England’s Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first public railroad in the Western world to carry both passengers and freight behind steam locomotives. The British railroad system grew rapidly and eventually replaced horse-drawn carts and canals as primary transportation methods for coal, iron ore, and other commodities.
Stockton and Darlington are two small communities in the county of Durham, in northern England, in the valley of the Tees River. The river flows into the North Sea
As early as the eighteenth century surface coal deposits had already been mined in the area, and coal mining
The first solution to the problem of transporting coal to consumers was to expand the reach of navigable water by building canals. Irregular countryside, though, including many hills and valleys, was a burden to functioning canals. Locks were extremely expensive and slow to move traffic, and many engineers opted instead to go overland around these obstacles to reach the canals. Soon, a number of tracks were built between mines and canals
British Railway Network Around 1840
The area around Stockton and Darlington was the home ground of one of the pioneers in the use of steam engines, George Stephenson, so when the owners of local coal mines wanted better, more cost-efficient transport for their coal, they turned to Stephenson. The leading transportation proponent was one of the many leading Quaker businessmen in Darlington, Edward Pease. Pease
The contemporary model for the railroad was the canal, and canals required legislative authorization. Proponents were required to have assembled 80 percent of the financing before asking Parliament for authorization. Pease and his numerous relatives and friends in the Quaker community were prepared to put up the money, after a survey had been done suggesting a railroad could be built for less than £100,000, half the amount a canal would have cost. Pease
In its final version, the line was to extend twenty-five miles, and the railroad in steeper terrain was to run along small branches of lines navigated by horse-drawn cars or along inclined planes, where the coal cars would be moved by stationary steam engines. Although passenger transport was authorized, it was clear that the major business envisaged by the promoters of the Stockton and Darlington was the movement of coal.
Opening day for the new venture was scheduled for July 29, 1825. Anticipation led to large crowds. A new steam locomotive named Locomotion, which was designed by George Stephenson and his son Robert, was hoisted onto the tracks and hitched to one passenger car and twenty-one new coal cars. The locomotive successfully pulled the train to Stockton, with pauses along the way, at an average rate of four miles per hour (as skeptics noted, no better than the rate of horses). Within a few years, however, comparative cost figures had been compiled and it was found that locomotives were significantly cheaper than horses.
The Stockton and Darlington was, in a very real sense, an experiment, and as such it encountered difficulties in its first years. The engines—the company soon possessed four of them—proved to have insufficient power, forcing pauses in the runs. The company hired a local engineer, Timothy Hackworth,
There also were initial problems with the tracks. George Stephenson was a strong advocate of wrought iron
The success of the Stockton and Darlington inspired many imitators. To preserve its monopoly, the line built extensions, the most important of which was the line to Middlesbrough, a new city, on the coast where the Tees River entered the North Sea
Despite its difficulties, the Stockton and Darlington was a financial success from the beginning. Its freight revenues rose from £14,455 in 1826-1827 to £57,819 in 1832-1833. By 1842-1843, its gross revenues were just under £100,000. By the late 1830’s, the company had been paying an annual dividend to the original investors (the shares were increased from 675 to 1,000 in 1827) of around 15 percent. However, the company was in the habit of financing extensions of the line with borrowed money, leading the company to difficult times in the 1850’s. These troubles required new legislation that authorized recapitalization.
The character of the company’s business changed, too. It was overwhelmingly a coal line during the 1830’s and 1840’s, but the 1850’s and 1860’s saw the line carry increasing quantities of iron
What had been a large enterprise with a monopoly in its own backyard in the 1830’s gradually became a niche railroad as the entire country was covered by railroads. The Stockton and Darlington management recognized this, and during the late 1850’s the company began negotiations with the North Eastern Railway, which absorbed the Stockton and Darlington in 1863. Stockton and Darlington management was highly regarded, so the railroad continued operating as a semi-independent division of the North Eastern Railway for a number of years.
The successful operation of the Stockton and Darlington Railway marked the beginning of the railroad age in the Western world. The lines freed up commercial development, which had been constrained by the difficulties of land transport, especially of large, bulky commodities. The canal system functioned as a short-term solution, but railroads proved their endurance.
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Clapham, J. H. An Economic History of Modern Britain: The Early Railway Age. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1939. A still-useful classic on the impact of the railroad on the economy of Great Britain. -
Hoole, K. A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Dawlish, England: David & Charles, 1965. A multivolume work. Vol. 4 examines the railroads of northeastern England. -
Kirby, Maurice W. The Origins of Railway Enterprise: The Stockton and Darlington Railway, 1821-1863. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. A first-rate work on the history of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. -
Raistrick, Arthur. Quakers in Science and Industry. New York: Augustus Kelley, 1968. Makes clear the pivotal role played by the Quaker community in developing the railroad in England. -
Rolt, L. T. C. George and Robert Stephenson: The Railway Revolution. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977. Reveals how important George Stephenson was in the initial phases of the railroad.
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