Shutt End Railway (Kingswinford)
The Shutt End Railway was a small colliery railway near Kingswinford in Staffordshire, opened on 2 June 1829 to carry coal from Lord Dudley's Shutt End collieries to a wharf on the Stourbridge Canal — and notable primarily as the working home of the locomotive Agenoria, built by Foster, Rastrick and Company of Stourbridge in 1829. Agenoria was the sister locomotive of the Stourbridge Lion — the first steam locomotive to operate commercially in North America, which Foster Rastrick built for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and shipped to Pennsylvania in the same year.
Agenoria worked on the Shutt End Railway from its 1829 opening until around 1864 — a working life of thirty-five years, extraordinary for an early steam locomotive — before being set aside and eventually preserved. She is now displayed at the National Railway Museum, York, one of the oldest surviving steam locomotives in the world and the principal surviving product of the Foster Rastrick engineering tradition that also produced the Stourbridge Lion. The Shutt End Railway itself declined with the local coal trade and closed in stages through the late nineteenth century, leaving Agenoria as its enduring legacy.
About
The Shutt End Railway was a small Worcestershire colliery railway opened on 2 June 1829, running about 2 miles from Lord Dudley's Shutt End collieries near Kingswinford to a coal wharf on the Stourbridge Canal. The line was engineered by John Urpeth Rastrick and was worked from its opening by the locomotive Agenoria, built by Foster, Rastrick and Company of Stourbridge.
Agenoria, the only sister of the Stourbridge Lion that was sent to America, worked on the Shutt End Railway from 1829 until about 1864. She is preserved at the National Railway Museum, York. The Shutt End Railway itself closed in stages through the late nineteenth century with the decline of the local coal trade.