3-082-990 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Royal Agricultural Society at Darlington: first engine used on the Darlington Railway, 1895. 'It was the brother Edward Pease who, with George Stephenson, projected the Stockton and Darlington railway - the first railway in the country that was intended for the public conveyance of passengers and goods: it was the beginning of our great railway system. This railway was opened to the public on Sept. 27, 1825. George Stephenson was himself the driver of the engine on the occasion. That engine, "Locomotion," is now carefully preserved at the Top Bank Railway Station at Darlington, where it may be seen by anyone walking to the end of the platform. The newspapers spoke with a feeling of wonder at what this engine did at the time; so great was "its velocity that in some parts the speed was frequently twelve miles an hour," and it accomplished "a distance of eight and three-quarter miles in sixty-five minutes." Visitors will no doubt smile at this old, rude machine and its wonderful doings, but they were something to be proud of when Edward Pease and George Stephenson first began railways seventy years ago, and everyone with a love of history regards the engine with interest'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.