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I’ll now share your press note with them.

Sent from my iPhone

On 22 Jan 2020, at 18:33, S40 @sciencemuseum.ac.uk> wrote:

Hi both,

I mentioned we were planning some comms around our plans for Locomotion and in particular our intention to bring Locomotion no1 back to Shildon (from Head of Steam in Darlington)

This press notice went out today. And we are expecting some regional coverage over the next few days. Will let you know if the story gets any wider traction. Copying our comms team into this.

And Monday’s visit seemed to go very well!

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£4.5m Development for Locomotion in Shildon

Press release

Date:

Ambitious plans for the future of Locomotion in Shildon have been announced, celebrating Shildon’s railway heritage ahead of the Stockton and Darlington Railway’s bicentenary in 2025.

A £4.5m plan will see the construction of a new, 4,000m2 ‘Building Two’, close to the existing visitor centre which will almost double the amount of covered space available to the public. The building will house up to 40 vehicles from the national collection, bringing the total number of rail vehicles at Locomotion to more than 100.

Construction work is set to commence in October 2021 and the building is due to open to the public in September 2022.

To further recognise Shildon’s role as the birthplace of the modern passenger railway, historic steam engine Locomotion No.1 – the first to haul a scheduled passenger train – will also go on display at the redeveloped museum.

The locomotive is part of the national collection, cared for by the Science Museum Group, and is currently on loan at the Head of Steam Museum in Darlington. When the existing loan period ends in 2021, the vehicle will travel the short distance to its new home in Shildon, where it will be displayed as the focal point of Locomotion’s redevelopment.

Sarah Price, Head of Locomotion said:

“On 27 September 1825, George Stephenson’s Locomotion No. 1 set off from outside the Mason’s Arms public house in Shildon – just a short distance from where the museum is now based. This pioneering locomotive hauled the first train to Stockton, cementing Shildon’s place as the ‘Cradle of the Railways’ – the world’s first, true railway town.

“Our ambitious plans will see significant investment in the existing site’s historic buildings, the construction of Building Two to showcase our collection and the display of Locomotion No.1 – one of the world’s most significant engines.”

“We will continue to work with Head of Steam and other organisations across the region, and the country, to ensure that celebrations for the Bicentenary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 2025, bring the world’s attention to the North East’s role in the global railway revolution.”

The development will also see the repair and rejuvenation of Locomotion’s historic buildings. The museum is home to a collection of unique Grade II listed buildings including the former home of Timothy Hackworth, the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, as well as sheds and worker’s cottages.

The £1.6m repair project started on site in January 2020 and all historic buildings are due to be repaired by the end of the year.

Locomotion recently celebrated its 15th birthday with a gala event – drawing in excess of 3,500 people on a single day. Since opening, the museum has hosted many high-profile locomotives and exhibitions, including Flying Scotsman and Tim Peake’s Soyuz capsule which was seen by more than 46,000 people.

Locomotion was first opened by then Prime Minister, Tony Blair in 2004, as a partnership between Sedgefield Borough Council and the National Railway Museum, with funding from both partners and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The museum currently welcomes around 200,000 visitors each year and is England’s most northerly national museum. Locomotion has received more than 2.5m visitors since opening.

Sir Peter Hendy, Trustee, Science Museum Group, said:

“It’s remarkable how far Locomotion has come since it opened back in 2004. I’ve been impressed to see it punch well above its weight, with innovative exhibitions like Tim Peake’s Soyuz capsule and forward-thinking acquisitions, from the HST to the Pacer.

“As we head towards once-in-a-lifetime railway anniversaries, the development of the Building Two project and the homecoming of Locomotion No.1 will give the museum even more opportunities to put the heritage of Shildon and the North-East on the map, and to make 2025 a truly national celebration with a global impact.”

Locomotion remains a partnership with Durham County Council and is a part of the Science Museum Group, displaying highlights from the national collection of rail vehicles.

-Ends-

For more information, please contact S40 / S40 @railwaymuseum.org.uk or S40 @locomotion.org.uk / S40 S40

About Locomotion:

• Locomotion offers visitors the chance to see highlights of the national collection of railway vehicles in Shildon - the world’s first railway town • Locomotion forms part of the Science Museum Group, along with the Science Museum in London, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford and the National Railway Museum in York • Locomotion is a partnership between the Science Museum Group and Durham County Council, which is a major funder of the museum • Admission to Locomotion is free • For more information visit www.locomotion.org.uk

SHILDON, THE CRADLE OF THE RAILWAYS AND LOCOMOTION NO.1

On 27 September 1825 a small steam locomotive coupled up to a train at Shildon in County Durham. There were officially around 300 ticket holders but many more – possibly twice as much again – had jumped on board. As the train headed eastwards to the port of Stockton huge crowds gathered to watch its progress. This was a momentous day indeed for this was the first steam hauled passenger train on a public railway, a journey that would change the world forever.

Named Locomotion the locomotive on that historic day had been the first to be built at the celebrated Stephenson works in Newcastle upon Tyne but for its working life it was indelibly associated with Shildon – the world’s first railway town - where it will return for the first time in over 150 years as part of ambitious plans to redevelop the town’s railway museum, itself named Locomotion after the history making locomotive.

Locomotion was not the first steam locomotive, nor did it possess innovative technology. It’s significance and fame rests with its involvement on that September day in 1825, However, it also enjoyed a lengthy career on the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) where it was directly associated with Shildon for the majority of its working life. This may come as a surprise to some as the name of the railway on which the locomotive served was, of course, S&DR even though the line itself began near Shildon some distance west of both Darlington and Stockton.

Shildon played a key role in the history of the S&DR beyond that opening day, serving as the company’s locomotive headquarters for most of its existence. However, the story could have been very different. The S&DR’s commitment to steam locomotion was by no means certain with many trains in normal service being horse drawn. Steam locomotion was at that time unreliable but all that was to change when the company’s resident engineer Timothy Hackworth developed more consistent steam locomotives at his Shildon base.

Hackworth, who remained the resident engineer of the S&DR until 1840, also established his own Soho Locomotive Works at Shildon in 1833. The Shildon Soho works earned a worldwide reputation and provided some of the earliest locomotives to operate beyond the UK including in countries such as Canada and Russia. It was also at Shildon that Hackworth pioneered new innovations in locomotive repair and manufacturing setting a template of railway works that endures to this day.

Moreover, Shildon developed the culture, traditions and working practices of the ‘railwayman’. As LTC Rolt has written, ‘these first railwaymen, the pioneers…with no precedents whatever to guide them…had to learn by bitter trial and error how to run a railway. In a few years, when railways began to spread across the world, the men trained in the first hard school at Shildon went with them, proud masters of the mysteries of a new power.’

For these pioneers this could also be a dangerous profession. In 1828 Locomotion itself was badly damaged when its boiler exploded, killing its driver John Cree. Locomotion was rebuilt under Hackworth’s supervision at Shildon and its current appearance owes more to this Shildon rebuild than how the locomotive looked on the opening day of the S&DR.

Locomotion continued in the service of the S&DR until 1850 before a short spell as a stationary pumping engine on the West Collieries in the South Durham coalfield, but its fame saw it preserved for posterity and it now forms part of the National Collection – under the direction of the Science Museum Group – alongside such other famous locomotives as Rocket, City of Truro, Mallard and Flying Scotsman.

And what of Shildon? The town continued to overhaul and maintain all the locomotives of the S&DR until the new North Road Works at Darlington opened in January 1863. Locomotive construction ceased in Shildon in 1867 and four years later, in 1871, locomotive repair work also transferred to Darlington by which time the S&DR itself had passed into history having been subsumed by the North Eastern Railway.

By this time the unbroken connection of Shildon as the base of the S&DR’s locomotives stretched back directly to Locomotion almost half a century before. However, that was not an end to Shildon’s railway story. The site of the locomotive works took on a new lease of life building and repairing railway wagons. So successful did these works become that it was, for a time, the world’s largest manufacturer of wagons.

In 1875 the 50th anniversary of the opening of the S&DR was celebrated with a number of events large and small. Shildon, somewhat controversially, was largely overlooked as a focus of the celebrations. As one contemporary commentator opined: ‘It might occur to some minds that Shildon, as being the nursery-ground of the Iron Horse should have been more honoured than by the Tea and Muffin struggle…for was it not the place, - we may say the cradle, - “that bore the fates,” not of Rome but the whole world, a proud distinction for Shildon.’

On 31st August 1975 that slight was righted when a cavalcade of locomotives departed from Shildon’s wagon works to mark the approaching 150th anniversary of the S&DR. With huge crowds and high national interest the cavalcade proved to be one of the UK’s most popular spectator events that year. As the original Locomotion was too fragile to operate, a working replica was commissioned. It was this replica that was chosen to lead the cavalcade again cementing the importance of Shildon in the story of both the S&DR and of Locomotion itself.

In 1984, less than a decade after that momentous August day, the Shildon Wagon Works closed for good thus bringing to an end over 150 years of continuous rail vehicle maintenance and construction. The opening of a new railway museum, appropriately named Locomotion, in 2004 helped give back the town’s railway identity.

The return of Locomotion to Shildon is part of an exciting redevelopment of a museum that will celebrate the history of the world’s first railway town and its role in the first steam hauled passenger railway, a journey that began in the town almost two centuries ago when Locomotion coupled onto a train and steamed into history.