Dawdon Colliery, Co. Durham · AditNow Community

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Peter Burgess
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

16 years ago

Short but excellent old film clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR2p7eTzA10&

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ICLOK
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

I have a feeling the first loco maybe has survived.... another top clip.... the wagons are great too, this design did not change in half a century maybe more...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

ragl
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

What a wonderful piece of film!! Actually taken at Seaham Harbour which is not that far away from Dawdon Colliery.

The conventional loco was built by Lewin in 1863 and is now at Beamish Museum I believe. It survived after the demise of the steam loco fleet at Seaham as it was small enough to get through the tunnels at the harbour for maintenance of the harbour walls. The vertical boiler loco is a Head Wrightson and may be the one that is also preserved in the North East.

The Chauldron wagons were very typical of the North East coal railways and coliieries and some survived in use into the 1960's, well over 150 years since the design was first built, what a survival!
Great to have the chance to see stuff like this film.

A link to a good article about Seaham Harbour:

http://www.east-durham.co.uk/seaham/seaham_harbour_railways.htm

Alan

rodel
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

Excellent piece of film - thank you Peter ! I can remember both of these locos in their working days when I was a kid and ICLOK is quite correct about them being preserved as both of them along with many of the chauldron wagons are at Beamish. When the Lewin was eventually taken out of service about 1970 it was apparently the oldest working engine in the country but went through a few rebuilds on the way. It has been rebuilt in its original cabless form much to the disappointment of many people at Seaham who think it should have been done as it is best remembered. The Head Wrightson "Coffeepot" as it was known has also been fully restored to working condition and was seen chuffing around the Rowley station area of the museum last summer.