Bowes Incline is a unique Victorian rope-drawn railway
designed in 1826 by George Stephenson. A short 3-mile section, which includes
the track, wagons and winding gear has been preserved at Springwell, nr
Gateshead and is maintained by a small staff of volunteers. We went there on
Saturday; it is so interesting and you walk where George must have walked and
see what George must have seen.
It was designed and built to take coal from the North Durham
coalfields to the staiths at Jarrow on the River Tyne. Previously, the coal was
transported using rope-drawn wagons driven by a stationary, steam-powered
engine further up the line but Stephenson’s system used the Bowes incline that
rose across the summit of the hill at Springwell to lower full trucks down
toward the river and as the full trucks were dropping the empty trucks were
rising. Then getting filled; emptied; filled; emptied.
It’s a scheduled ancient monument and is the world’s only
preserved standard-gauge rope hauled railway.
I had to tear myself away.
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