300

Tanfield Railway celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2025.   The route on which the Tanfield Railway now operates includes a 2-mile section between Sunniside & Causey of the innovative Tanfield Waggonway, conceived as a main line to carry huge volumes of coal in 1725. 

Waggoner, horse & chaldron, similar to those at Tanfield, portrayed nearing river staiths.
NB  Only keels could load at Redheugh staiths, upstream from the low Tyne Bridge.

The railway has a venerable pedigree, having operated with changing technology across 5 centuries.   In 1621 it was operating as a horse-drawn wooden waggonway from Whickham down Lobley Hill to staiths on the Tyne at Redheugh.   In 1725 this was hugely modernised & extended towards Tanfield.   By 1840 it changed to 7 miles of iron rails with rope-worked inclines & horses on level sections.   From 1881 it had steel rails & steam locos, retaining rope on 3 self-acting inclines.   It ran as an industrial branch line until 1962 to Tanfield & 1980 at Redheugh.   We now run steam-hauled passenger trains on this ancient route.

A loaded set with rider descending Lobley Hill on the rope, as used from 1840

The waggonway to Tanfield started before the industrial revolution in Britain.   Its beginnings predate the S&DR, L&MR and Victorian railways by over 200 years.   Redheugh staiths were in use 270 years before nearby Dunston Staiths.   The route at Redheugh was in use until 1980, so parts of the Tanfield route have been in continuous use since 1621.

A loaded coal train at Burdon Plain, heading from Tanfield towards the Tyne, as used from 1881

The route & railway has always been privately owned, operated as the Tanfield Branch using wayleaves by the Brandling Junction Railway, York Newcastle & Berwick Railway, NER, LNER & BR.

In June 2024, Sir Cecil A Cochrane, which shunted coal on the branch 1948-70 at Redheugh Gasworks, heads north with a passenger train on the Tanfield Railway where it crossed the P&JR

NB  The Tanfield Railway south-north 1725 route crosses the Pontop & Jarrow Railway west-east 1854 route at Marley Hill.   The P&JR (later Bowes Railway) was a coal carrying steam loco & rope-hauled steel railway from the outset.   Marley Hill loco shed of 1854 on this "modern" railway is our base.   The competing routes were connected when the NCB managed coal extraction & movement after 1947.