Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

YPS Together with YANT (York Association of the National Trust) presents a Teesside railways and river day.

We will spend the morning at Hopetown Museum, formerly Head of Steam, in the week celebrating 200 years of the Stockton to Darlington Railway.  North Road Station Museum is in the 1840s Victorian station building and explains Darlington’s role in 200 years of railway heritage.  Carriage Works (a Grade II listed building) contains the Exhibition Hall. This will have the exhibition “Steam to the Future” during our visit, reflecting on the history of steam railways and how the rail industry is gearing up for a second revolution driven by the growing green technologies sector in Teesside.  We will have a curator led tour – thanks to YANT for sponsoring this talk and thanks also to the Cleveland Association of the National Trust who instigated this day for us and will join us.

See the Museum website for more details: https://www.hopetowndarlington.co.uk/

Our coach will collect us at 12.45pm to take us to Preston Park jetty where we will board the “Tees Princess” river cruiser for a 3.5-hour cruise with full afternoon tea. This includes quiche, sandwiches, a scone with jam and cream finishing with a selection of sweet treats and a pot of tea.  On the boat we will be on the top deck, which is covered and heated, but does involve climbing a staircase to reach it.  Have a look at the video on the “Tees Princess” website:

https://teessideprincess.co.uk/

Member’s report

YPS has played its part commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway’s opening with talks and visits, most recently with an outing to Hopetown Works Museum at Darlington. This was in association with the York Association of the National Trust.

After the coach ride from York members were impressed by the expensively created museum displays and captions. Several hologram figures represent past railway workers and displays emphasise the role of George Stephenson and the Darlington Quakers such as Edward Pease and the banker, Jonathan Backhouse, often overlooked in creating the railway age.

Most museum displays are set in the former North Road station, once on the Stockton and Darlington “main line”, where exhibits include the 1842 Stockton and Darlington locomotive Derwent, almost a classical design.  Nearby is a replica of the S & D’s Locomotion, first to run on the line, and early S & D carriages.

In the former carriage works the store contains a glorious miscellany of railway artefacts and the exhibition Steam to the future. What visitors made of the artwork – smoke rings blown towards a flowery field image – is not known but the rest of the exhibition seemed underwhelming.

But outside two large North Eastern steam locomotives and the last diesel locomotive to be built at North Road Works were on view. Exhibits recalled just how many other rail related industries grew up in Darlington.  Hopetown has a large new shed and workshop where new steam locomotives are assembled. Unlike the National Railway Museum which unwisely scrapped its authentic and visible workshop this museum has a viewing gallery to see a huge replica Gresley P2 locomotive under construction.

A bonus was seeing another new build Tornado in steam outside. Slightly further away – and easily missed – the former locomotive shed was open to the public with more locomotives undergoing restoration.  Whether this was regular or not there were plenty of volunteers around to talk about engines and other displays; the museum was busy.

Our party followed with a coach ride to Preston Park where we joined the Tees Princess for afternoon tea and a 3½  hour cruise upriver to Yarm and then east to the Tees Barrier. It was a surprise to see how wide the river is and so much woodland alongside with much modern new development at Stockton and Thornaby.

We were back to York in good time to conclude an excellent trip. Thanks to Lee the driver and Catherine Brophy for organising.  Thanks also to the Cleveland National Trust group for sparking the idea.

Roger Backhouse

Photos: R Backhouse

Gallery