Killingworth Colliery (Killingworth Waggonway)

About

Killingworth Colliery, north of Newcastle upon Tyne, was a coal mine and waggonway where George Stephenson worked as engine-wright from 1812 to 1823. It was at Killingworth that Stephenson built his first locomotive Blücher in 1814 (named for the Prussian general after his Waterloo victory), and developed a sequence of further engines including Killingworth Billy, the surviving example of his early Killingworth practice.

The colliery's waggonway, originally a wooden plateway, became one of the principal practical schools of early steam locomotion. Stephenson's Killingworth experience, and his 1815 patent (with Ralph Dodds) for an improved steam locomotive with direct cylinder-to-wheel drive, formed the technical basis of his subsequent work on the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester railways.

Killingworth Billy is preserved at the Stephenson Railway Museum, North Tyneside, and was confirmed in 2017 to be a Stephenson-built engine of about 1816, making it the third-oldest surviving locomotive in the world after Puffing Billy and Wylam Dilly.

Locomotives owned

Blücher — George Stephenson's 1814 locomotive, the first engine he designed and built, working at Killingworth Colliery on Tyneside. Blücher was the engine that established Stephenson's reputation as a locomotive engineer and launched the career that would lead to the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825 and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830. Named after the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher (allied with Wellington against Napoleon), the engine demonstrated successfully that flange-wheel adhesion could be used on properly-laid edge rails. Blücher worked at Killingworth from 1814; no original survives.
Killingworth Billy — George Stephenson's 1816 locomotive, the second engine he built at Killingworth Colliery on Tyneside, following Blücher of 1814. The engine worked at Killingworth Colliery for approximately 65 years before being retired in the late 1880s, and is one of the oldest surviving Stephenson-built locomotives. Currently preserved at the Stephenson Railway Museum, North Shields, the engine is a key historical artefact representing Stephenson's transitional engineering between his first Killingworth engines and the Stockton & Darlington Railway designs.

Founded	1 January 1764
Country	England
Headquarters	Killingworth, Northumberland