Bits of Brandling Junction by Bike

The common seal of the Brandling Junction Railway Company

The Brandling Junction Railway connected, among other places, South Shields & Tanfield, which is perhaps why I am interested.   The history of the BJR is covered in a number of books & on the Internet eg the opening of the BJR on 30 August 1839, or search for Brandling in Gateshead 1841.   It operated from the late 1830s to mid 1840s, the impetus being to move more minerals more cheaply from the Tyne, although it discovered a passenger market, and for a few years was part of the network between Tyneside & London.

Part map showing BJR, S&TR & other railways around 1842.

This map not only shows waggonways south of the Tyne, but early railways as general carriers.   There's much to note on this map & what is not yet built.   There is one bridge & no railways crossing the Tyne at Newcastle, & the same at Sunderland.   The Newcastle & Carlisle Railway terminates at Gateshead.   There is a railway to Tyneside from the south, but it comes via Stockton, onto the Stanhope & Tyne, then the Brandling Junction from Brockley Whins to Gateshead.   I recently found remnants of the 1839 chord (near map top right) connecting the northbound S&TR to eastbound BJR:

Not far north of Asda at Boldon, the Stanhope & Tyne heads straight on while the chord diverges to the right.   Boldon Colliery was on the left until the 1980s

The route was known as the Newton Garths Branch of the NER - it's evidently a bridleway now

The eastern end changes to a footpath, then a roadway, before converging with the metro line, ie the BJR Gateshead - Monkwearmouth route, at what the NER called East Boldon Junction

The above tables are from Robinson's Time & Fare Tables of 1842, freely available on Google Books.   Interestingly, they corroborate what I read elsewhere - the northbound main line trains connected at Brockley Whins with BJR trains to Gateshead, from which people found their way to Newcastle.   When the connection was missed, every option was open to take passengers to Gateshead asap.   I've read that the northbound loco took the train round the chord, detached, ran forward & back towards Gateshead, the carriages ran past under gravity, train loco reattached & headed to Gateshead tender first.   Anything was possible on early railways, with little braking, signalling or communications.

Incidentally, stations were unlike today's.   Platforms were low.   Stations were created, moved or disappeared as traffic changed.   I've been unable to locate the position of the BJR Brockley Whins station - does anyone know?

This is the BJR route between Monkwearmouth & South Shields crossing Green Lane - there was track in the roadway until a few years ago, about 50 years since the last train.    This BJR route could readily be a metro link between Harton Junction & Tile Sheds Junction, ie South Shields to Sunderland direct,

Finally, something from the Tanfield end of the BJR.   The S&T was in early financial difficulty because it used burdensome wayleaves rather than parliamentary powers.   The S&T foundered - the eastern end became the Pontop & South Shields, the western part was left impoverished.   Similarly, the BJR had a problem with the cost of wayleaves on the Tanfield Branch, the infrastructure for which it also had been forced to modernize.   In order to tackle the deficit, the BJR tried diverting S&T traffic.   At the bottom left of the map, note the connection around Harelaw of the S&T to the BJR Tanfield Branch.   The above invitation to tender would be an attempt to upgrade the connection, and divert more S&T traffic through Tanfield.