The North Pennine range that separates the industrial North East and
County Durham from Lakeland and the North West is a remote and beautiful
wilderness of moorland and high Pennine fells. It was here that the
Stockton & Darlington, the birthplace of public railways, struck out
west in the most dramatic of all the Pennine crossings. A main line
that rose to 1370 feet – England’s highest. Built to link the blast
furnaces of Teesside and County Durham with Cumberland Ore, and the
furnaces of Cumberland with Durham coke, the railway was at its heart
from first day almost to the last, a working railway built to serve the
mining and steel industry of the North. For just over a century the
moors around Bowes, the now quiet gills and becks of Smardale and Belah
and the lonely source of the Greta River in Westmorland echoed night and
day to the sound of steam battling the gradients of this remarkable
railway. As the memory of the railway and the vast industries it served
begins to pass from living memory, this book examines both origins and
history of the railway and the 1950s revival of the Stainmore Line.
Equipped with the most modern steam fleet in the country, with post-war
industrial output surging and inter-regional leisure passenger traffic
strong, the route seemed set for a bright future. The speed with which
this bustling railway and strategic East–West link passed from peak
operation to complete closure was unprecedented at the time, a casualty
of a unique combination of circumstances which this book explores.
Chris Rowley
192 pages. 275x215mm. Printed on gloss art paper with colour laminated board covers.
