THE BLYTH & TYNE
A few months before the completion of the Newcastle and North Shields Railway, the Engineer Robert Nicholson made a survey for a private mineral line from Seghill to Howdon.
The owners of Seghill Colliery had, from 1826, communicated with the Tyne by means of the Cramlington waggonway, but they found so much difficulty and inconvenience attending the conveyance of their coals on that line, so many stoppages occurred, and such obstacles were thrown in their way that they decided to construct a line of their own. *
Having entered into agreements for way-leave, by which it was stipulated that they should pay a tenable rent to the landowners, equivalent to a toll on every chaldron of coals passing along the railway, and damaged ground rents to the tenants, they advertised for tenders for the cuttings and embankments in April 1839, and, in June, the works were reported to be "in active progress".
The Seghill Railway -the first section of the Blyth and Tyne railway was opened for mineral traffic on the 1st June 1840.
Proceeding in a south-westerly direction for half a mile, past the site of the Seghill Station. it crossed obliquely the old line of the Cramlington Coal Company by a low timber bridge of two laminated circles each of 81ft.6" span.$ and ran side by side with the earlier line as far as Morton Row. At this point it diverged from the Cramlington and approached the Backworth Railway, which had suddenly curved round, to the east, and the two lines went down the hillside together.
Proceeding in a south-westerly direction for half a mile, past the site of the Seghill Station. it crossed obliquely the old line of the Cramlington Coal Company by a low timber bridge of two laminated circles each of 81ft.6" span.$ and ran side by side with the earlier line as far as Morton Row. At this point it diverged from the Cramlington and approached the Backworth Railway which had suddenly curved round to the east, and the two lines went down the hillside together.
Near the Newcastle and North Shields road the Seghill railway branched off
to the south-west and, crossing the Brunton and Shields Railway, followed for
a quarter of a mile the course of the old line which the Cramlington Company
had abandoned in 1839. Rejoining the Cramlington Railway near Low Flatworth,
it went down with it to the Staithes at Har Hole (Northumberland Dock). From
Seghill to Prospect Hill there were using gradients of 1 in 228, 1 in 127, 1
in 69, and 1 in 61.5, and from Prospect Hill to the Tyne a series of falling
gradients, the steepest being 1 in 63, 1 in 69, 1 in 55, 1 in 70, 1
in 25, and 1 in 31 (plan 1851 in office of Clerk of Peace at Newcastle). The
line was principally worked by stationary engines, one at Prospect Hill, near
the allotment, hauling up the loaded wagons from Holywell and the empty wagons
from the Newcastle and North Shields road, the other at Percy Main, close to
the south side of this road, hauling the empty wagons from the staiths.
$ See – Brees 'Railway Practice, 2nd Series 1840 plates 59 &
60
* R. Nicholson -Inquiry before Captain Washington 1st August 1848
$ Gateshead Observer 23rd April, 1837
From Prospect Hill to Percy Main and from Percy Main to the Staiths the loaded
wa9ons ran by 9ravity, unwinding from the down of each en9ine a tail rope which
was to bring back the empty ones, and the latter, when running by 9ravity to
Holywell, drew out a rope for the use of the loaded wa9ons at the foot of the
bank. Locomotive engines, those used at first being the ‘Samson’
and the ‘John’, both of them built by Timothy Hackworth, worked
the remainder of the line, from Seghill to Holywell, was worked by locomotive
engines, those used at first being the “Salmon” and the “John”,
both of them built by Timothy Hackworth. Another private line, a mile and a
quarter in length, a portion of which afterwards formed, like the Seghill Railway
a section of the Blyth & Tyne Railway was also laid at the time (1839-40)
from the newly sunk colliery at Seaton Deleval to the Cramlington Railway a~
Mare Close.
The last of the independent lines, of which a brief account must be given, is the Blyth & Tyne Railway. In 1843 the only outlets for a large portion of the steam coal district of Northumberland were the small private harbors of Blyth and Seaton Service. At Blyth the depth of water was not more than 10 or 12 feet in heap tides and 12.or 14 feet in spring tides, so that only ships of small burdon could come there, and even they had to take in a portion of their cargos from keels at sea. As copper-bottomed ships would not enter the harbour the foreign trade was much restricted. The Bedlington Coal Company had just adopted a novel method of shipping their coals to the Tyne. Loaded chaldron wagons (40 in number} were conveyed by an iron twin-screw steamer called the "Bedlin9ton" -from the staiths on the north side of the River Blyth near Mount Pleasant to Shields Harbour and there discharged into Collieries by means of steam derricks with which the "Bedlington" was provided. The difficulty of competing with collieries more forwardly situated made the coal owners of the district very anxious to have access to the Tyne by railway.
Benjamin Thompson surveyed a line from Bedlington to Seghill in 1843 for Hr. William Woods of Newcastle, who proposed to construct it as a private venture (B. Thompson's Journal 30th July, 1843). Another line was the subject of a report by Robert Nicholson, to Messes. John Jobling and partners, the leases of Cowpen and Hartley collieries. Hr. Jobling's scheme was to ship the coals from the five collieries of Cowpen, Bedlington, Hetherton, Bedlington Glebe and Hartley at the Low Light, North Shields. The line proposed ran direct south from the Blyth to the Tyne, coinciding in part of its course with the Whitley waggonway.
The Newcastle and North Shields Railway Company, who worked the passenger and goods traffic on the Seghill Railway from the 25th June 1844, had in view the extension of this line to Blyth (Tyne Mercury 2nd January, 1844) until they were merged in the Newcastle and Berwick Company.
About the same time an important part of the ori9inal plan of the Newcastle
and North Shields Railway Company was revived under the title of the 'Northumberland
Dock and Percy Branch Railway' .The Chairman of the company-formed to promote
this scheme was George Hudson, who proposed to make Coble Dene the point of
consequence of all the colliery lines of the district under the control of the
Newcastle and Berwick Railway Company.
An Act authorising the construction of the dock and branch railway was obtained
on the 26th June. 1846. and a few months after. Mr. Hudson, joining forces with
Mr. Jobling, who had already registered a new company under the name of the
North Shields. Blyth and Berwick Junction Railway (Cowpen Papers Vol.3 Mining
Institute) deposited plans for the 'Cramlington and Percy Main. Killingworth
and other branches' and the 'East Coast Blyth and Seaton Sluice and other branches’
and the “East Coast Blyth and Seaton Sluice and other branches”
As, however, the bills for these branches were afterwards suspended and then
on account of difficulties with the landowners abandoned, the series of lines
between the Blyth and Tyne and the shipping places at Copwen Quay. Seaton Sluice
and Howdon remained in private hands.
Among the other railway events of 1850 must be mentioned the opening, on the 12th June, 1850, for mineral traffic, and in August for passenger traffic, of a Private line of railway from Bedlington Colliery to Newsham (2¾ miles) by Bedlington Coal Company virtually an extension of the Blyth and Tyne railway which was carried across the river Blyth by a picturesque timber viaduct 80ft high and 770 ft in length designed by Robert Nicholson (Newcastle Journal 15th 1850)
In South Northumberland the continued menace of a competitive line from the colliery of the Blyth district to North Shields, together with the refusal of the Board of Inland Revenue to concede to a private railway an exemption of duty on passengers conveyed under 1d per mile as allowed to public companies led the leases of the various lines forming the Blyth and Tyne Railway to apply for Parliamentary powers of incorporation. During the course of the year they cut through Prospect Hill, of which the promoters of the rival scheme had made so much in 1848, in order to adapt the gradients to locomotive power, they rebuilt the bridges, erected additional spaits on Cowpen Quay: and generally improved the line, brin9ing the total capital expenditure up to about £130,000.
The Blyth and Tyne Company found themselves committed to a policy of extension even before the line came into their hands, on 1st January 1853. A rival company having resuscitated the scheme of 1848 for a dock at the Low Lights North Shields now proposed to make a Railway, under Parliamentary authority, from Morpeth direct to North Shields with branches to Ashington and Seaton Sluice. In self-defence the Blyth and Tyne Company deposited plans for lines occupying part of the same ground. The Parliamentary struggle, which ensued, was a severe one. The promoters of the Tyne Docks and Morpeth and Shields Direct Railway chiefly directed their attack against the old system of wayleaves, which pressed on so heavily on the lessees of the collieries north of the Blyth. The Blyth and Tyne Company were in the position of having to unite with the landowners in fighting for a system which had already given the coals away from their to the York, Newcastle and Berwick and West Cramlington lines. Their reward was a concession by the landowners of modified terms of wayleave, which diminished the evils of the system but did not remove them.
"It was only by the landowners granting a lease for a long period as 1,000
years and by reducing the terms to the extent of about 33 per cent" wrote
Mr Robert Nicholson the company's engineer, in October 1853, "that Parliament
was indeed to perpetuate the principle and allow the owners to retain their
wayleave". (Cowden papers-vol 4 minine institute-Newcastle.)
Opposed by the Blyth and Tyne Company and the landowners on the one hand, and
by the River Tyne Commissioners, who had just let the contract for a dock of
their own at Howdon, on the other, the promoters of the Dock and Railway scheme
failed to establish their case and their Bill was thrown out by a committee
of the House of Commons. The powers applied for by the Blyth and Tyne Company
was obtained on the 4th August 1853. These enabled them to construct a branch
from Newsham to Morpeth and part of the branch to Tynemouth from New Hartley
to the Dairy House near Seaton Deleval, the intention however, of the company
bein9 to purchase certain existing private lines and continue one of them to
Morpeth. They were pledged to the landowners to complete the railway to Tynemouth
and the following year, obtained power to make this extension as well as a branch
from Bedlington to Longhirst, this effectively safeguarding the district from
invasion.
Passenger train service (1854?)
Blyth and Tyne Railway
Blyth to Percy Main-11 miles-3up 4down-3 trains for 3rd class-16mph average
speed
1st class 1-3d, 3rd class 9d Bedlington to Percy Main as above.
For many years the Blyth and Tyne Railway had been a negligible factors in
railway politics. In 1855 it was a little better than a waggonway carrying a
few passengers in low-roofed spring less carriages locally called "bumler
boxes." But under spur of competition, the Directors of the Blyth and Tyne
Company were obliged to adopt a policy of improvement and extension. They cut
down prospect till again, doubled six miles of railway, built additional shipping
staiths in the Tyne, purchased two short colliery lines which formed portions
of their main line between Seaton Delaval and Hartley and between Bedlington
and Newsham, made a branch line to Morpeth and took the preliminary step towards
extending their line to Whitley and North Shields. The inclusion of their coal-shipping
staiths in the Northumberland Dock (which was opened on 22nd October 1857),
gave additional value to their railway as an outlet for the mineral produce
of the Northumberland steam-coal district. In October 1857, the Morpeth branch
was opened for mineral traffic, and on 1st April 1858 for goods and passenger
traffic. A few months later the rest of the North British Railway plans came
to light when a scheme was launched under North British auspices for connecting
the Border Counties and the Blyth and Tyne Railways by means of a railway running
along Wansbeck Valley. No one could doubt what was the real object of the line,
which passed through at thinly -populated district without manufactures and
hit very few mineral resources. It was obviously promoted to complete a new
rate between Morpeth and Edinburgh, which would enable the North British Company
to the North Eastern company into paying them a larger proportion of the joint
revenue or offering better terms of amalgamation. The North British company
and their allies the Border countries, the Wansbeck, the Carlisle and Bay and
the port Carlisle Companies, then entered into traffic arrangements with the
Blyth and Tyne Company, who were not a little astonished at receiving so much
flattening attention.
The years 1871-2-3 may be regarded as the summit level of North Eastern Company
prosperity: the dividends 'paid for those years were the highest every earned
by the Company. At this propitious moment the opportunity presented itself of
acquiring the only remaining independent system in the district between the
Tweed and the Humber, the little Blyth and Tyne Railway, which comprised 43318
miles of line with coal shipping staiths at Blyth and Howdon. The story of the
use of the Blyth and Tyne Railway from the status of a small upwards of a million
passengers and competing successfully with the North Eastern Company for the
Tynemouth. North Shields and Morpeth traffic borders upon romance: In 1853 the
passenger traffic yielded £4.600 and the goods and mineral £13.200:
in 1873, the passenger traffic yielded £53.574 and the goods and mineral
traffic £29.234. Though heavily burdened with way leaves, the railway
had invariably paid good dividends. Another remarkable fact about the railway
was that it had not sacrificed the life of a single passenger and scarcely broken
a bone. One person, it is reported, did bring a claim for personal injury against
the Company. He was taken into court on a stretcher and got a verdict, but he
was seen walking about next day, (Newcastle Daily Journal Fe. 14th 1874). Having
paid very high dividends -12112 per cent in 1872 and 10 per cent in 1873 the
Blyth and Tyne directors stood out for a good price. Towards the end of January
1874, terms of amalgamation were settled, the North Eastern Company agreeing
to guarantee a dividend of 1 per cent on the ordinary stock (£315.000)
to pay the preferential charges and to hand over for distribution among the
ordinary shareholders the sum of £50.000 of cash, on being placed in possession
of all reserve funds and surplus property in additional to the railway and its
shipping staiths. It was proposed to convert both the ordinary and preferential
stocks of the Blyth and Tyne Company into North Eastern Preferential Stock being
4 per cent interest, holders of the ordinary and 10 per cent preferential stock
receiving £250, and holders of the 5 per cent preferential stock receiving
£125 for each £100 stores held by them.
On the 7th August, 1874 the Sct. legalising the arrangement with the Blyth and Tyne Company, and vesting their line in the North Eastern Railway system, received the Royal assent.
North Blyth Staiths opened July 13th, 1896.
Under the third heading that of improvements for the accommodation of traders
in there own districts, a typical instance may be cited in the case of Blyth.
From 1874 Blyth as a coal-shipping port had been gradually declining. Only vessels
of a small size could enter the harbour, and those often lay aground before
completing their cargos. The larger vessels were obliged to go elsewhere. It
was not until 18~ that the old Harbour Company began the work of deepening the
channel and removing the silt from the leading berths. In 1882 a Board of Commissioners
was formed with Sir Mathew White Ridley as Chairman to take over the management
of the harbour and continue the work of improvement. During this year only 93
vessels visited the port, and the shipments of coal from both north and south
Blyth were less than 157,000 tons. The staiths, at which horses were still employed
to have the wagons to and from the spouts, belonged to the early days of the
old Blyth and Tyne Company.
At an expense of £25.000 the North Eastern erected on the Law Quay a range
of staiths. 1,100 feet in length. more than double the height of the old ones
with £our spouts arranged in pairs. 87½ feet apart, and on inclined
approach to standage -lines on the top from a nest of sidings £or the
reception of the loaded and empty wagons.
The loaded wagons were pushed up the incline approached by locomotives; the
empty wagons ran back by gravitation. At these new staiths -which were brought
into use on the 28th February. 1884 two steamers. each 350 ft long, could be
loaded at one time. In 1883 shipments at South Blyth had fallen to 42,176 tons.
In 1884, after the opening of the new staiths, they rose to 252, 780 tons. By
the end of 1885, a new west pier. 2,470 feet in length, was completed by the
Commissioners. In 1686, Ashington Colliery obtained improved facilities for
shipping at Blyth by means 0£ a junction with the Blyth and Tyne line
at Hirst (Ashington) station. Previously the coals had had to go along the main
line to Morpeth and thence by way of Bedlington and Newsham to Blyth. The shipment
at South Blyth in 1886 were 429,961 tons and in 1887, notwithstanding a seventeen
weeks strike of the Northumberland miners. 466,983 tons. Owing to the demand
for additional staiths accommodation the North East Company erected, on a jetty
of greenheart piling to the eastward of the low quay, another range of staiths,
1,237 ft. in length with four spaits, opened May 1st 1888, constructing at the
same time a loop line. a mile and a half in length from Newsham to the southern
most end of the staiths, together with reception sidings at Blyth.
The new Blyth staiths and the loop line between Newsham and Blyth quay were the last of a long series of works constructed from the plans and under the direction of Mr. T.E. Harrison for the North Eastern Railway.
In one of the Bills, powers were taken to construct coal-shipping staiths at North Blyth and to double and extend the Cambois branch line in connection with the staiths. At South Blyth the Company were shipping coals at this time at the rate of two million tons a year and the question of providing still more staiths was forced upon them by the rapid growth of the trade of the port.
In 1894 powers were applied for to connect Blyth with the main line by a line,
two miles and a half in length, from Newsham to Cramlington, occupying, as far
as it went, nearly the same ground as the Blyth branch which the Newcastle and
Berwick Company were authorised to construct in 1845. The principle object of
the line was to take passengers from Blyth to Newcastle into the Central instead
of New Bridge Street Station. Although it did not touch any of the property
of Lord Hastings, he opposed the Bill on the grounds that it might be used for
drawing off traffic from the old Blyth and Tyne line, in the wayleaves of which
he had a large interest. The Bill was passed by the House of Commons, but the
Lords insisted on the insertion of Clauses in favour of the wayleaves owners
and these appearing to the Directors unduly obvious, they felt obliged to withdraw
the Blyth Branch from the Bill.
It was no doubt in a spirit of friendly co-operation with the North British
Company that the Chairman of the Blyth and Tyne Company, Mr. Joseph Laycock,
proposed an extension of their railway to Newcastle. By the opening on 31st
October 1860, of the line between the Dairy House and North Shields, a part
of which it was considered important to have a direct communication was made
accessible to North British Company as soon as the Wansbeck Valley line should
be completed.
The results of the Parliamentary campaign of 1861 in the House of Commons were not favourable to the North Eastern Company. The Bill to enable the Blyth and Tyne Company to extend their railway to Newcastle and to make a number of other lines via, from Hotspur Place (Shiremoor) to Monkseaton, from South Gosforth to Lough Bridge near Butterwell, from Holywell to Monkton, from Seghill to the Seaton Burn waggonway, from Bottel Demerue to Newbig9in, and from their line at North Shields to proposed docks as the Low Lights and to Tynemouth was passed on the 1st of May.
The early months of 1864 witnessed the extension of the Blyth and Tyne Railway from Hotspur Place near Backworth to Newcastle, in one direction, and to Monkseaton in the other. The formal opening of the Blyth and Tyne extensions took place on 22nd June 1864, the public opening on 27th of that month. The Newcastle terminus of the Blyth and Tyne Railway was Picton House, built, like the Central Station, from the design of John Dobson, but a quarter of a century earlier, on the west bank of the Pandon Dene. The Tynemouth extension of 1860 had stopped short near the Master Mariners Asylum at North Shields, but it was now being carried forwarded to a more suitable termination near the turnpike road. As the Blyth and Tyne Company charged the same fares to Tynemouth as the North Eastern Company, the new line was extremely well patronised, 17,000 passengers mostly of the third class being carried during the first week.
On the little Blyth and Tyne Railway, which was yet independently of the North Eastern Railway, third class carriages were running of a type unsurpassed, perhaps, in the Kingdom. Designed in 1854, they had given such great satisfaction that neither the directors of the line nor the public desired a change of type (Newcastle Chronicle Sept 1st, 1874).
Those delivered in 1864 were built entirely of mahogany.
To the list of lines opened in 1872 must be added the Newbiggin extension of the Blyth and Tyne Railway (3½ miles) which was opened on 1st March.
One of the most significant facts, which marked the year 1872, was the changed
attitude of the Railway Companies to third-class passengers. From a very early
period revenue statistics had pointed to the desirability of giving increased
facilities to this rapidly growing class. One of the first companies to realise
the value of numbers. At low prices in railway travelling was the Blyth and
Tyne Company, who gave notice in September 1864, that, "on and after"
1st October third class tickets would be issued for all trains. It was thought
at first that the Shareholders were making a great sacrifice. but in less than
six months the results of the experiment were admitted to be beneficial to the
Shareholders as well as to the public.
To the early years of the seventeen-century must be described the laying of
the first waggonway. For the introduction of this new method of transport the
North of England is indebted to a certain Master Beaumont. "A gentleman
of great ingenuity and rare parts", who has now been identified as Huntington
Beaumont of Bilborough, one of the lesses of the coal in Cowpen and Bebside
and a tenant of Bebside Hall. Wooden waggonway's are known to have been formed
from the pits which he worked to the river Blyth previously to 1618. and therefore.
when crossing Bedlington Viaduct from the north, we have a view of what is probably
the very birthplace of railways.
1820- George Stephenson, by the advice of Mr. Longride, joined Thomas Mason the leases as a partner in working Bedlington Glebe (Bedlington to Weild Colliery, and the Bedlington Iron Company laid the proposed waggonway for him. This waggonway, which George Stephenson probably set out himself. is now used as a footpath by the side of the Morpeth Branch (Blyth and Tyne section) of the North Eastern Railway from the neighbourhood of Choppington Station to .Bedlington Colliery from which, to the old staiths at the east side of Bedlington viaduct, it exists as a strip of waste ground fenced off from the present road to the disused Ironworks (circa 1915).
Brian Flapman