THE sight of hundreds of people lining the route of the Tyne Valley railway line every time a steam drawn excursion is due speaks volumes for the enduring appeal of the leviathans of the line.
It’s well over half a century since the last snorting locomotive pulled anything other than an excursion on the line, but the age of the train has never really run out of puff.
They may have been slow, smelly and given to covering all passengers in a mixtures of smuts and cinders, and they did have a tendency to set fire to track side vegetation at the drop of a station master‘s hat, but steam trains have a unique place in Tynedale folk’s affections.
That‘s why there is a constant stream of glossy books emerging from the nation’s publishing houses, which are still snapped up by the modern generation of train spotters.
The latest to steam off the presses is Tyneside and the Tyne Valley Line, by Stephen Chapman, featuring well over 200 photographs as well as a whole buffet car of fascinating facts about the role of the Tyneside and its environs in the development of the railways.
Due deference is paid to the Wylam heroes like William Hedley and George Stephenson in the pantheon of railway stars, but glittering in their own right are little nuggets of information on the sheer number of trains which used to run in Tynedale.
In the summer of 1950, there were eight Newcastle-Hexham trains each way every weekday, along with three Haltwhistle- Newcastle trains each way. There was 5-35 train from Prudhoe for Ovingham and nine trains to Carlisle, and ten back - two of which were buffet car expresses.
The line was also home to twice daily boat trains between Newcastle and Stranraer, along with night trains at 12-30 am and 2-30am connecting with the Stranraer boats.
These boat trains would stop on request at Hexham and Haltwhistle, providing the request had been made to the Newcastle District Transport Manager by 4pm the previous day.
There was also a Sunday buffet car excursion to Keswick during the summer of 1957.
The facts come tumbling over each other in the first 30-odd pages, but thereafter the book is given over to a series of wonderful pictures of the railways of the district in their prime.
It has to be said not all feature steam trains - while one page features a photograph of the most famous locomotive of them all, the incomparable world-record setting Mallard in action at Newcastle Central Station in all its splendour the opposite page shows a mighty Deltic diesel, a 3,300 brake horse power monster that would cruise for ever at 100 mph.
But it is the great steam engines that really catch the eye, particularly the stream-lined beauties of the Pacific class such as the regal Sir Ronald Matthews, Silver King and Sir Charles Newton , not to mention Meg Merrilees, Cameronian and the Durham Light Infantry in all their glory.
The book is a train spotters‘ paradise, name-checking scores of illustrious engines that used to be a common sight in the tracks of the district.
The book is divided into different sections, with purely local interest centred on the last 20-odd pages devoted to what the author calls The West line.
Among early entries is a picture of a train at standing at North Wylam station, whose claim to fame in 1956 was that its three ton crane could horse boxes and prize cattle vans.
There is also a picture of the Leslie Runciman-drawn Newcastle express crossing the famed bow girder bridge at Wylam, which now carries only foot passengers.
Further on, there’s an evocative view of the extensive sidings which used to service West Wylam Colliery, while Leslie Runciman pops back onto the pages later, hauling a Newcastle Carlisle express through Riding Mill.
There‘s also a picture of Gilsland station in 1965, before its closure, and the current campoaign to have it re-opened as an access point to the Roman Wall.
There are also shots of the much-missed Haltwhistrle-Alston line, with a loco puffing its way over Lambley Viaduct, as well as rare shots of the stations at Coanwood and Slaggyford.
The Allendale line isn’t forgotten either, with a train in steam at Stward, and another at the end of the line at Catton Road.
The book is available from local bookshops at £17.99, or direct from publishers Bellcode Books of Church View, Middle Street, Rudston, East Riding of Yorkshire YO2 4UF.
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