The President's award is made at the discretion of the National Transport Trust President Judy, Lady McAlpine. This year the President's Award is made to The Tanfield Railway.
In the 200th year of railways, one railway is celebrating 300 years of existence. The Tanfield Railway in Gateshead was, for most of its life, hauling coal from the pits around the Tanfield area to the River Tyne. It started around 1725 as a gravity waggonway with horses hauling the empty cauldron waggons back to the pits. Rope haulage followed on some sections and later conversion to a conventional railway, steam hauled with rope hauled inclined planes. It formed part of an extensive network of colliery railways and pre-dates the Stockton & Darlington and the Middleton Railway in Leeds (which was the first railway created by an Act of Parliament in 1758).
In its later years it carried some passenger traffic as well, but was closed in 1964. Marley Hill engine shed was open until 1970 and was then taken over by volunteers who prepared a number of steam locos. Limited running started in 1973 leading up to the full opening of the line through to East Tanfield in 1992. To celebrate their tricentenary the energetic people at the Tanfield Railway built a replica wooden cauldron wagon, and invited the oldest working steam locomotive in the UK to join the resident 5 steam locomotives on the day. What’s more, they managed to get a 30 minute film about their railway shown on BBC2 – now available on the BBC iPlayer.
