Newcastle to Chester-le-Street Great British Railway Journeys

'In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain.

'His name was George Bradshaw, and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

'Stop by stop, he told them where to travel, what to see and where to stay.

'Now, 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys across the length

'and breadth of the country to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

'Using my 19th-century Bradshaw's guide,

'I'm now headed for the North East, the cradle of the railways,

'where much of their early technology was developed.

'Some of the first lines were built here by George Stephenson,

'and I'll be following them south, to see how they spread throughout the country, transforming Britain.

'Each step of the way, I'll be consulting my Bradshaw's guide on what to look out for.

'With its remarkable descriptions of Victorian towns and cities,

'it's helping me to grasp the ideas and inventions that shaped what we enjoy today.

'On this journey, I'll be visiting the birthplace of the railways...'

Is this really the shrine of British railway engineering?

I suppose it is, really. This is the first purpose-built locomotive factory in the world.

'..finding out about the first lifeboat...'

This isn't just about technology, this is really a way of thinking about human life.

'..and witnessing some traditional miners' sword dancing.'

Who's lost a hand?!

HE LAUGHS

Starting in Newcastle, this route takes me south along some

of the very first railway lines, through Darlington and Whitby

to York.

Then I'll cross the Pennines and pass through Sheffield and

rural Leicestershire, before ending up at the town of Melton Mowbray.

Today, I'll cover the first 37 miles as I follow the Tyne

to South Shields, then travel south as far as Chester-le-Street.

Arriving into Newcastle, there are reminders everywhere of the city's pioneering role in railway history.

As we cross the River Tyne,

Bradshaw refers to the high level bridge over there, which was built by the late R Stephenson.

A 1,400 foot span, 112 feet above the river.

When it opened in 1849, the high level bridge was one of the earliest

wrought iron railway bridges, and the first to carry three tracks along its length.

Its engineer, Robert Stephenson, worked with the architect

John Dobson to build Newcastle Central Station in 1850.'

Newcastle Station is itself a wonder of railway archaeology and architecture.

Stephenson used three beautiful arched iron and glass canopies

to create the station, and they curve along the platform.

And this became the model for places all along the North East railway.

This impressive station provided a fitting gateway to a city

which in Bradshaw's day had recently been substantially improved.

He writes "The new town is handsome and well laid out.

"The exchange and other buildings are built of solid, durable granite at a cost of nearly £2m."

Designed by architect Richard Grainger and completed around 1841,

these streets are at the heart of one of England's first conservation areas.

We're on the corner of Grainger Street and Grey Street. What do you think of these streets?

Grey Street's a really, really lovely street.

I mean, the buildings down there are just wonderful.

If you walk down and just look up - a lot of people never ever look up

when they walk around, they just look straight ahead, but if you look up, it's a wonderful place. It really is.

You're awfully young, but do you have any memories of Newcastle?

Thank you, I'm actually a grandma!

But that's really nice of you to say so!

Do you have any memories of Newcastle Gateshead in the old days?

Before the regeneration, it was quite depressing, but now, it's beautiful down here.

It's really nice.

These days, Newcastle's classical buildings are offset by some striking modern architecture,

including the award-winning Millennium Bridge.

George Bradshaw, as a tremendous admirer of technology, would love

the Millennium Bridge, which tips up, like a winking eye, to allow shipping to pass underneath it.

It takes just four-and-a-half minutes to open, and is the world's first and only tilting bridge.

The quays of the Tyne are now home

to a thriving arts and culture scene.

But in Bradshaw's time, one industry above all others helped the city to grow.

Bradshaw's says: "Newcastle's situation on the banks of a navigable river, and in the greatest

"coal district in the world, are the chief causes which have tended to raise it to wealth and importance."

In the 1860s, Tyneside dominated Britain's coal mining industry,

supplying almost a third of London's fuel.

The wealth generated by the collieries financed pioneering engineers working

on what became the century's most important technology - the railways.

In 1824, Robert Stephenson and his father George

set up their locomotive works in central Newcastle.

'I'm meeting Dr Michael Bailey to see what's left of their empire.'

-It's good to meet you.

-Wonderful to see you.

I can't believe this place.

Is this really the shrine of British railway engineering?

Well, I suppose it is, really.

This is the first purpose-built locomotive factory in the world.

The railways were developed in this country, and we then exported our locomotives

to Europe, to North America, and the whole railway revolution developed from that moment on.

It must have become a very big works indeed. Give me an idea of its size.

When it was completely developed,

later on in the 19th century, it occupied something like six acres,

two-and-a-half hectares in modern speak.

There were about 1,200 employees.

So that was a very large site.

Looking at this building, there's very little trace of what it must've been like.

And yet, it's very moving, actually.

For anyone interested in railways,

this is the cradle of it all, the place where it all begins.

Yes, it is. And I think the people of Newcastle are extremely proud

of the fact that they have here, right on their doorstep,

the very beginnings of the railway era.

At this site, the Stephensons designed some of the first successful locomotives.

They developed all the elements of a modern railway,

including setting the distance between the parallel rails, which became the world standard gauge.

Why does this birth of railway technology happen in Newcastle of all places?

It comes back to the coal, of course.

The coal industry was so dominant in the 18th and then early 19th century,

that the competition between the different coal owners

demanded better and better ways of moving the coal

from the colliery sites to the shipping points for shipment

to Southern England or export to Europe.

And therefore, to allow you to be competitive,

you needed better railway technology to move the coal.

Father and son George and Robert Stephenson both started out as engineers in the coal industry,

and by Bradshaw's day, they'd become household names.

One striking thing about George Stephenson is he is a man of very humble origins, little education.

Was he a man with rough edges?

Yes, he did have rough edges.

He always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, or some would say a forest on his shoulder,

because he didn't have education.

But he was self-taught. He taught himself to read and write, and that's obviously very commendable.

But Robert did have an education.

George Stephenson ensured his son Robert would have all the education that he did not have.

When he left school, he could really have taken

a position in any profession, but he chose to perpetuate his interest in engineering.

By 1850, he had been responsible for something like a third of all the railways built in this country.

These two men, hopping between mechanical engineering and civil engineering,

building bridges, planning railway lines, this is the stuff of genius, isn't it?

Well, I think it is, isn't it?

To be the engineers right at the beginning of the railway revolution, yes, it is, it's the stuff of genius.

In 1859, when Robert Stephenson died, the railway works were one of the largest employers on Tyneside.

But they owed their development to the region's mineral wealth, its so-called black gold.

Bradshaw's notes that "Coal, the true riches of Newcastle, was first worked here in the year 1260,

"but the produce was scanty till steam power was used in 1714."

He notes "the vastness of the coal fields and their enormous depth."

And then he says, "All geologists agree that it will take some

hundreds, if not thousands of years to exhaust the coal."

Well, I'm going to see now how that prediction stacks up today.

I'm heading out to the old coalfields around South Shields on the Metro, Tyneside's underground.

It's one of four in Britain, alongside those in London, Glasgow and Liverpool.

Of course, I'm used to the London underground.

Coming down the escalators it felt like London,

except the escalators are shorter than at most London stations.

And I think the trains are shorter, too.

But still, this railway has 60 stations, so it may not be London, but it's a very substantial size.

The Metro was Britain's first modern light rail system when it opened in 1980.

Designed to move people quickly around the region, its vehicles are lighter than mainline trains.

Its 47-and-a-half miles of track carry passengers far into the suburbs, unless, that is,

you happen to pick a day when they're doing engineering works.

Unfortunately, that's the end of my journey by train, because

this being a Sunday, from here, it's a replacement bus service.

The rail replacement bus service can be regarded as a modern curse, and I don't suppose it would have

happened much in Bradshaw's day, but the origin is mid-19th century, because by act of Parliament,

rail services were made statutory, compulsory, and if there isn't

a train, the rail company still has to provide a service.

It demonstrates how quickly people came to rely on the railways as the main form of transport.

I don't have anything against buses, but let's face it, they're not the same as trains.

I'm on my way to one of the many coal mines that were sunk into the

earth around Newcastle in Bradshaw's day, linked by a growing network of railway tracks.

My guidebook writes, "Within a circle of 8-10 miles,

"more than 50 important collieries are open, employing 10 to 15,000 hands."

One of these productive pits was Whitburn Colliery, which opened in 1879.

Its workers had their own village, built alongside the pit.

But although my Bradshaw's guide predicted a long future for

Northumbrian coal, arriving today, there's no sign of life.

It's difficult to believe that this green expanse at the cliff's edge

was once a village of 700 people, Marsden.

And now of its 9 streets, its school,

its miners' institute, hardly a trace remains.

It's all been swept away.

To find out what became of this once-thriving community, I'm meeting

lifelong resident Larry Robertson, who worked here in the 1960s.

So these gates were once the entrance to the colliery?

Yes, it's hard to believe, we had a full colliery here.

Full steam engines for the winders, and the office block just behind us, workshops, everything.

Full industrial, huge complex.

Even more surprising to me is it's not just the colliery that's gone but the whole village.

Yeah, there was a full community.

Most of the workers for the colliery lived just along the road, about 400 metres.

All disappeared.

Larry grew up in Marsden, and remembers what once stood here.

Describe the village you knew as a kid.

Oh, a very, very friendly little village.

We had North Street here, the dairy was just here.

We used to get the school bus there.

We could walk it, but we used to get the bus.

About 150, 170 houses and families.

Everybody worked at the colliery, knew each other.

In its heyday, Whitburn Colliery produced 1,500 tons of coal a day,

which travelled by train to Newcastle.

That would be the railway line running there.

That's it, the embankment there.

It used to run all the way to South Shields, parallel to the road.

We used to nickname it the Marsden rattler.

It used to bring the miners in from South Shields, because, obviously then, transport wasn't that good.

So each shift, four times a day, would go

backwards and forwards, well, eight times, taking people home.

'The miners worked on seams that extended for miles under the sea.

'But by Larry's day, it was becoming too costly to extract the coal.

'In 1968, the mine closed, and shortly after, Marsden village was pulled down.'

I don't really understand why the village was demolished.

I think it was going to cost too much to upgrade it.

It was...

Basically, we still had the outside toilets, little backyards.

It was the same when they knocked it down as it was when they built it.

I suppose, at the end, it was expense. Which was a shame.

A shame.

It was just incredible that this area supported so much life.

For me, as a kid, it was a wonderful life.

-I really enjoyed it.

-You paint a fantastic picture.

The second half of the 20th century saw the closure

of the region's mines, and by the 1990s, all the collieries were gone.

But now it could be time to revisit Bradshaw's optimistic forecast for the coal industry.

I'm staying on the Whitburn Colliery site to meet mining expert Professor Paul Younger.

My Bradshaw's guide says that many geologists have considered how long the coal supply may last and they've

agreed that it's hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Were those geologists right?

Well, basically they were.

If you look at this part of the world, we've been mining coal

at industrial scale longer here than on any other part of the planet.

So more than 400 years of large-scale coal mining,

and yet still 75% of the coal is in the sub-surface waiting for us.

-Three-quarters left underground?

-Yeah, yeah.

'With so much coal under the north sea, Paul's hoping to employ a new

'technique for extracting its energy called gasification.'

Instead of sending human beings underground to go through tunnels

and so on, it's all done with modern steered drilling technologies from surface, so you have a drilling rig,

you send the drilling bit down, you steer it to move through the coal seam, you inject steam and oxygen

and then out of another borehole, out pops gas, which has got 80% of the energy of the original solid coal.

'Miners wouldn't need to go underground,

'and it's hoped this could provide a greener source of energy.'

We see the coal here as our way of bridging our way to a renewable energy future.

Because, you know, everybody's going to immediately say, "Are you crazy,

"burning more coal when we've got the problems with climate change?"

But the beauty of the technology we're talking about is that the

voids we're creating in the deep sub-surface, if they're

below depths of 650, 700 metres, we can inject the carbon dioxide straight back into them,

and so we have a way of getting the energy out of the coal without

further damaging the atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions.

'Although some fear the environmental benefits are unproven, Paul's upbeat about the future.'

-And so far, promising?

-Very promising, yeah.

All of the studies we've done show that this can be done economically, it can be done safely, and with the

huge dividend, of course, we then get the energy out of the coal without further damaging the climate.

'Who knows? Perhaps this coast will support a new community of energy workers.'

One building survived the demolition of Marsden village,

the spectacular Souter Lighthouse, built in the 19th century.

Before I continue my journey, I want to take a look.

76 steps...

to the top...

of the Souter Lighthouse, I'm told,

but the view is magnificent. This was built in 1871,

and George Bradshaw would have been thrilled by the technology.

The first lighthouse built for an electric light with the power of 800,000 candles.

And the reason was clear - these were very treacherous rocks.

In 1860 alone, about the time that my guide book was published, 20 ships were wrecked here.

And this lighthouse

brought greater safety for seamen.

The profusion of lighthouses along this shore

underlines just how treacherous it's always been.

A tiny reference in my guidebook hints at the perils of these waters.

And my next train's taking me to South Shields to follow it up.

I'm taking the Metro because my Bradshaw's tells me that "at South Shields may be seen in the church

"a model of Greathead's first lifeboat, invented and used in 1790."

Now, presumably, Victorians understood that reference,

but it means nothing to me, and I'm intrigued to know what could have been so special about that lifeboat.

'I'm heading straight from the station to the church mentioned in my Bradshaw's guide.

'I'm hoping historian Ian Whitehead can help me find the model that it describes.'

-Pleased to meet you, Michael.

-Very nice to see you.

I am looking for

Greathead's lifeboat, cos it's mentioned in my Bradshaw's guide.

Is it...is it readily visible?

It is readily visible.

Oh. Wow!

I didn't expect it to be there. That's absolutely fantastic.

We can get the boat down if you like. Tom?

I thought you just pressed a button or something!

No, unfortunately not!

The model that hangs from the ceiling represents what's claimed to be the first ever lifeboat, designed

in response to the hazardous conditions of the North Sea.

The original boat was made because of loss of life, really,

in a particular incident in 1789, where a ship ran aground,

and over a period of 24 hours,

everyone watched from the shore as the boat failed to get off the

Herd Sand, and then finally broke up and half the crew died.

The disaster was so shocking that a group of locals launched

a competition to design a rescue craft.

So who was Greathead, the man that Bradshaw attributes this boat to?

Well, Greathead was the man who claimed to be the inventor of the lifeboat.

In the competition, there were two people who put in entries.

One was from Greathead.

The other entry was from William Wouldhave, who was in fact the parish clerk of this church.

The committee didn't actually like either of the designs.

With no clear winner, Greathead was asked to build

a lifeboat that combined the best ideas from both men.

It was double ended so that it could be rowed in either direction, with a cork lining for buoyancy.

This isn't just about technology, this is really also about a way of thinking about human life, isn't it?

I mean, this is a commitment to save life which was perhaps

a little bit of a novelty at the end of the 18th century.

It is. I think if you've got no way of saving life,

then you have to be fatalistic and you have to say, "Well, we couldn't have saved them anyway."

But the development of the coal-mining industry meant that

people had money from the coal trade to think about building a boat like this,

and so it was a world first for the North East of England to have a lifeboat.

-So the North East can claim firsts in locomotives and in lifeboats.

-Indeed.

To reach my final destination on this leg of the journey,

I need to pick up the mainline, so I'm travelling back to Newcastle

on the Metro along the banks of the Tyne.

Bradshaw's tells me that this stretch is home to some remarkable Roman ruins.

Arbeia Fort, built nearly 2,000 years ago

to guard the entrance to the Tyne, is now a major tourist attraction.

But ancient sites like these were often plundered.

Bradshaw's says, "It's probable that much of the priory at Tynemouth was

"built with stone from the Roman station at South Shields."

Thankfully, parts of Hadrian's Wall have survived, and its vestiges are

apparent amongst the housing estates of Newcastle.

Now back on the main line,

I'm leaving Tyne and Wear to head south into County Durham.

My next stop is the ex-mining town of Chester-le-Street.

-That's a nice tight one, isn't it?

-Very tight.

I'm here because it's an unusual station.

-Welcome to Chester-le-Street.

-Thank you so much.

-You're Alex, aren't you?

-I am. Alex Nelson, yes.

I gather there's something special about Chester-le-Street station.

This is one of the few independent stations in the country and the only one on a major main line.

This is the East Coast main line to London, as you know.

I took over this station 11 years ago as a private venture to reinvigorate it.

So how on earth did it occur to you to buy a railway station?

Well, I don't strictly buy it, I rent it.

But I was travelling on a train one afternoon from Durham to Newcastle, and the train pulled up here about

2:50 in the afternoon, boarded-up, derelict, with a "to let" sign.

Alex renovated the station and turned it into a successful

private business, selling train tickets to anywhere in the country.

It was a completely unstaffed station when I took it on, unloved.

And we have five staff who work here.

We provide information on all trains all over the country by phone.

That's about 100mph. You have about six seconds to get off the track

if you're there, so it's just as well we're behind the yellow line.

Today, Chester-le-Street has just one main line passing through Alex's station.

In Bradshaw's day, it was at the centre of a spider's web of colliery

railways bringing coal to the town for export along the River Wear.

Coal mining has always been dangerous work, and 19th-century miners had to trust

each other with their lives.

Close-knit mining communities developed their own traditions,

and one, the rapper sword dance, is sustained by local resident Ricky Forster and his family.

Now, you're beautifully turned out for what? For rapper?

-Rapper sword dance, yes.

-A rapper sword dance?

-North East tradition.

-And it goes back how long?

1800s.

Well, I've got family doing it in the 1800s, carrying the dance through to the present day.

-Your family's been doing it all that time?

-Yeah.

-And what is it you're carrying here?

A rapper sword.

A rapper sword. Is that sharp?

No. It's blunt.

It does cut like a scissor.

HE LAUGHS

So what was this used for?

For cleaning pit ponies' backs.

So, will you give us a dance, please?

I think we can manage that.

JAUNTY FOLK MUSIC PLAYS

During the 19th century, groups of dancers travelled

all over the North East by train, performing at competitions in pubs, clubs and miners' galas.

As well as dancers, comic characters provided light relief.

-Tell him what to do here.

-Can I?

-Tell him what to do.

-Can I tell him what to do?

-Aye, you do what she says, you do it.

Come on here. All right, round here.

You gan that...

You gan that way.

Oh, no! No...

Who's lost a hand? I'll put it in the handbag!

-All right, me bonny lads.

-All right, me bonny lads.

That was absolutely fantastic.

'As I say goodbye to the rapper dancers,

'it's been brought home to me how this region of Britain was shaped by two staple Victorian industries.

'Coal and railways.

'History never ends. Railways have revived, and coal,

'so recently written off, may return, its energy harvested in a new way.'

In Bradshaw's day, the North East became rich

on the back of the railways, and they, in turn, depended on the superabundance of coal.

If we could master the technology and turn coal that remains underground into gas,

then maybe coal could supply our energy future as well.

'On the next leg of my journey, I'll be experiencing how tough the work was on a steam train...'

The heat from the boiler is intense!

And the coal is heavy...

and the locomotive...

is very hungry!

'..meeting one of the first locomotives...'

-It's in the most beautiful condition. Am I allowed to?

-Absolutely.

It's quite thrilling, actually.

'..and sounding out the seaside town that inspired the Victorian horror story Dracula.'

MICHAEL SCREAMS VIOLENTLY

How was that?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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