LOCOMOTION No 1 will be shared between Shildon and Darlington for at least the next decade.
The historic engine will leave Darlington, its home for the last 163 years, this month to go to Shildon at the National Railway Museum 13 miles away.
However, the 196-year-old engine will return to Darlington for up to two years at a time until 2035.
An agreement was signed yesterday afternoon bringing an end to the year-long, and increasingly acrimonious, tug of love over the engine.
Darlington council leader Heather Scott said she was “incredibly disappointed” to see the engine depart whereas the head of the Locomotion museum at Shildon, Dr Sarah Price, said she was “incredibly excited” to see it arrive.
The engine will return to Darlington for the first half of 2025 – the crucial year in which the 200th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, which is regarded as the world’s first modern railway, will be celebrated.
The engine will therefore be in Shildon for the actual anniversary of opening day, on September 27.
It will return to Darlington for a year between 2026 and 2030, and then for up to two years between 2030 and 2035.
The tug-of-love between the two railway towns has been going for at least a year since the NRM announced that the engine would be leaving Darlington this month to go to Shildon, where it will be central to the museum’s £4.5m refurb.
This announcement was greeted with dismay in Darlington, which sees the globally important engine as central to its £25m Rail Heritage Quarter based around its refurbished museum.
Darlington’s campaign to “Keep the Loco in Darlo” had a petition with nearly 7,000 signatures on it and even featured a poster in Roy Cropper’s café on Coronation Street.
Three weeks ago, negotiations between the National Railway Museum and Darlington council seemed to have broken down completely with the engine about to be removed but now, at the eleventh hour, a compromise has been reached.
Dr Price in Shildon said: ““We are incredibly excited to bring Locomotion No 1 back to Shildon. And we know we can tell the amazing and authentic history of the North-East’s immeasurable contribution to the world’s railway in the redeveloped Locomotion, where more than 200,000 people every year will be able to see Locomotion No 1 for free.”
But Cllr Scott said: “I know that there are many people who, like myself, are incredibly disappointed to see Locomotion No 1 leave Darlington where it has been on display for more than 160 years. Woven into our town crest, this historic locomotive is integral to the cultural identity of our town, and I have been grateful to all those who have shown their support for our campaign to Keep the Loco in Darlo.
“Although Locomotion No 1 is leaving our town, it remains part of our history, and we will rightly remain proud of the part Darlington has played and continues to play in the story of the railways.
“Now we look to the future, to working with NRM, Locomotion and other partners across the region and the rail heritage world to celebrate together the ingenuity and significance of the Stockton & Darlington Railway as we approach the bicentenary in 2025.”
Peter Gibson, Darlington MP, who has been involved with Cllr Scott in the negotiations with the NRM’s leading figures in London, said: “Locomotion No 1 is an essential part of our town’s identity, cast in steel on the pillars that hold our railway bridges up, carved in stone on memorials to our fallen, cast in bronze on the weathervane atop our market hall clock tower, and embroidered onto the strips of our footballers.
“We are and always will be the historic home of Locomotion No 1. Just as she has travelled to exhibitions around the world in times past to tell our great railway story that began here, so too she now moves a short distance to Shildon, only to return in the future as part of exhibitions at our original museum.
“I understand some will feel disappointed but our place in railway history can never be erased.
“The agreement now reached by our council and NRM represents an opportunity to work together to bring more visitors to our museums, work for the benefit of our local economy in the run up to 2025, and embrace the next chapter in our railways story as we welcome £105m of investment in Bank Top Station and £25m in our rejuvenated rail heritage quarter.”
The engine will leave in the near future for Shildon where a programme of repairs to historic engines is in progress. Dr Price said: “Locomotion No 1 will undergo essential asbestos remediation works at Shildon and then, more excitingly, we’ll undertake a detailed archaeological and forensic investigation of the vehicle.
“This work will reveal so much more about the history of a locomotive that is so well-known but has been so little understood.”
Shildon Councillor Samantha Townsend said: “Locomotion No 1 has a very long, complex and fascinating history, both as a working engine and as an artefact.
“As we head towards the deeply significant railway anniversaries of 2025, we want the whole of the UK – and the world – to turn their attention towards the North-East, where not only Locomotion No 1, but also the world’s railway history was forged.
"To do that, we will all need to work together: Locomotion, Head of Steam, and the many other towns, organisations, and enthusiasts of all ages along the 26 miles of the Stockton & Darlington Railway."
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