PARTS of the old Stockton & Darlington Railway line are being sold on eBay for £50 a sleeper.

Rail history enthusiasts, who are preparing for the line's 200th anniversary in 2025, raised concerns this week after the old stone sleepers, part of the original track bed of the line, were listed on eBay.

The sleepers come from land at Witton Park, County Durham, the oldest part of the line, where coal was mined and sent the five miles to Shildon via winches, operated by stationary steam engines at Etherley and Brusselton.

Locomotion Number One then hauled the carriages to the port at Stockton.

One rail expert, who did not want to be named, said: "Surely when someone who lives on the route of the Stockton to Darlington Railway is developing the land where the track bed used to be, anything dug up should be treated as an historic artefact before being dug up and sold on eBay?

"In only eight years' time these hand cut stone sleepers would have been there for 200 years.

"Obviously it is on private land, but I wonder if they were all uncovered and photographed together before being dug up."

The 220 square stone sleepers are being sold by Jackson James, who has recently been passed the land by his father, and said: "They weren't dug out of the ground. They were from a retaining wall which we have taken down.

"There are sleepers from old the Stockton to Darlington railway that have been used everywhere, all over, they're even in some of the sea defences on the coast at Saltburn. They've been dug up and used for years.

"I didn't dig them up though, they had already been used."

Mr James' advert reads: "You will not get very many chances to buy anything like this. They don't come up for sale that often.

"They are just over two feet square and one foot thick. I have some of the iron pins.

"These are from the first five miles that went through my garden and across my back field, which is shown on old maps. These are the real ones, nearly 200 years old, and hand carved."

He said he had 220 of the sleepers left.

The Darlington & Stockton Times understands that the sleepers from the oldest part of the line had only two holes, so the sleepers for sale are not the oldest ones as they have four holes in them.