So I decided as part of the SDR200 celebrations i would have a go at cycling the route. It pretty straight forward from witton park as much of the line has been made possible by Durham Country Council and other Bodies. Clear direction up to Heighington. At this moment in time DCC are building a path from Heighington area.
SO cycled up the A167 to Hopetown and onwards along Albert Hll to Tornado way
Once over the footbridge i headed to Middleton St George and then Eaglescliffe
all of it was road after Middleton St George however the rest of the route should be completed by 2027 according to S&DR200
I do plan on breaking this down and adding more content
So, this video is a time-lapse uh video whilst cycling the Stockton to Darlington route as near as possible to the original uh route. Okay. You start off in Winton Park or rather Phoenix Row. Okay. And head towards um St. Helens. Initially climbing up the Etherly incline where coal was pulled up by static engines and the carriages on the line before you start dropping down into St. Helens. Crossing another road here and this where you’re dropping down and then you move off the line up the ramp and then heading down to St. Helens again. Look out for what used to be called the station pub. It’s brightly decorated as you can see there. Now we’re going to head past West Oakland Station or originally known as St. Helens. This is the Gless Bridge where we’re going to get a brand new bridge over here. But this is a detour around it for now. Now, this part is in West Oakland and you’re heading towards Broom Millill Farm. Got a little bit of a divert to go underneath the West Oakland bypass. You see in this part here, the trail hasn’t been completed yet, so it’s a bit rough going. Once we get the edge here, the route would have continued across the fields. But this is another divert, okay, along the bottom of the uh Brusselton Bank. And we’re going to climb up from here, okay, which is actually Deer Street, which is a Roman road. Here we are rejoining the Dockton Starington Railway. Okay, clearly this part hasn’t been done. Whether it’ll ever get done, I’m not sure. And we’re approaching some of the parts. Uh the bridge here, which is uh which has been done, and you can still see the um parts of where the rails would go. Static engine would be here, towing the coal up over, and then dropping it down this side heading into Sheldon. [Music] Here, people boarded the coaches. Okay. um on that inaugural um journey just right here. Okay. And you head down going through the grounds of uh the locomotion number one. So if you’ve never been here, please visit. It’s a really good resource around the back of the outside of it. Heading back down alongside the active railway line. And this takes you all way all the way to Newton a neckliff. From Newton Acliffe, we’re going to head towards Hington. So, there’s going to be a bit more road work here. Here we are joining the main carriageway, which actually runs alongside the railway itself just to the right. There’s the air station. Now, we’re heading away from there because the next part hasn’t been completed. So, they’re undoing a little part just up this road, but I had to turn left to join the main A167 uh towards Darlington along North Road. [Music] So this is North Road Now heading towards Hope Town, but I turned left just before I got to Hope Town, before I went underneath the railway bridge. [Music] And there’s Hopetown, a shot that I took uh earlier in the year. So now I’m heading up through Albert Hill under the main railway bridge heading towards Tornado Way. [Music] Here [Music] [Music] we’re going to climb over the uh Darlington Ring Road heading towards Middleton St. George. [Music] And here we are, St. George. And now we’re going to continue along the foot path uh as far as we can get before joining the A67 towards Eagle’s Cliff. [Music] And this is where we join the carriageway. To our right will be um T-side airport. [Music] [Music] All in all, this journey was around about 30 miles, but I may have taken some detours. I’m going to start going through some of the back streets cuz I was kind of heading towards Eagles Cliff Station. [Music] And what I actually needed to do was just head towards Yam Road. I did call into a pub called the Locomotion though. [Music] So this is Yam Road and at some point along here I join uh Preston Park here. and then back onto Yam Road. From this point on, I didn’t really have any idea on whereabouts the line went to um as it came into Stockton. So, clearly I’m heading into Stockton, but I just particularly wasn’t too sure on the route. So it just made me best guess and I just carried on going and I ended up in Stockton Town Center. [Music] and here we are. This is Stockton Town Center. And here is where I’m sure the line would have finished to offload all the goods. So I turned around, had a quick pint here, and then booked me train tickets and headed towards Thornaby Station. Had a little look around first to see where I could cycle to. I decided to cycle back and I thought I’d head over I believe it’s the Millennium Bridge. I’m not sure. [Music] Now, if you like the video, I am going to uh break this down into a few sections and add a lot more content to it. Uh, but that will come and I’m going to keep an eye on because they’re developing this path um over the next couple of years and hopefully the whole thing will be cyclable or walkable. So there we go. Hope you enjoyed it.