Hetton Colliery locomotives
The Hetton Colliery locomotives were a fleet of early steam engines built and operated on the Hetton Colliery Railway in County Durham from the line's opening in 1822, constituting one of the most significant early collections of steam railway locomotives in the world. The Hetton Colliery Railway — a colliery line running approximately eight miles from the Hetton-le-Hole coal mines to staiths on the River Wear at Sunderland for loading onto ships — was designed by George Stephenson and opened on 18 November 1822 as one of the first railways to use steam locomotive haulage on all possible sections, with only the steepest gradients worked by self-acting inclines.
Stephenson designed five original locomotives for the Hetton Colliery Railway, all 0-4-0 type engines built to his specification and incorporating the lessons he had drawn from his work at Killingworth Colliery. These original five engines, together with the named locomotives Wilberforce and Diligence that also worked the line, constituted one of the most technically advanced early locomotive fleets in existence in 1822, several years before the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened with Locomotion No. 1 in 1825 and nearly a decade before the Liverpool and Manchester Railway proved the steam locomotive's dominance at Rainhill in 1829.
The Hetton Colliery Railway continued in operation for 150 years until 1959, and remarkably, one of the original Stephenson locomotives (in heavily rebuilt form) was still working on the line in the early twentieth century. For the 200th anniversary of the line's opening in 2022, a replica of one of the original Hetton Colliery locomotives was built and used in the anniversary celebrations. None of the original locomotives survived into preservation in original form.
Design and development
The Hetton Colliery Railway, an 8-mile line built between 1820 and 1822 to carry coal from the Hetton pits to staiths on the River Wear at Sunderland, was George Stephenson's first major commission as an independent locomotive engineer. The railway was engineered as a sequence of self-acting rope-worked inclines linked by stretches of level track on which steam locomotives could work. It was the first railway anywhere designed from the outset to operate without horse power.
For the locomotive-worked sections, Stephenson designed a small fleet of broadly similar 0-4-0 engines, built at his Forth Street works in Newcastle and at the colliery's own workshops. The Hetton design was essentially a refinement of the Killingworth pattern Stephenson had been developing since 1814 — twin vertical cylinders set into the boiler top, simple coupling rods (rather than gears) connecting the two axles, and a long horizontal boiler with a tall chimney.
Service and withdrawals
The Hetton locomotives entered service in 1822 when the railway opened. They worked the locomotive sections of the line continuously thereafter; the rope-worked inclines were operated by stationary winding engines. Several of the original 1822 engines remained in service for many decades, with rebuilds and replacements over the years; one Hetton engine survived in service until the 1880s — over 60 years' working life — and was preserved for display at Newcastle Central Station's centenary celebrations in 1881–82, before being scrapped in the 20th century.
The Hetton engines were the direct ancestors of Locomotion No. 1 and the other Stockton & Darlington locomotives of 1825.
Identification features
Long horizontal boiler with twin vertical cylinders set into the top, driving the wheels through cross-beams and side rods. Simple four-coupled (0-4-0) chassis with no leading or trailing wheels. A tall vertical chimney at the front.
Notable locomotives
- Hetton Dart (1820)
- Hetton Hetton (1820)
- Hetton Star (1820)
- Hetton Tallyho (1820)
- Wilberforce (1822)
