THE INDUSTRIAL RAILWAY RECORD

No. 9 - p206-207

© MARCH 1966

PICTURE PARADE

FRANK JONES

 

    The Victorian industrial empire of the Weardale Steel, Coal & Coke Co. Ltd. stretched from Westgate Quarry in Weardale, through Tow Law Ironworks, Tudhoe Ironworks arid Cokeworks to Thornley Colliery in the east. A surprising amount remains. There are the roadbeds across the Durham moors (where a Hackworth locomotive, fired at the front, is said to have worked years ago), the large shed in Rookhope, and the slag banks at Tow Law and Tudhoe. The locomotive stock was a most interesting collection and tended to acquire a house look.

    My three pictures show (below - top) 18 (R. & W. Hawthorn 1622 of 1874) at Thornley Colliery in 1949, (middle) 4 (built by James Joicey & Co. Ltd., Newcastle, in 1869) at Brancepeth Colliery in 1953, and (bottom) 19 (Black Hawthorn 704 of 1882) at Easington Colliery in 1952.

    The Club records the sale of 19 to the Easington Coal Co. Ltd. about 1943, but I have always understood it to have been at Westgate Quarry until after the 1939-1945 War and that it was sold to the National Coal Board after the incline at Westgate was lifted, Readers may care to comment.