Weardale Extension Railway

The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was an early British mineral railway, that ran from Stanhope in County Durham, to South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne. The object was to convey limestone from Stanhope and coal from West Consett and elsewhere to the Tyne, and to local consumers. Passengers were later carried on parts of the line.

The line opened on 15 May 1834, but it was not financially successful. It had been formed by a partnership, and the heavily indebted partners floated a new company, the Pontop and South Shields Railway to continue operations and take over the debt. Part of the line was bought by the Derwent Iron Company (which later became the Consett Iron Company.

Much of the S&TR system was built through hilly, sparsely populated terrain across the moors of County Durham, and it incorporated several rope-worked inclines as well as using horse traction and steam locomotives on level sections.

Dependent on the activity of mineral workings, and subject to more modern competing routes, the line closed in stages in the twentieth century, although a short section near South Shields is till extant; today much of the route is part of the national Sustrans foot and cycle path network.

The Durham and Northumberland coalfield was rich in the mineral, and it was extracted in increasing volumes from the Middle Ages. Transport of the heavy mineral to market was expensive and difficult; water transport, on rivers and by coastal shipping was the most practicable, and the earliest pits were close to waterways, particularly the River Tyne and the River Wear. The deposits very close to the waterways soon became worked out, and the location of the mining moved progressively away in the seventeenth century, requiring longer transits overland.

The mineral could be conveyed to a quay by cart. Even in the early decades of the nineteenth century there were very few public roads, and the carts made their way across private land, paying a wayleave to the landowner. The wayleave was a contract for permission to cross the land in return for a payment, usually on the basis of a rate per unit of weight.

Even so, crossing undeveloped land by cart was slow and difficult, and waggonways were developed; at first they consisted of wooden rails, and individual wagons were hauled along the route by horse traction. In the course of time a considerable number of such waggonways were constructed in the area. The waggonways too required wayleaves to traverse privately held land.

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