The Railway 200 Special

As part of the Railway 200 celebrations in 2025, we will mark this historical milestone in the railway history of this country with our special train that will travel over part of the original route from Shildon, and Stockton to Darlington.This 26-mile journey on the S&DR between Shildon and Stockton via Darlington on 27th September 1825 transformed how the world traded, travelled, and communicated.

Our special train commences at Carnforth on Morecambe Bay and we make our way eastwards diesel hauled via Hellifield to Skipton, where we will call to pick up passengers. Further pick up points will be at Keighley and Leeds before we arrive at York . Here, we will attach our steam locomotive for the onward northbound journey along the East Coast Main Line (ECML) to Darlington.

From Darlington, we will branch off the ECML and run along the historic Bishop Auckland ‘Tees Valley’ line, calling at Shildon, the world’s first railway town. Passengers will have the opportunity to visit Locomotion, the sister museum of the National Railway Museum.  It houses the largest undercover collection of historic railway vehicles in Europe, including Robert Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1 and Timothy Hackworth's Sans Pareil.

We continue along the branch line to Bishop Auckland to the present limit of the national network. Here we will take the special link line to join the 18 mile long Weardale Railway at Bishops Auckland West station for a run as far as Stanhope, where we will have a short break to service the locomotive and an opportunity to visit the station.

Our return journey along the Weardale line will be diesel hauled back to Bishops Auckland and onwards to Darlington, calling at Shildon to pick up passengers who chose to alight there earlier. At Darlington, we will reverse our direction of travel and run steam hauled once again northwards along the ECML through Durham to Newcastle. 

At Newcastle, we will turn the train via the Tyne bridges loop and head southwards once again, passing through Durham before we reach Ferryhill Junction. Here we will leave the ECML and head along the freight line towards Stockton. We will rejoin the route of the historic Stockton & Darlington line as far as Eaglescliffe, where we continue southwards via Yarm to Northallerton. It is then a swift run southwards along the ECML back to York, where our steam locomotive will leave the train.

Our return journey to Leeds and stations to Carnforth will be diesel hauled, concluding our celebratory commemoration of Railway 200.

On Board Catering