Three years ago, the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway were founded out of concern at the deterioration – indeed, the loss – of our very own world class heritage, the S&DR. It seemed ironic that this should be happening at the very same time that a world class railway company – Hitachi – was bringing train and railway vehicle building back to the birthplace of the modern railway.

Our answer was to hold a national conference in 2015 at Locomotion, National Railway Museum (NRM) Shildon to raise awareness of this world class heritage on our doorstep, debate the importance of the S&DR and encourage cooperative working between a wide range of partners. Since then a lot has been happening, the HAZ being the latest in a growing string of successes in the lead up to our 200th anniversary in 2025. It is the best Christmas present ever!

Crucially, the major local authorities along the line (Durham, Darlington and Stockton Councils and the Tees Valley Combined Authority) are now co-operating together in a Rail Heritage Steering Group (RSHG) with other key partners such as the Friends of the S&DR, Historic England, the NRM (on behalf of the Science Museums Group), railway companies and the A1 Trust. The work of the RSHG covers three strands: firstly, to conserve, repair and make accessible the remains of the S&DR along its 26 miles; secondly, to look at major infrastructure projects such as the North Road area of Darlington and thirdly, to plan for the major celebration events of 2025, the bicentenary of the S&DR and hopefully also the year in which the Tees Valley will be celebrating as the City of Culture.

As one element of this partnership, an application was made to Historic England to become a Heritage Action Zone – taking part in a regional and then national competition to secure one of only eight designations for the whole country in this round of designations. Our Heritage Action Zone is different from most others as our Zone is linear in nature rather than geographically all in one place, covering as it does an area from Witton Park in County Durham (where the line begins), right through to Stockton on Tees where the line ended in 1825.

What does it mean to be a Heritage Action Zone? The idea is the result of a government white paper which addressed concerns about the loss of significant heritage, including industrial heritage such as the S&DR.

Organisations can take part in a competition to become a HAZ, which brings with it national recognition, only relatively small amounts of money but lots of vital support from Historic England to enable key work to be done to arrest decline and bring about a brighter future for our heritage assets. For the S&DR it will help us to continue the crucial research that has already begun (a track bed audit funded by the three main councils was completed last year), to identify where money needs to be invested to protect the line – and, crucially it should help us when we apply to organisations like the Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England for large sums of money to make things happen. It also provides an opportunity to work with local communities and schools along the line.

What is the Friends’ vision for the future? Take it for granted that we want to preserve what is left for the future and make it more accessible.

But what about a Stockton & Darlington Marathon, sponsored by some of our partners? After all, the main line of the S&DR is about 26 miles long. How about a film of the story of how the railway came to be built – it really is as entertaining as a Catherine Cookson novel. How about bringing steam back to the line – say, from Darlington right the way up Weardale? How about themed holidays for people interested in railway history – people from all over the world, including Japan?

Above all else, we want to use our heritage to inspire the present and future generations of youngsters coming through our schools today to take up engineering and make this area what it used to be back in 1825 – a hotbed of innovation at the forefront of world industrial development. We want to use our heritage to stimulate economic regeneration and bring much needed jobs and prosperity to our area. We want to celebrate the place where the modern railway was born and remind everyone just what an amazing place it is we live in. Who knows, perhaps it might just encourage a generation of school children to aspire to be great engineers and entrepreneurs like George Stephenson and Edward Pease and change the world.

Trish Pemberton,

Chair, Friends of the S&DR

Received by the Newton News. If you have a story that we may be interested in, please send to syd@newtonnews.co.uk