Tanfield Waggonway

Marking its 300th anniversary, this highly illustrated book explores the history of the Tanfield wagonway.

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Dating back to the 1720s and still partly in use today as a preserved railway, the Tanfield Railway has a justifiable claim to be the world’s oldest railway, running on the trackbed that three hundred years ago was travelled over by horse-drawn coal waggons on wooden rails. This book charts the history of the Tanfield Railway, from its origins as part of a network of wooden waggonways that ran from coal pits to the River Tyne, through to the introduction of locomotives which, alongside the remaining gravity-worked rope inclined planes, attracted enthusiasts in its final years of operation in the 1960s.

The book also covers the preservation of the three-mile-long section of the line from East Tanfield to Sunniside, which operates today as a steam railway.'