The Clarence Railway was an early railway company that operated in north-east England between 1833 and 1853. The railway was built to take coal from mines in County Durham to ports on the River Tees and was a competitor to the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). It suffered financial difficulty soon after it opened because traffic was low and the S&DR charged a high rate for transporting coal to the Clarence, and the company was managed by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners after July 1834. An extension of the Byers Green branch was opened in 1839 by the independent West Durham Railway to serve collieries in Weardale.
The seal of the Clarence Railway
Christopher Tennant, chief promoter
Founder's share of Clarence Railway Company, issued 23 May 1828 in Stockton
The drops at Port Clarence
Stockton and Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.
In the Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, a watercolour painted in the 1880s by John Dobbin, crowds are watching the inaugural train cross the Skerne Bridge in Darlington.
The seal of the Stockton & Darlington Railway
Stephenson's iron bridge across the Gaunless
The opening procession of the Stockton and Darlington Railway crosses the Skerne bridge