Where is Hetton colliery railway?

Hetton colliery railway is in North East England, in the United Kingdom — coordinates 54.8163°, -1.4431°.

Mines & mining heritage · North East England

Hetton colliery railway

Hetton colliery railway in England North East, United Kingdom.

Terraced houses Lyons Lane Hetton le Hole - geograph.org.uk - 259797 — P Glenwright — CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons licence

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Typical visit: 1 h–2 h

Hetton colliery railway is a place of interest in England North East, United Kingdom — drawn from open-data sources for visitor reference. See the linked Wikipedia article for the full description.

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From the Wikipedia article

The Hetton colliery railway was an 8-mile (13 km) long private railway opened in 1822 by the Hetton Coal Company at Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham, England. The Hetton was the first railway to be designed from the start to be operated without animal power, as well as being the first entirely new line to be developed by the pioneering railway engineer George Stephenson. As originally built, the Hetton colliery railway ran between Hetton Colliery, which was roughly two miles (3.2 km) south of Houghton-le-Spring, and a staithe (wharf) on the River Wear, from where the coal was conveyed further by boat. By its closure in 1959, it was recognised as being the oldest mineral railway in Great Britain.

Excerpt from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the source article linked in Sources below.

Background

History

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hetton was a very small village, located about 3.2 km south of Houghton-le-Spring. Based on the results of a favourable survey report in April 1816, the Hetton Coal Company was established as a partnership three years later, becoming County Durham’s first major company; on 13 May 1821, the company signed a mining lease with Lyon. The company’s management, which consisted largely of experienced colliers and local investors, quickly recognised that any large-scale extraction effort would necessitate a means of transporting this coal towards customers, which could be found in the vicinity of the city of Sunderland. Following a review of various options, it…

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