This illustrated and carefully researched book takes you back to the golden age of railways in Durham & Teesside - to a time of thriving rural railways, bustling stations and steam trains pulling liveried coaches across the countryside.

Author Robin Jones uses extensive archive photography and maps to bring the story to life.

Durham could be called the birthplace of the steam railway age. George Stephenson's Stockton and Darlington Railway pioneered the steam engine and from this beginning railway networks were set up all over the world.

The region's large coal industry was the key to local development. Private systems sprung up across the area linking mines with main line trains and colliery ships on the Tees and the Tyne.

Passenger services were almost an afterthought in the rush to exploit the demand for coal to power the emerging industries.

Today, motor transport has superseded goods trains and many of the old railway track beds have been converted to long-distance footpaths and cycleways.

In this carefully researched book, Robin Jones brings to life the region's railways, telling their story with photographs, maps, memories and anecdotes, from their beginning in the early 1800s to the present day.

CONTENTS
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Durham & the World's First All-steam Railway
2. The Stockton & Darlington Railway
3. Stainmore: the Lost Trans-Pennine Route
4. The Weardale Railway, Crook & Tow Law
5. Leamside: The Lost Main Line
6. Sunderland to Durham & Bishop Auckland
The Durham & Sunderland Railway
The Deerness Valley branch
7. Steel from Consett
The Stanhope & Tyne Railway
The Lanchester line
The Derwent Valley line
The great ore line to Tyne Dock
8. The Clarence Railway & Its Forgotten Electrics
9. Stockton to Sunderland & the Castle Eden Line
10. The Great Private Freight Systems
Lambton, Hetton & Joicey
Bowes
Tanfield
Brandling Junction
South Hetton
Londonderry
11. Dunston Staithes
12. Lost & Found: Museum Life
Beamish Museum and its J21 Monkwearmouth Station Museum
Index