Dating back to the 1720s and still partly in use today as the preserved Tanfield Railway, the line has a justifiable claim to be the world’s oldest railway, running on the track bed that 300 years ago was travelled over by horse-drawn coal waggons on wooden rails. In these pages the history of the Tanfield Waggonway is told, from its origins as part of a network of wooden waggonways that ran from coal pits to the River Tyne, its rebuild with iron rails and inclined planes, introduction of locomotives in the 1880s through to its closure in the early 1960s.

Lavishly illustrated throughout with rare images covering the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Rob Langham covers the fascinating pre-preservation history of the 300-year-old Tanfield Waggonway.

'In the year when we are celebrating Railway 200, this is an excellent description of a railway that is over 100 years older than the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and deserves a place on every enthusiast’s bookshelf with a rating of 5/5.' * Rail Advent, November 2025 *

Rob Langham has been passionate about history since childhood, later turning it into his vocation. Working in museums, he has completed an MA in Britain in the First World War and spends his spare time researching a diverse range of topics such as the early railways of North East England and the First World War battlefields of Gallipoli.