Tees Valley Line. Two stops on from Shildon brings you to North Road Station – the home of the recently reopened Hopetown Darlington (known as Head of Steam in a former incarnation). Also free to enter, this is a slightly smaller railway museum than Locomotion, but there are plenty of bells and whistles (in both metaphorical and literal senses).
Interactive displays cater to younger crowds, but, strangely, the most remarkable thing to see is actually set on the edge of the museum car park. Skerne Bridge is a small span across the sluggish waters of the River Skerne. It was designed by Ignatius Bonomi, an architect of Italian descent, and there is a hint of the classical to its form: as if a stray arch of the Colosseum had wound up in County Durham.
In any case, Skerne Bridge is the oldest continuously used railway bridge in the world, first traversed on that inaugural journey by those passengers perched atop the bags of flour and coal. And – latterly – by me, riding the return Super Sprinter from North Road back to Darlington. Though the windows were still grubby, you could make out a genius in the two-century-old design.
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Steam dreams
It is one thing to see a collection of polished engines static in a museum: another entirely to ride behind them. Like ruined abbeys, wonky hedgerows and coaching inns, heritage railways are a uniquely British feature of the landscape. In one sense they are all very different: with a variety of rolling stock clanking across a tapestry of landscapes. In another sense: they’re all the same. Each are crewed by enthusiastic volunteers, among whose ranks there is normally one portly man with a white beard to whom all eyes turn every December.
At each of them, restored trains whistle past preserved stations – better kept than any on the mainline – with cream teas in the waiting room and begonias on the platforms. The aim, it seems, is to recreate a lost golden age in the early 20th century – when glamorous railways competed for custom.
None have the mythology of the original Great Western Railway (GWR), however. It was famed for transporting passengers from inner-city smog to salty West Country airs. For the denizens of London, Bristol and elsewhere, its steam engines were once a prelude and postscript to seaside holidays. You can still get a flavour of it. The 20 mile West Somerset Railway is the longest standard-gauge heritage railway in the UK.
This was once a branch line of the GWR, skirting the foothills of the Quantocks on a sleepy single track, before disgorging crowds of holidaymakers by the Bristol Channel beaches. Its story followed a classic trajectory – closed by the Beeching Axe in 1971, enduring five short years of obscurity when weeds sprouted between the sleepers – and now closing in on the 50th year since resurrection.
The morning service I board with my six-year-old son at Bishops Lydeard is hauled by a racing-green GWR locomotive. The carriages shudder arthritically as we lurch into a cloud of steam. Soon we are enjoying the pleasures of heritage railways, honed over many years. We peek gingerly through open windows, the scent of steam travelling deep into our nostrils, bits of soot embedding in the scalp, resisting shampoo for weeks to come.
We take a trip to the dining carriage, where a hot drink and a cake costs £4.50 (and therefore is also in its own time warp). There is a dalliance with the sea around Watchet, a longer communion with the shoreline as we approach Minehead. At the terminus, some passengers make for the Butlin’s: but most reboard, anxious to do it all again.
According to Steve Oates, chief executive of the Heritage Railway Association, these are tough times for heritage railways – it’s not just the cost of living crisis, many are dealing with the increased cost of coal due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. But, he notes, they are resilient: Britain has the most heritage railways in the world (around 170). ‘They’re as much a part of our heritage as country houses or National Trust properties,’ he tells me. ‘Our country has a special connection to railways, perhaps because we invented them.’
We chuff off again through the Quantock Hills, back to the terminus where the real world waits beyond. If you learn anything riding such lines, it’s that trains have a lure that transcends age and background. Children do not instinctively gravitate to classic car rallies, regattas of historic ships or vintage biplanes – few characters appeal to youngsters like that little blue engine, technologically obsolete for half a century but still in service from breakfast TV to bedtime stories.
To a child’s eyes these hissing, fire-breathing contraptions seem like dragons, and, like dragons, they are embedded in our national mythology. The magic that first wowed the crowds at Shildon is still powerful, 200 years on.
Railways captivate the young – but also those in the sunset of their life. Many staffing the West Somerset Railway (and other lines like it) are retirees, for whom the ancient engines offer a form of time travel to a long ago, half-remembered youth. Here, unlike in a railway museum, cold engines are fired up again, boilers stoked, old diesel whirr into action.
Something too can be rekindled within those who stand in their presence.
What is the best heritage railway in the UK?
All of these routes are open almost year-round and will offer multiple daily departures in high season.
North Yorkshire Moors Railway
Even if you’ve never been on it, chances are you are familiar with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway – this stalwart of the UK heritage railway scene has starred in everything from Heartbeat to Mission Impossible, via Downton Abbey and Harry Potter. There is indeed a cinematic quality as you chunter east from Whitby station into the heathery moorlands – services are hauled by an equally A-list set of locomotives and carriages. A highlight is dining in Pullman cars, with multi-course meals (day pass from £49.50)
Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railway
North Wales is the heartland of narrow-gauge railways in the UK – and the sister lines of the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railway reign jointly as the most hallowed of them all. Departing from under the battlements of Caernarfon Castle, the Welsh Highland puffs under the slopes of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), before descending to Porthmadog, where the Ffestiniog awaits to carry you high into the slate country beyond. It’s in every sense an epic ride – six bum-aching hours on board if you do the whole journey in a single day. Shorter hops are more common (from £29)
Severn Valley Railway
Possibly the most famous heritage line in the Midlands, the 16-mile long Severn Valley Railway follows the meanders of the eponymous river between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth, passing sleepy country stations and rolling hills. It’s especially popular with day trippers from Birmingham – a highlight comes as the line rides the stately castiron span of the Victoria Bridge (once the longest of its kind in Britain) and swoops over the magnificent Severn. Note that at the time of writing the northernmost part of the line was closed after a landslip but should reopen soon (shorter journeys from £22.50)
National Railway Museum, York
The National Railway Museum in York is also worth visiting. It was rated the third best museum in the country for its collection of more than 100 locomotives, including the only Shinkansen bullet train outside Japan.
There is also a working replica of George Stephenson’s Rocket and a restored train carriage where you can enjoy afternoon tea.
