JUST as there is a Cummings side of a story, there is always a Hancock side of the story – two very different ways of looking at the same story.

And so it was 150 years ago this week when the Dowager Marchioness of Normanby, of Mulgrave Castle, cut the first sod of the Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Railway.

The Northern Echo, ever sober and responsible, noted: “The ceremony took place in a wooden erection, thatched with evergreens, placed over the lime kilns at Sandsend.”

It reported that the weather had been “exceedingly fine” early on, but rain began just as the ceremony started. It said that was a “liberal supply of champagne and sandwiches” for the dignitaries but that they prayed heartily for the success of the railway and finished the proceedings by singing the 100th Psalm.

The Darlington & Stockton Times, the Echo’s weekly and sometimes more colourful sister paper, had a completely different take on the proceedings.

“The day being beautifully warm and sunny, with a delicious breeze playing over the waves of the slightly ruffled sea, a large number of gaily dressed people were tempted out for a holiday, and dispersed themselves about the sands, the cliff sides and the hill overlooking the scene of the operations in groups of the most picturesque and attractive character,” it said.

“The line undoubtedly completes a much desired link in the coast communication of the district, and as it also afford exquisite prospects of lappering waves and rugged headlands, of verdant pastures and well wooded dells, and is also rich in floral and other treasures, it cannot fail to prove an attractive route to tourists and excursionists from all parts,” hymned the D&S.

For her sod cutting, her ladyship was presented with a “beautiful boxwood barrow” and a solid silver spade.

“With these delicate implements she gracefully removed a square piece of turf on which had been scattered daisies and forget-me-nots, and wheeled it to the first tip heap amid the plaudits of the delighted assembly and the roaring of cannon from the heights above.”

Perhaps the Echo’s more sober approach was the most appropriate. The 16-mile line hugged the clifftop, with a couple of tunnels and several spindly but spectacular viaducts to overcome the biggest obstacles. Construction wasn’t completed until 17 years after the Marchioness – whose husband had been briefly Home Secretary in the 1830s – had wielded her solid silver spade.

The line finally opened in 1886, but it’s working life was fairly brief, as it closed in 1958.