THE amazing railway line that conquered Stainmore by going over some of the most extraordinary viaducts through some of the most inhospitable of terrain and the most inclement of weather is the inspiration for this week's series of railway-related articles.
Recent Memories have told of the breathtaking trestle viaducts as the coastal railway from Middlesbrough approached Whitby, and reader Yarm Dave asked for pictures of the trans-Pennine railway.
SEE MORE: THE COASTAL RAILWAY WHICH HAD A WONDERFUL WAY WITH VIADUCTS
Because, for all the seaside beauty of the viaducts at Sandsend, they are just tiny toys compared to the giants that took the railway over its highest point in England – 1,370ft over the Stainmore summit.
For example, East Row at Sandsend is the longest viaduct on the Whitby line. It was completed in 1883 and was 528ft long and 30ft high. By contrast, Belah viaduct on the east side of the summit, was described as "stupendous and hazardous" by the Darlington & Stockton Times when it opened in 1861, standing 1,040ft long and 196ft high.
"The feeling of admiration and astonishment was general," reported the D&ST as the first train went over it. "The toy-like character of the work excited wonder. The apparently slender supports, like so many spider legs, were particularly noticeable, but nothing was so remarked upon as its immense height, and the mastermind who designed it."
That mastermind was Thomas Bouch (above), who was responsible for the lines of Teesdale and Weardale before he went up to Scotland to overcome the River Tay at Dundee, where, based on his Belah designs, he built a bridge more than a mile long. When it opened on June 1, 1878, it became iconic – it represented to Victorians that there was no obstacle that nature could throw in their way that their modern engineering skills could not overcome. Queen Victoria crossed the Tay Bridge a year later and recognised Bouch’s brilliance by knighting him immediately afterwards.
It all began on the railway that left Barnard Castle, at 585ft above sea-level, for the first time on August 7, 1861. With Henry Pease of Darlington as its driving force, the line crossed the Percy Viaduct of stone, which now carries a private road over Flatts Wood, before reaching the Tees Viaduct – it was 732ft long and 132ft high.
But that was just for starters.
After Lartington station the line came upon the Deepdale Viaduct, which was 740ft long and 161ft high. A remarkable picture of Deepdale under construction survives (above), showing how the metal trestles, made at Gilkes Wilson in Middlesbrough, were assembled like a massive Meccano set. This method was considered quicker than traditional stone bridges which required several months for the mortar to fully set, but still Deepdale took 80 men 47 days to complete.
There was a brief rest at Bowes station before the climb to the summit began in earnest – when the weather allowed.
Snow was, of course, a regular adversary and just over the summit was Bleath Gill where, from 5am on February 24, 1955, a goods train bound for Darlington was stuck for five days until it was heroically rescued by charging snowploughs and a crew of 50 diggers, all captured on a famous ten-minute film – Snowdrift at Bleath Gill.
Still heading west, after the gill a train went through Barras – the highest mainline station in England when it opened and one of the most remote – before coming to the most stunning of the viaducts: Belah.
It was 104-years-old when it was demolished in 1963, and a time capsule was discovered in its central leg. It contained a poem, written in 1859, by Charles Davis who is assumed to have been one of 80 construction men fixing the viaduct together:
See! now Beelah’s beauteous sights begin!
Whose curling stream shall ever flow within,
And underneath this splendid monster Bridge,
Shall floods henceforth descend from every Ridge;
And thousands wonder at the glorious sight,
When trains will run aloft both day and night;
For ages past, no human tongue could tell
Of such a structure o’er thy monster gill.
Time will roll on, and mortals may increase
When those who see it now, we hope will rest in peace.
Once over the spindly viaduct, it was downhill all the way, although there were still three impressive stone viaducts – Aitygill, Merryhill and Podgill – to cross before Kirkby Stephen with the 35-mile journey from Barnard Castle coming to an end at Tebay, where the line joined the West Coast Main Line.
From The Northern Echo's collection of wartime pictures that had to be passed by censors, the handwriting on the rear of this says it shows "soldiers clearing the railway line on the summit between Bowes and Barras in a blizzard" on March 8, 1942
Railway historian Ken Hoole tells how at the end of the 19th Century “the line over Stainmore was a busy one, with mineral trains running night and day, raising the echoes across the moors as they blasted their way up to the summit or rumbled slowly over the viaducts.
“The first mineral train of the day left West Auckland at 12.20am, due at Summit Cabin at 2.24am, and the last left at 10.30pm and reached Summit at 12.58am.
“There were six passenger trains in each direction ‘over the top’, all of which started or terminated at Darlington.”
In the 1930s there was an additional, unpublicised, passenger train every second Friday. It carried 150 miners who had been injured at work to convalesce in the Durham Miners’ Association’s Conishead Priory, at Morecombe Bay.
The journey over the Pennines must have been unforgettable.
Darlington engine driver Joe Kidd once told Memories: "You just got used to it when you went over it regularly.
"Deepdale was the smallest of the two main viaducts. It was just round the corner from Lartington station and you were upon it and over before you knew it. You just heard the rattle of the engine wheels and you didn't think anything about it.
"But Belah Viaduct was quite different. You could see it some distance away. It looked a magnificent structure stretching across a deep gully. The first time you approached it, you wondered if it would take the strain and weight of a heavy goods train, sometimes with two locomotives."
READ MORE: DEATH BY RUNAWAY TRAIN IN THE HOPETOWN PAINTSHOP
Joe continued: "Crossing the viaducts in winter was quite an experience. Howling winds, snow showers blowing in through the engine cab sides and, on moonlit nights, looking out was just like a scene from the Alps.
"But in summer, when you were rostered to work the line, it was like a week's holiday: the beautiful countryside between Darlington and Barnard Castle, the glorious moorland views from Barnard Castle to Kirkby Stephen, and then gliding down through the Eden Valley.”
However, that alone was not enough to save the line. Even the summer Sunday morning 'rail, road and steamer' special could not save the line – for ten shillings return you take the train over Stainmore to Penrith, go by road to Pooley Bridge in the Lake District and then the steamer to Glenridding on the far side of Ullswater.
Remote stations were closed in 1952 and the last passengers rode the line on January 22, 1962.
With indecent haste the track was lifted and the viaducts were dismantled – even the famous summit sign was cut down and carted away, although enthusiasts did install a replica to mark the line’s 150th anniversary in 2011.
Now only a trackbed scar crossing the Pennines remains littered with a few bits of old parapets to show where Sir Thomas Bouch’s brilliant viaducts once stood.
He, poor chap, was used to such ignominies, because six months and a day after Queen Victoria crossed his Tay Bridge, a hurricane-strength wind tore it down and threw a train and its 75 passengers to their watery deaths.
The subsequent inquiry concluded that the bridge was “badly designed, badly built and badly maintained, and that its downfall was due to inherent defects in the structure…Sir Thomas Bouch is, in our opinion, mainly to blame”.
He was stripped of his knighthood and, a broken man, he died just ten months after the disaster. He was only 58.
Today, though, it is considered that the Middlesbrough iron founding firm of Gilkes Wilson was as much to blame as Sir Thomas, and if his viaducts still stood enabling the railway to conquer the Pennines, how much different would the region’s tourist industry be?
READ NEXT: DICING WITH DEATH ON THE LOST LINE FROM DARLINGTON TO BARNARD CASTLE
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