On the track of the electric locos

It was 18 miles long, and was operated by ten curious-looking Darlington-built electric locomotives, known in a manner that only railway folk understand as “Bo-Bos”. They lasted only 20 years because in 1935, the electrical experiment was deemed a failure and the line was converted back to steampower.

The Bo-Bos went into storage in Darlington before being taken to Doncaster to be converted so that they could run on an electrical line between Manchester and Sheffield. This didn’t work out for them, so in 1947 they were put back into storage, this time at South Gosforth.

THE INDIGNITY: Darlington-built Bo-Bo No 7 in a scrapyard in Sheffield in 1951

In 1948 when the railways were nationalised, Bo-Bos Nos 3 to 12 were renumbered as 26502 to 26502, and were dispersed around the country, and were gradually scraped.

The last one went in April 1964, and Dave Burdon of Hurworth Place has kindly sent in this brilliant picture of No 26507 – that’s originally Bo-Bo No 8 – in a scrapyard at Catcliffe, on the northern outskirts of Sheffield, in April 1951.

DAVE has other brilliant photos connected to our little line.

We’ve been particularly intrigued by the section of it to the east of Aycliffe from Demon’s Bridge.

We still don’t know what sort of demons haunted this area, but the bridge still carries the A167 dual carriageway near the Gretna Green Inn.

From Demon’s Bridge, the line ran behind the Blacksmiths Arms, an isolated pub that is still known by its old nickname “the hammer and pinchers” – the landlord here in years past must have supplemented his income by selling drink to travellers while he shoed their horses.

It then entered the hamlet of Preston-le-Skerne, an ancient place. In 1091, it was called Prestetona; in 1384, Preston super Skiryn. There are about 40 places called Preston in Britain, and they are all settlements of priests. How many priests once lived on the southern bank of the Skerne near the railway, we shall never know because their medieval settlement is long lost. All that remains are a couple of farms beside the A1(M) with lumps and bumps in the fields which suggested a buried village.

At Preston-le-Skerne, the railway had a large, brick-built power station, as Dave’s picture shows. Although the line ceased being powered by electricity in 1935, the power station remained operational into the 1960s.

AT THE HAMMERS: The Blacksmiths Arms at Preston-le-Skerne is now unrecognisable from this December 1970 photograph – in 1971, it was extended, rendered and had new windows installed. The name of the Boddy family, who ran it for several decades before the modernisation, can be seen on the wooden nameboard above the door, and is that the old smithy on the left?

Dave took his photographs on April 5, 1963, recording the line just before it closed on June 22, 1963. The track was quickly lifted and then the A1 motorway came sweeping through and carried off the power station, so now very little remains of it – except old photographs.

MEMORIES 240 told the sad story of George Forrester, who was struck by a train at Preston-le-Skerne on April 4, 1957. It is thought that railwayman George, 48, of Ferryhill, was walking to work in the signalbox near the electricity station when the tragic accident happened.

“My father, Dick Harland, who is now in his 80s, worked for the North-Eastern Electricity Board in Darlington from the 1950s until the 1970s and recalls Mr Forrester,” writes Dee Harland.

“A gang of men from NEEB would be called out any time there was a problem with the Preston-le-Skerne power station, which happened at night, more often than not.

“No matter the weather conditions, my dad remembers that George had a stove burning in his signal box and it was always cosy in there. He remembers George cooking up a meal for himself, sitting on a comfy chair in the warmth.

“He also remembers being sent to paint the Skerneside power station in a thunderstorm!

“The Blacksmiths Arms was close by and the workers would sometimes call there for a pint before heading back into Darlington. The landlord would give themen beer from the same keg, no matter how many varieties they asked for.

“He told them: ‘It’s all the bloody same beer, anyway, I’ve had enough of you now, so bugger off!’.”

MADE IN DARLINGTON: Richard Barber's paperweight is a little longer than a pair of spectacles

ALL this talk of electric locomotives has caused Richard Barber to reconsider the paperweight on his desk in Darlington.

“It is an aluminium casting which was made in the foundry at the North Road Works in the 1950s,” he says. “It depicts an outline of a British Railways class EM2 electric locomotive, seven of which were built for the Manchester to Sheffield electrified line in 1954.

“They were built in British Railways’ Gorton works in Manchester, so why the casting was made at North Road I do not know.

“It was given to me by one of the workers kept on at North Road to clear the machinery and any other reuseable items following the closure in April 1966.”

READY FOR CLOSURE: Dave Burdon's picture of a locomotive heading west past a gutted signalbox near Preston-le-Skerne in April 1963

BY COINCIDENCE, this month is the 35th anniversary of the opening of Newcastle’s Metro system.

The coincidence is that the metro was built partly on the trackbed of Britain’s first major electric railway, which ran along, and in tunnels beneath, the quayside from 1904. Indeed, Bo-Bos Nos 1 and 2 worked on this line a decade before Bo-Bos Nos 3 to 12 were built for the Shildon to Newport line, and Bo-Bo No 1 is the only of these pioneering engines to be preserved – you can find it at the Locomotion museum in Shildon.

UNDERGROUND: The official opening of the Haymarket to Tynemouth section of the Tyne and Wear Metro on August 7, 1980

The £280m Metro was constructed between 1974 and 1980, and opened to the public on August 11, 1980.

The biggest obstacle that the Metro had to face was, of course, the River Tyne, and Darlington’s Cleveland Bridge was awarded the contract to build the £4.9m bridge. It was completed on August 1, 1978, and officially opened on November 6, 1981, by the Queen – it is called the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge.

REGAL CROSSING: The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge was built by Cleveland Bridge with the two sections growing from either bank of the Tyne until they met in the middle

It was the second time that Cleveland Bridge had been asked to span the Tyne. The company’s first crossing was the King Edward VII Bridge which the king opened on July 10, 1906.

Both royal bridges are 1,150ft (350 metres) long, although at 83ft above high water, the Edward VII appears to be 1ft higher than Elizabeth II!