This month on Tales from the Rails, we are talking about education.

Who had an education or skills in the early days of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, who didn’t, and how did senior S&DR staff decide to improve educational standards amongst its workers? And did the workers appreciate this? Did engine drivers prefer to fry their pocket watches in the pub?

We are joined this month by Dave Reynolds of Shildon Railway Institute, which just happens to be the earliest railway institute in the world.

Dave has written a book on the history of ‘The Stute’ called An Insatiable First: 190 Years of Shildon's Pioneering Railway Institute (you can buy it on Amazon at the link below).

We are also joined by Timothy Hackworth’s Great Great Granddaughter, Jane Hackworth-Young. Timothy had a lot to do with improving the literacy of the workforce – while he wasn’t improving the reliability and efficiency of the locomotives. Listen in and find out more. Other links in this month's episode include:

Books Our very own illustrated limited edition hardback coffee table book, The Stockton & Darlington Railway 1825-2025 Dave Reynolds' An Insatiable First: 190 Years of Shildon's Pioneering Railway Institute Robert Young's authoritative Timothy Hackworth and the Locomotive Mike Norman's It Wasn't Rocket Science

Competitions Research on the Rails Write on Track Railway 200 Poetry and Prose Project

Happy 199th anniversary to the Stockton & Darlington Railway!

In this month’s Tales from the Rails we are in party mood! From the laying of the first rail through to the days of British Rail, significant events and dates for the Stockton & Darlington Railway have been celebrated locally and nationally with visitors joining in the fun from abroad. We look at how and why they partied and speculate about the celebratory events in 2025.

In keeping with the party spirit, this is also a musical edition with examples of music played in 1825 thanks to Queen Victoria’s Consort and we are privileged to include the newly released Pioneers from the album Passengers & Pioneers by Sam Slatcher, due out in 2025 and the evocative Take Me Home, a sonically written poem by Lizzie Lovejoy.

Our Star of the S&DR is chief party organiser for the S&DR, Thomas Meynell. Chris Lloyd of the Northern Echo joins us to recount the time when he was lost for words. Meynell, that is. Not Chris. Chris is never lost for words.

Enjoy!

We know that before, during and after the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, engineers and railway promoters came to visit to see how a modern railway was run.

By modern railway we mean a railway that was a publicly available, permanent transport infrastructure that carried anything, including passengers) for a fee.

There was a period of time from 1825-1830 that the S&DR was really the only place that could be done. So this month we consider to what extent the Stockton & Darlington Railway influenced the development of railroads in America.

Joining us to help us navigate American railroads is Jonathan Ratcliffe, the secretary for the Friends of the S&DR.

In Stars of the S&DR we will visit Edward and Rachel Pease on Northgate in Darlington. Without them there would have been no S&DR.

And as usual, we outline news and events towards the end of the podcast.