Durham Coast Line
The Durham Coast Line is the name given to the railway line which links Newcastle upon Tyne with Middlesbrough, via Sunderland and Hartlepool. Most passenger services are operated by Northern and the majority of their services continue on from Newcastle to the MetroCentre and a few to Carlisle, it is an important diversionary route during closures on the East Coast Main Line. The lines which make up the route were constructed by several small independent railway companies which were amalgamated to form the North Eastern Railway who linked them together to form a coastal through route, completed in 1905; the North Eastern Railway became part the North Eastern Railway at the 1923 Grouping. The DCL comes under the aegis of the Tees Valley Rail Strategy, whose aims are to enhance services in the region. Under that scheme, Phase 1 undertaken on DCL resulted in an hourly service between Newcastle and Hartlepool from 2000. Plans for Phase 2, including opening new stations, has been on hold since the Strategic Rail Authority came into being, when funding for the scheme was brought to a virtual standstill.
The section between the junction just south of Sunderland and Pelaw Junction is the only Network Rail route electrified at 1500 V DC overhead for use by the Tyne and Wear Metro, which shares this section of the line. The current route of the DCL has its origins in some of the earliest locomotive operated railways in the North East; the first section of the line to be opened was that constructed by the Clarence Railway. As with many of the early railways, the CR was constructed for the transportation of coal from western and central areas of the Durham Coalfield to the River Tees at North Shore and Port Clarence and, despite severe financial difficulties, was opened to mineral traffic in 1833 but the line did not carry passengers until July 1835 when a service was introduced between Coxhoe and Stockton; the CR was followed by the Hartlepool Dock & Railway, a similar concern which opened to mineral traffic on 23 November 1835 and passengers four years later. Like the CR, the HD&R intended to link the collieries close to Durham City to the coast although the HD&R only reached as far as Haswell due to competition from other railways.
The Durham & Sunderland Railway opened between Sunderland Town Moor and collieries at Hetton and Haswell to both passengers and mineral traffic in 1836 and in doing so entered into direct competition with the HD&R for coal traffic from Hawell. The D&SR constructed the first significant north-south section of the DCL to be completed and, in conjunction with the HD&R, enabled passengers to travel between Hartlepool and Sunderland for the first time by rail; the completion of the Brandling Junction Railway between Oakwellgate in Gateshead and Wearmouth near Sunderland on 5 September 1839 along with the opening of the Stockton & Hartlepool Railway on 10 February 1841 between the Clarence Railway at Billingham-on-Tees and a new terminus near West Hartlepool Docks meant that, with several changes of station, it was possible to travel between the Tees and Tyne by rail along the coast for the first time. The opening of the High Level Bridge over the River Tyne on 27 September 1849 extended this route though to Newcastle and on 15 May 1852, the official opening of the Stockton extension of the Leeds Northern Railway created a direct link between the Clarence Railway and the rival Stockton & Darlington Railway and thus completed the link between Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.
One year after the LNR reached Stockton, the newly created West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway began to use the LNR's North Stockton station. The last of the independent railways that would become part of the DCL to be opened created the first significant'coastal' section of the line: the Londonderry, Seaham & Sunderland Railway was constructed to enable coal traffic from the Londonderry Railway system to be diverted from Seaham Harbour to the constructed South Dock at Sunderland and ran parallel to the D&SR north of Ryhope. None the less, on 2 July 1855, the LS&SR introduced a passenger service between Seaham and Hendon Burn; the Clarence Railway had struggled financially continuously since construction of its first line began and so the more successful S&HR took out a 21-year lease on it in 1844. This was extended to a permanent lease in 1851 before the two companies were amalgamated together and with the West Hartlepool Harbour & Dock Company, on 17 May 1853 to form the West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway.
Meanwhile, the advancement of the Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway had led it to take over the BJR on 1 September 1844, purchase the D&SR in 1846 and, after it was amalgamated with the Great North of England Railway to become the York & Newcastle Railway, it took out a lease on the HD&R. Then, on 22 July 1848, the Y&NR and HD&R both became part of the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway. In 1854, the YN&BR, LNR and the York & North Midland Railway were amalgamated to form the North Eastern Railway which absorbed the WWH&R in 1865. Thus, from 1865, one company was in control of the whole through route between Middlesbrough, Hartl
Scott Free Productions
Scott Free Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1970 by filmmakers and brothers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. They formed the feature film development company Percy Main Productions in 1980, naming the company after the English village Percy Main, where their father grew up; the company was renamed to Scott Free Productions in 1995. Scott Free has produced films ranging from the 2000 Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator to "smaller pictures" like Cracks. Between productions of White Squall and G. I. Jane, Ridley Scott reorganised the company. Scott Free Productions has offices in Los Angeles, it works with Ridley Scott's larger company RSA Films by assisting directors in television. Official website Scott Free Productions on IMDb
North Eastern Railway (United Kingdom)
The North Eastern Railway was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854 by the combination of several existing railway companies, it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923. Its main line survives to the present day as part of the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh. Unlike many other pre-Grouping companies the NER had a compact territory, in which it had a near monopoly; that district extended through Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland, with outposts in Westmorland and Cumberland. The only company penetrating its territory was the Hull & Barnsley, which it absorbed shortly before the main grouping; the NER's main line formed the middle link on the Anglo-Scottish "East Coast Main Line" between London and Edinburgh, joining the Great Northern Railway near Doncaster and the North British Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Although a Northern English railway, the NER had a short length of line in Scotland, in Roxburghshire, with stations at Carham and Sprouston on the Tweedmouth-Kelso route, was a joint owner of the Forth railway bridge and its approach lines.
The NER was the only English railway to run trains into Scotland, over the Berwick-Edinburgh main line as well as on the Tweedmouth-Kelso branch. The total length of line owned was 4,990 miles and the company's share capital was £82 million; the headquarters were at York and the works at Darlington, Gateshead and elsewhere. Befitting the successor to the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the NER had a reputation for innovation, it was a pioneer in electrification. In its final days it began the collection that became the Railway Museum at York, now the National Railway Museum. In 1913 the company achieved a total revenue of £11,315,130 with working expenses of £7,220,784. Constituent companies of the NER are listed in chronological order under the year of amalgamation, their constituent companies are indented under the parent company with the year of amalgamation in parenthesis. If a company changed its name, the earlier names and dates are listed after the name; the information for this section is drawn from Appendix E in Tomlinson.
1854 York and Berwick Railway was York and Newcastle Railway and Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway Durham Junction Railway Brandling Junction Railway Durham and Sunderland Railway Pontop and South Shields Railway Stanhope and Tyne Railway Newcastle and Berwick Railway Newcastle and North Shields Railway Great North of England Railway York and North Midland Railway Leeds and Selby Railway Whitby and Pickering Railway East and West Yorkshire Junction Railway Leeds Northern Railway was Leeds and Thirsk Railway Malton and Driffield Railway1857 Deerness Valley Railway Hartlepool Dock and Railway1858 North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway1859 Bedale and Leyburn Railway1862 the "N. E. R. Foss Island BR" railway line, which appears on the 1860 Ordnance Survey map near Elmfield College Hull and Holderness Railway Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Blaydon and Hebburn Railway 1863 Stockton and Darlington Railway Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway Wear Valley Railway Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway Eden Valley Railway Frosterley and Stanhope Railway South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway 1865 Cleveland Railway West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Clarence Railway Stockton and Hartlepool Railway 1866 Hull and Hornsea Railway1870 West Durham Railway1872 Hull and Selby Railway1874 Blyth and Tyne Railway 1876 Hexham and Allendale Railway Leeds and Pontefract Junction Railway1882 Tees Valley Railway1883 Hylton and Monkwearmouth Railway Scotswood and Wylam Railway1889 Whitby and Middlesbrough Union Railway1893 Wear Valley Extension Railway1898 Scarborough & Whitby Railway1900 Cawood and Selby Light Railway1914 Scarborough and West Riding Junction Railway1922 Hull and Barnsley Railway 1853 Hartlepool West Harbour and Dock1857 Hartlepool Dock and Railway1893 Hull Dock Company Having inherited the country's first great barrel-vault roofed station, Newcastle Central, from its constituent the York Newcastle & Berwick railway, the NER during the next half century built a finer set of grand principal stations than any other British railway company, with examples at Alnwick, Gateshead East, Stockton, Darlington Bank Top and Hull Paragon.
The four largest, at Newcastle, Darlington and Hull survive in transport use. Alnwick is still extant but in non-transport use since 1991 as a second-hand book warehouse, the others having been demolished during the 1950s/60s state-owned railway era, two following Second World War blitz damage. York station was the hub of the system, the headquarters of the line was located here; the basis for the present station was opened on 25 June 1877. Until the advent of modern signalling, the 295-lever box was the largest manually worked signal box in Britain. Newcastle station, opened on 29 August 1850, became the largest on the NER. Other principal stations were located at Sunderland and Hull; the station at Leed
Percy Main
Percy Main is a small village absorbed into North Shields, North East England. In Northumberland, it is now part of Tyne and Wear, it is named after the colliery belonging to the Percy family, located just south of the railway, near St. John's church; the colliery was sunk in 1799 & went to a depth of 247 meters to the renowned Main seam, considered the best coal for household use. The village grew up around it to serve the pit, it closed in 1895. In 1872, the population was recorded as 3,953; the inhabitants worked in the neighbouring docks and other industries. Sport is popular in the village, with Percy Main Cricket Club playing at St John's Green in the Northumberland and Tyneside Senior Cricket League, with their next door neighbours Percy Main Amateurs F. C. playing at Purvis Park in the Northern Football Alliance Premier Division. The village's main and only modern-day railway station is the Percy Main Metro station; the original footbridge from the station is preserved at York. The Diocese of Newcastle's main administrative office and resource centre are located at Church House in the village.
Percy Main Primary School is located in the village
Tyne and Wear Metro
The Tyne and Wear Metro, referred to locally as the Metro, is a rapid transit and light rail system in North East England, serving Newcastle upon Tyne, South Tyneside, North Tyneside and Sunderland in Tyne and Wear. It has been described as the first modern light rail system in the United Kingdom; the initial network opened between 1980 and 1984, using converted former railway lines, linked with new tunnel infrastructure. Extensions to the original network were opened in 1991 and 2002. In 2017/18 over 36 million passenger journeys were made on the network, which spans 77.5 kilometres and has two lines with a total of 60 stations, nine of which are underground. It is the second-largest of the four metro systems in the United Kingdom, after the London Underground; the system is operated by the local transport authority Nexus. Between 2010 and 2017 it was operated under contract by DB Regio Tyne & Wear Limited, a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains. On 1 April 2017, this contract ended, Nexus took over direct operation of the system for a planned period of two years.
The present system uses much former railway infrastructure constructed between 1834 and 1882, with one of the oldest parts being the Newcastle & North Shields Railway which opened in 1839. In 1904, in response to tramway competition, taking away passengers, the North Eastern Railway started electrifying parts of their local railway network north of the River Tyne with a 600 V DC third-rail system, forming one of the earliest suburban electric networks, known as the Tyneside Electrics. In 1938, the line south of the Tyne between Newcastle and South Shields was electrified. In the 1960s under British Rail, the decision was made to de-electrify the Tyneside Electric network, convert it to diesel operation due to falling passenger numbers, the cost of renewing end of life electrical infrastructure and rolling stock; the Newcastle-South Shields line was de-electrified in 1963, the north Tyneside routes were de-electrified in 1967. This was viewed as a backward step, as the diesel trains were slower than the electric trains they replaced.
In the early 1970s, the poor local transport system was identified as one of the main factors holding back the region's economy, in 1971 a study was commissioned by the created Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority into how the transport system could be improved. This new system was intended to be the core of a new integrated transport network, with buses acting as feeders to purpose-built transport interchanges; the plans were approved by the Tyneside Metropolitan Railway Bill, passed by Parliament in July 1973. Around 70% of the funding for the scheme came from a central government grant, with the remainder coming from local sources. Three railway lines, totalling 26 miles were to be converted into Metro lines as part of the initial system; the converted railway lines were to be connected by around six miles of new infrastructure, built both to separate the Metro from the existing rail network, to create the new underground routes under Newcastle and Gateshead. Around four miles of the new infrastructure was in tunnels, while the remainder was either at ground level or elevated.
The elevated sections included the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge. Construction work began in October 1974, it was intended to be opened in stages between 1979 and 1981, however the first part of the original network opened in August 1980, the remainder opened in stages until March 1984. The final cost of the project in 1984 prices was £265 million; some extensions to the original system have since been built. A short 3.5 km extension from Bank Foot to Newcastle Airport was opened in 1991, using a further part of the former Ponteland branch. In 2002 an 18.5 km extension was opened from Pelaw to South Hylton via Sunderland. Costing £100 million, this extension used part of the existing Durham Coast Line to Sunderland, but did not take it over. Three intermediate stations on the route were rebuilt, three new ones were added. Within Sunderland, 4.5 km of a former freight line, abandoned in 1984 was reused for the route between Sunderland station and South Hylton, becoming the second Metro segment to be built on a disused line.
The opening dates of the services and stations are as follows: The Tyne and Wear Metro was the first railway in the UK to operate using the metric system
Heritage railway
A heritage railway is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period in the history of rail transport; the British Office of Rail and Road defines heritage railways as follows: "...'lines of local interest', museum railways or tourist railways that have retained or assumed the character and appearance and operating practices of railways of former times. Several lines that operate in isolation provide genuine transport facilities, providing community links. Most lines constitute tourist or educational attractions in their own right. Much of the rolling stock and other equipment used on these systems is original and is of historic value in its own right. Many systems aim to replicate both the look and operating practices of historic former railways companies." Heritage railway lines have historic rail infrastructure, substituted in modern rail systems. Historical installations, such as hand-operated points, water cranes, rails fastened with hand-hammered rail spikes, are characteristic features of heritage lines.
Unlike tourist railways, which carry tourists and have modern installations and vehicles, heritage-line infrastructure creates views and soundscapes of the past in operation. Due to a lack of modern technology or the desire for historical accuracy, railway operations can be handled with traditional practices such as the use of tokens. Heritage infrastructure and operations require the assignment of roles, based on historical occupations, to the railway staff. Some, or all and volunteers, including Station masters and signalmen, sometimes wearing period-appropriate attire, can be seen on some heritage railways. Most heritage railways use heritage rolling stock, although modern rail vehicles can be used to showcase railway scenes with historical-line infrastructure. While some heritage railways are profitable tourist attractions, many are not-for-profit entities. Still other heritage railways offer a viable public-transit option, can maintain operations with revenue from regular riders or government subsidies.
Children's railways are extracurricular educational institutions where children and teenagers learn about railway work. The railways developed in the USSR during the Soviet era. Many were called "Pioneer railways", after the youth organisation of that name; the first children's railway opened in Moscow in 1932 and, at the breakup of the USSR, 52 children's railways existed in the country. Although the fall of communist governments has led to the closure of some, preserved children's railways are still functioning in post-Soviet states and Eastern European countries. Many children's railways were built on parkland in urban areas. Unlike many industrial areas served by a narrow-gauge railway, parks were free of redevelopment. Child volunteers and socialist fiscal policy enabled the existence of many of these railways. Children's railways which still carry traffic have retained their original infrastructure and rolling stock, including vintage steam locomotives. Examples of children's railways with steam locomotives include the Dresden Park Railway in Germany.
Creating passages for trains up steep hills and through mountain regions offers many obstacles which call for technical solutions. Steep grade railway technologies and extensive tunneling may be employed; the use of narrow gauge allows tighter curves in the track, offers a smaller structure gauge and tunnel size. At high altitudes and logistical difficulties, limited urban development and demand for transport and special rolling-stock requirements have left many mountain railways unmodernized; the engineering feats of past railway builders and views of pristine mountain scenes have made many railways in mountainous areas profitable tourist attractions. Pit railways have been in operation in underground mines all over the world. Small rail vehicles transport ore, waste rock, workers through narrow tunnels. Sometimes trains were the sole mode of transport in the passages between the work sites and the mine entrance; the railway's loading gauge dictated the cross-section of passages to be dug. At many mining sites, pit railways have been abandoned due to mine closure or adoption of new transportation equipment.
Some show mines offer mantrip rides into the mine. The Metro 1, built from 1894 to 1896, is the oldest line of the Budapest Metro system and the second-oldest underground railway in the world; the M1 underwent major reconstruction during the 1980s and 1990s, Line 1 now serves eight original stations whose original appearance has been preserved. In 2002, the line was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the Deák Ferenc Square concourse's Millennium Underground Museum, many other artifacts of the metro's early history may be seen; the first heritage railway to be rescued and run by volunteers was the Talyllyn Railway in Wales. This narrow-gauge line, taken over by a group of enthusiasts in 1950, was the beginning of the preservation movement worldwide. In Britain, heritage railways are railway lines which
Heritage railways
Ferry services
