8 April 2025 saw another event in the S&DR200 bicentennial anniversary festival. The organisers have created the Railway Pioneers exhibition at Hopetown Darlington, consisting of three iconic locomotives that were key to the early development of rail technology.
A good start
Hopetown is best visited by train, via North Road railway station. The current station has one platform. Like many others in the UK it’s a shadow of its former self. The main, historic, part of the building is now the North Road Station Museum, part of the Hopetown complex. but there’s no direct link between the two sites. You have to take a short diversion along a side path to get to the museum entrance.
A grand entrance
The path takes you to the entrance to Hopetown. A friendly reminder that this is one of the oldest goods sheds in the world.
On track
A set of tracks points the way to the main museum building, but I was about to veer left to the Carriage Works, the site of the exhibition. It can be seen to the left of this photo:
Are we there yet?
One diversion before the main event. A quick look at Locomotive number D6898, the very last locomotive to be built at Darlington’s Stephenson Works in 1964. The works were just across Whessoe Road from Hopetown. Railfans will know that these locos later became Class 37s. 309 tractors were built, 67 of them at Darlington.
The Carriage Works
And so to the Carriage Works. A Grade II listed building? Of course it is. Darlington’s rich railway heritage is on display everywhere around here.
Influencers?
I entered the exhibition room and was welcomed by this display, showing the four main players of 200 years ago, the influencers of their time: Edward Pease, George Stephenson, Richard Trevithick and Timothy Hackworth.
Or rock stars?
Were the Railway Pioneers the rock stars of their day? Well, members of the Religious Society of Friends probably wouldn’t have described themselves in that way. But they were about to light a spark that would be seen around the world.
The “Father of the railways”
Edward Pease, a Darlington Quaker, is remembered now as the Father of the Railways. Others give that title to George Stephenson. But a more rigorous look at history reveals a more worthy claimant to that title than either of these two individuals. That was Richard Trevithick. We’re celebrating 200 years of history this year, but Trevithick was working on his locomotives a lot earlier than 1825. He built his first road locomotive, using a high-pressure steam engine, in 1801. That’s a generation before the birth of the S&DR.
The Cornishman
Trevithick was born in Camborne in Cornwall. He built his road loco there. The following year, Trevithick built one of his high-pressure steam engines to drive a hammer at the Penydarren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan. He then mounted the engine on wheels and turned it into a locomotive, refining the technology over the next two years.
We’ll Keep a Welcome
The South Wales valleys contained hundreds of coal mines, and numerous primitive horse drawn railways. Samuel Hornfrey, the owner of the Penydarren ironworks, decided to give Trevithick’s machine a trial at hauling coal. Pen-y-Darren would be given a trial along the newly built Merthyr Tramroad between Penydarren and Abercynon.
History is made
On 21 February 1804, the world’s first ever railway journey ran 9 miles from the ironworks at Penydarren to the Merthyr–Cardiff Canal. It was to be several years before steam locomotion became commercially viable.
Pen-y-Darren
Trevithick’s loco is long gone, but a replica was built in 1981. It is usually found at Amgueddfa Cymru, but the Museum of Wales has kindly loaned it to Hopetown as part of the Railway Pioneers display. It’s a strange looking machine, with piston rods protruding from the front, and a giant flywheel mounted on the side. It wasn’t a success because its weight broke the fragile rails. That technology had a long way to go, but Pen-y-Darren was a world first.
Innovators
Richard Trevithick visited Northumberland and built an engine there for a mine-owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed their own engines. This was a fertile country for the birth of the modern railway. Several mines had built stationary steam engines to extract water from their pits, and there was a network of horse-drawn waggonways to move coal to river and sea ports.
Puffing Billy
In 1814 engineers at Wylam Colliery, including blacksmith Timothy Hackworth, built Puffing BIlly. Puffing Billy is now on static display at the London Museum. It’s the oldest surviving locomotive in the world. Hackworth would later be headhunted by George Stephenson to become locomotive superintendent at the S&DR.
Steam Elephant
Meanwhile at Wallsend, only 12 miles away from Wylam, and only a year after the creation of Puffing Billy, another two engineers were at work. John Buddle and William Chapman came up with Steam Elephant. One of their innovations was to mount their loco on six wheels rather than four, which spread the weight, and allowed it to run on both iron and wooden waggonways.
Beamish – the Living Museum of the North
The replica of Steam Elephant is on loan from the Beamish Museum, where it was built in 2002. Just like Pen-y-Darren, Steam Elephant won’t win any beauty contests, due to its oversized chimney and clumsy-looking connecting rods.
Steep learning curve
Just up the road from Wallsend, at Killingworth Colliery, George Stephenson had been hired as a brakeman in 1804. The colliery used horse-drawn trains on its waggonways, but it also had a stationary steam engine to remove water from the pit. In 1811, the pumping engine Killingworth was not working properly and Stephenson, a gifted craftsman, offered to improve it.
Blücher
In 1814, the same year that Buddle and Chapman created Steam Elephant, George Stephenson designed his first travelling engine, Blücher, to haul coal from Killingworth Colliery. There aren’t many locos named after Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The travelling engines became known as locomotives, and Stephenson went on to build 16 more here. But he worked on other technologies too. The new engines were too heavy to run on wooden rails or plate-way, and iron edge rails were in their infancy, so Stephenson improved the design of cast-iron edge rails to reduce breakage.
Only the best people
George soon made the acquaintance of Edward Pease, the leader of a group of south Durham businessmen determined to find an alternative way of getting their coal to the main market of London. The river Tees was their prize. Pease and his colleagues had considered canals and horse-drawn tramways to get there but, during a visit to Pease’ house in Darlington in April 1821, Stephenson persuaded Pease to build a locomotive powered railway, and Pease appointed him to build the S&DR. Survey work began almost immediately.
The survey
Stephenson surveyed the 26-mile route on foot, assisted by his 18-year-old son Robert, and construction began later that year. George Stephenson’s survey notes can be found online here, courtesy of Network Rail. Copies of his maps are on display at Railway Pioneers. The first one, below, shows the circuitous route that Stephenson had to follow to avoid undulating terrain between Darlington and Stockton.
1823 Map
As work progressed in 1823, Stephenson produced a detailed map of the route, still described as a tramroad, the more familiar term for the railroads that he had worked on in Northumberland.
Motive Power
Thoughts now turned to locomotive power for the new S&DR. Pease and Stephenson established a factory to manufacture locomotives. This was the Forth Street Works in Newcastle. The building is still there, and is now the Boiler Shop concert venue. In September 1825, the works completed the first locomotive for the S&DR; originally named Active, it was later renamed Locomotion No1. It was hauled by road to Heighington and placed on the S&DR on 26 September, the day before the now-famous inaugural journey. This engine has been preserved and is on display at Railway Pioneers.
George Stephenson the handyman
But Renaissance man George Stephenson could turn his hand to anything, including embroidery. A painting by Alfred Rankley, on loan to the Railway Pioneers exhibition from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), shows a scene at Edward Pease’ house on Northgate in 1823. Stephenson is giving embroidery lessons to Pease’ two daughters. But did George’s instructions to these two young ladies ever go beyond needlework? We’ll never know.
The evolution of the railway locomotive
Also on display was a poster created by the S&DR in 1848 showing the evolution that had taken place in locomotive design since 1825. The three locomotives on display at Railway Pioneers look a lot different to each other, and nothing like the machines that became familiar only 20 years later.
Prince of Wales
I made my way across to the Loco Works to check on the progress of a brand new locomotive under construction there. The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust is building a LNER P2 class engine, Britain’s most powerful steam loco. None of the originals survived the cutter’s torch, and so Prince of Wales is being built from scratch using engineering drawings dating back to 1934.
Derwent
A look inside the main museum building next, and the engine Derwent. Derwent was built by Timothy Hackworth in 1845. He’d been a railway designer for more than 30 years by this stage. Lessons had been learned from cracked rails, and the robust Derwent had six wheels to reduce damage to the track and improve adhesion.
Refuelling
The final stop on my railway visit was the Clock Tower café. A hefty cheese scone. You know it makes sense.
Wildcat strike
A miniature railway has been created in the Clock Tower café. The railway is suspended from the ceiling, and a tiny Locomotion No.1 or No. 6898 (see below) usually makes circuits every couple of minutes. However, neither train was moving during my visit. Disappointing.
Before you go….
Time to go home. But finally a suggestion. There are several donation points dotted around, where you can make a small contribution to the running costs of Hopetown. This can be done via payment card or phone. The suggested donation is £3.00.
Your visit
Railway Pioneers will run from 8 April 2025 until 22 June 2025. It takes place at the historic Grade II listed Carriage Works at Hopetown Darlington. The museum closes on Mondays, apart from school holidays when it is open every day. The opening times are 10:00-16:30. Entry is free, but you need to book a ticket in advance via this link. Hopetown is next to North Road railway station, which has an hourly service to the mainline station at Darlington. Car parking details can be found in ‘Getting here’ using this link.
Further Reading
A whistle-stop tour of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, 27 September 2024
Read this here
Stockton & Darlington Railway: The Top 20 ‘must see’ sites, 6 February 2025
Read this here
Celebrating the Women of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, 26 March 2025
Read this here
All Change for the Stockton & Darlington Railway at Bishop Auckland, 5 April 2025
Read this here
