“THIS is really going to light up the region and inspire the next generation,” said broadcaster Steph McGovern. “It’s going to be a great nine months of much needed showing off of our region - as northerners, we often don’t talk enough about what we have achieved and how we changed the world so it is going to be really good to be able to shout about it.”

Two centuries of the Stockton & Darlington Railway is going to be celebrated by a programme of events indulging all the senses, with things to see, hear, do and even smell.

The programme was outlined yesterday at a glittering event at the Hippodrome attended by people from across the country, and MC’d by Ms McGovern.

Steph McGovern hosts the launch at the HippodromeThe highlight will be the re-enactment of the opening day, September 27, 1825, which will be held over three days, September 26 to 28, 2025, in three locations – Shildon, Darlington, Stockton – with a replica of Locomotion No 1 running on the original railway trackbed and pulling a replica of Experiment, the world’s first passenger coach. The moment the engine goes over the Skerne bridge in Darlington – the world’s oldest continuously used railway bridge – is going to be iconic.

READ MORE: THE FULL DETAILS OF THE BICENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

But as well as the big set-piece affairs, which start in Bishop Auckland on March 29, there are going to be community events, touring library exhibitions, archaeological digs and the chance for people to adopt a wooden peg doll and tell it their memories of a meaningful railway journey. These will then become an exhibition in their own right, chronicling how central the train has been to people’s lives.

The impressively-dressed stage of the Hippodrome at the launch. All pictures: Paul NorrisClutching her own wooden doll, Ms McGovern said: “The journey that stands out for me was when I first got the train with my little girl from Newcastle down to London and saw her eyes widen at how fast trains go, what you can see out of the window, what all these people are doing – it was like seeing my own first journey again, which was probably from the Boro to Redcar to go to the beach.”

One of the many curious events will be at Preston Park which will commemorate how even industrial railways have created unbroken corridors for nature. There will be a display of 10,000 seed heads collected in the museum’s grounds – 4,000 have already been safely gathered in – plus a “sensory sensation” entitled Perfume about the fragrance of flowers.

The programme of events ends with a Ghost Train performance in Darlington (September 21) and Stockton (September 28) featuring moving machinery and pyrotechnics. In Darlington, this will be a street parade from the Market Place to Hopetown.

Network Rail East MD Jake Kelly at the Hippodrome launch Perhaps the most revealing presentation yesterday came from Jake Kelly, the managing director of Network Rail East, who told how the rail industry as a whole is launching its Railway 200 celebrations to run alongside those in the Tees Valley and County Durham. A touring heritage train will criss-cross the country, train-builder Alstom in Derby will host “the largest temporary assembly of trains and rail-related exhibits in a generation” in August, and the Government is chipping in with a great rail sale of cheap tickets.

All this will kick off on January 1, 2025, with a “whistle-off” at noon of vintage locomotives across the country which will welcome in the 200th year of the railways.

For decades, there has been debate about where and when railways really began – was it Merthyr Tydfil in the 1800s or the Liverpool & Manchester in 1830 – but the rail industry has now decided that it is throwing its full steam behind the S&DR of 1825.

Niccy Hallifax, festival director, reveals the details of the 200th anniversary celebrations“This is a global celebration of the opening of the S&DR,” said festival director, Niccy Hallifax. “This region changed the world, the way we travel, trade and communicate. It revolutionised life, right down to something like the standardisation of time – I really think that there is nothing bigger until the birth of the internet.

“So this festival will celebrate the region’s pioneering past while looking forward to the future.”

READ NEXT: FULL INTERVIEW WITH FESTIVAL DIRECTOR NICCY HALLIFAX