From Tall Tales to Iron Rails - the History of the Tanfield Waggonway

Monday 22nd September 6pm

From Tall Tales to Iron Rails - the History of the Tanfield Waggonway.

A lecture with Rob Langham

Dating back to the 1720's and still partly in use as the Tanfield Railway, a three-mile long preserved railway using heritage steam and diesel locomotives, 2025 marks the tricentenary of the Tanfield Waggonway. Its long history is one that has become shrouded in myth and mystery, which this talk examines - in particular the 1727 Causey Arch, a stone bridge that carried the waggonway eighty feet over Causey Burn, with it often said the builder leaping to his death from it, and looking at the rebuilding of the branch in the early Victorian era from a horse-drawn waggonway with wooden rails to a modern railway using iron rails and hauling waggons along by rope.

A LIVE Lit & Phil Event | FREE

(If you would prefer to book directly over the phone, please call the Library Desk team on 0191 232 0192 and they will be happy to help)