MUSEUM visitors and rail fans can now enjoy a taste of an epic journey which was to change the pre-industrial world.

More than 175 years on, it is almost impossible to imagine the excitement of a jarringly uncomfortable and, for some, dangerous 4mph train ride between two North-East towns.

The momentous first passenger rail journey between Shildon, in County Durham, and the port of Stockton-on-Tees, on September 27, 1825, may have been at walking pace, but it rapidly heralded a new age of travel and transport.

Now it has been recreated by technicians at Teesside University, who have used the latest digital technology to compress it into a 15-minute 3-D experience, soon to go on show at Hartlepool's Historic Quay.

Fittingly, the film was launched in Shildon, a birthplace of the railways and home of rail travel pioneer and social crusader Timothy Hackworth, who acted as guard on the historic trip.

Back in 1825, the land around the site where the Timothy Hackworth Museum now stands was marsh.

Locomotion No 1 passed the Masons Arms close to the museum, with top-hatted George Stephenson, and his brothers, Ralph and James, aboard.

The journey had begun at 10am, when Hackworth gave the signal. By 5.30am, thousands of people had descended on Shildon, arriving on foot, horseback or by carriage, to witness the birth of a new era.

Three hundred people had booked a ride, but 650 charged at the trucks determined to be part of history, even though this was no luxury trip.

One 18-seat wooden coach was included for the honoured passengers - members of the Stockton and Darlington Railway committee - but the rest sat atop 28 chauldrons, or wagons, each loaded with 52cwt of coal.

Some clung to the sides and at least one fell off. One wagon came off the rails but it was cheerfully set aside.

More dignitaries joined at Darlington, where an estimated 6,000 people turned out to watch. Yarm Town Band climbed aboard for the final leg to Stockton, where a slap-up meal was waiting.

Timothy Hackworth Museum manager Alan Pearce was part of a team of advisors which helped put the experience together, poring over countless documents, maps, plans and drawings.

He said: "It was a great moment in history. One of the legacies left by the Stockton and Darlington Railway was that people and materials could be moved great distances.

"It led to the development of seaside towns, for example, and without it the Industrial Revolution could not have happened."

The museum will also show a version of the experience, created over nine months by the university's Virtual Reality Centre Heritage Group, backed by Sedgefield Borough Council and the Northumbria Tourist Board, and with cash from the Regional Development Fund.

It could eventually by copied to CD and made available to other centres and schools.