Exclusive Interview with Charles Milner: Chairman Middleton Railway Trust Conducted by Karen Beishuizen Photos courtesy of Charles Milner Established in 1758, the Middleton Railway holds the distinction of being the world's oldest continuously working railway. It was originally built to transport coal from the Middleton Colliery to the thriving markets of Leeds. Historic diesel locomotives built between 1932 and 1968 are used on Saturday and Wednesday trains and historic steam locomotives built between 1890 and 1955 on Sundays, Bank Holiday Mondays and on the Santa Specials. Moor Road Station has just the one platform. When trains are running 8 trains/day depart from the station to travel to Park Halt and there are the same number of trains arriving from Park Halt. Visitors can buy an all-day rover ticket which allows them to ride on as many trains as they wish. Middleton Railway is one of the most important places in the development of railways and railway locomotives and remarkably has operated every year since opening in 1758. Travelling on the Middleton Railway provides a direct link to the very earliest days of railways and steam locomotives. It should be place of pilgrimage for all bona fide railway enthusiasts. What the ride may lack in scenic splendor it more than makes up for with its history and whilst its locomotives may be small and lack the glamour of more famous mainline locomotives such as 'Flying Scotsman and 'Mallard' these little engines were the back bone of the manufacturing and extractive industries of three British Isles for more than a century and played a vital, if often unseen, role in the country's history. They alone are deserving of the visitor's attention. Go visit Middleton Railway and take a train ride! KB: Describe to the RSR readers how Middleton Railway was founded and by who? Coal has been mined one the Middleton Plateau to the South of Leeds since the medieval period. Originally coal was transported to the City of Leeds by packhorse and later by horse and cart along what were narrow and poorly maintained roads. By the 1750s the coal mines on the plateau were facing completion from coal mines located much closer to the River Aire whose owners could use water transport for the bulk of the journey from mine to the City of Leeds. The Brandling Family, who controlled the bulk of the mines on the plateau via the Middleton Estates, were familiar with the use of horse worked wagonways to transport coal from mines in Northumberland to the City of Newcastle and to the River Tyne. To cut their transport costs they decided to build a wagon way to connect their collieries to the City of Leeds which was their main market. The Middleton Estates applied for an Act of Parliament to give them the right to compulsory purchase the land needed to construct their wagonway from the Middleton Plateau into Leeds rather than follow the usual practice of negotiating with each of the landowners on the route into Leeds to secure a wayleave to build across their land which would have provided no long term security. The Act permitting the construction of what was called the Middleton Railway was passed in 1758 and the Railway was built in that year. Remarkably the Middleton Railway has operated every year since then making it the oldest continuously operated railway in the world and just as remarkably the Railway continues to operate under the applicable terms of the 1758 Act. The Middleton Railway was the first railway to be authorized by statute in the United Kingdom and possibly in the world. The 1758 Act provided the template for the subsequent Acts of Parliament which permitted the very rapid development of Railways in the United Kingdom in the 50 years after the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 and was a crucial step in the development of a national transportation system. By 1810 the collieries on the Middleton Plateau were struggling once again because of the impact of the Napoleonic Wars. These created a huge demand for horses and for horse feed to meet the logistical demands of the British Armies fighting against Napoleon and so pushed up costs of operating a horse worked wagonway to a level which once again made the collieries on the Middleton Plateau uncompetitive with those much closer to the River Aire. John Blenkinsop who was the overseer (or Manager) of the mines operated by the Middleton Estates on the Plateau was one of the most accomplished and far-sighted colliery engineers of his day. He was aware of the work done by Richard Trevithick to develop a steam locomotive to work on the on the Pen y Darren Tramway in South Wales and knew that the project had failed because the locomotive was too heavy for the crude cast iron rails of the day though it had proved capable of hauling a 50-ton load. He was also aware of the design limitations of the pioneer locomotive which was essentially a single cylinder stationary engine with a large flywheel to keep it turning mounted on rails. Blenkinsop overcame the first of these problems by the ingenious technical fix of decoupling the weight of the locomotive from its ability to pull a worthwhile load by casting a toothed rack into the side of the rails and causing this to engage with a cog wheel driven by the steam engine built into the locomotive – as the cog turned in the toothed rack the engine pulled itself along. By this invention he enabled a very light steam locomotive to haul loads of 90 tons or more – far more than if it has just relied on its adhesive weight. Blenkinsop's technical fix was essentially what became the rack railway of today. His next action was to find a builder for a steam locomotive incorporating his cog and rack concept. In this he was fortunate that Matthew Murray, probably the most gifted mechanical engineer of his generation, had his factory in Leeds – the Round Foundry. Murray had already built two-cylinder stationary engines and realized that he could apply the same idea to Blenkinsop's locomotive thus avoiding the need for a flywheel and the associated complications and ensuring that the locomotive could always restart no matter where it was stopped. The adoption of a multi cylinder design set the precedent for all future successful steam locomotives and was a critical step in the development of commercially and technically successful steam locomotives. The first locomotive to the Blenkinsop-Murray design was built in 1812 and was named 'Salamanca'. It was an immediate success. Three more locomotives to the same basic design, albeit with improvements, were built for the Middleton Railway between 1813 and 1815 and the last was not taken out of service until 1832 which illustrates the fundamental soundness of the design. Other locomotives to the Blenkinsop-Murray design were built for wagonways in South Wales and Lancashire, the first railway locomotives on continental Europe were built to this design and most importantly two locomotives of this design were supplied to the Kenton &amp; Coxlodge Railway in Northumberland where they were studied by George Stephenson. His first locomotive, 'Blucher', was built to this design and his subsequent locomotives including 'Locomotion No. 1' of the Stockton and Darlington Railway were essentially refinements of the Blenkinsop-Murray Design. Other early locomotive designers such as William Hedley of 'Puffing Billy' fame switched from a single cylinder to twin cylinder design after learning of the success of the Blenkinsop-Murray locomotives. The pioneer locomotives designed by Blenkinsop and Murray and built by Murray represented one of the most significant advances in the design of steam locomotives. The Middleton Railway was conceived as a part of the process of extracting coal from the Middleton Plateau and delivering it to the industries and homes of Leeds. Blenkinsop's vision was that there should be no human intervention in this process from the moment the coal was dug from the ground to the moment it was delivered to the customer and in this he anticipated key elements of the Toyota approach to manufacturing by over 150 years. William Strickland visited the Railway from the United States in 1825 and reported on Blenkinsop's work as did the American I innovator and inventor Zachariah Allen who wrote at length about Blenkinsop's mechanized mine transport system. After its pioneering days were over, the Middleton Railway became a 'Terminal Road' serving both the collieries on the Middleton Plateau and other industries in Leeds. George Stephenson on the other hand rapidly saw that railways could form a national transportation network and that this would only be successful if they escaped from the complexities of the cog and rack system and were operated using the adhesive weight of the locomotive alone to haul trains. Accordingly, his first patents were directed at improving the strength of. Rails to overcome the limitation of the cog and rack systems and he subsequently went on to become both one of the world's greatest civil engineers and one of the greatest advocates of rail transportation… The construction of the pioneering locomotives for the Middleton Railway led to the development of Leeds as a major locomotive building center and more locomotives were built in Leeds than in any other town in England. This industry had a history of innovation and by the very early 1930s was developing diesel locomotives for use on main line as well as industrial railway systems. Leeds locomotive building companies became known throughout the world for the quality of their products as well as their innovative skills. Originally the Middleton Railway was built to four-foot gauge but in order to facilitate connection to the national railway network the gauge of the Railway was converted to standard gauge – 4ft 8½ inches – in 1881 and a connection was built to the national railway network at Balm Road. Later on, a connection was made to the Great Northern Railway's Beeston Branch which crossed the Railway about 1/2 mile north of Broom Pit – the last sunk of the collieries on the Middleton Plateau. In its latter years the Middleton Railway carried coals from the coal mines on the Middleton Plateau to landsale yards at Kidacre Street near the River Aire in Leeds and on Town Street in the village of Middleton as well as to the national railway network and it provided the link between a number of local industries including Clayton Sons &amp; Co. Ltd., who constructed the plant and machinery to produce Town's Gas from coal, Samuel Dennison &amp; Son Ltd., iron founders, John King &amp; Co., Iron founders and lifting equipment manufacturers, the Acme Wagons Works and Messrs Robinson &amp; Birdsell, metal merchants. By the 1950s the Middleton Railway had passed into the ownership of the National Coal Board (NCB). To reduce operating costs, they took the decision to route all coal from the last mine on the Middleton Plateau, Broom Pit, to the national railway network via the connection to the Beeston Branch and close the northern part of the Railway including what had been the first connection to the national railway network at Balm Road. A group of railway enthusiasts drawn largely from the student body at Leeds University and lead by Dr. R. F. (Fred) Youell felt that this historic railway was too important to close and set about trying to save it. Their efforts were rewarded with success when the norther section reopened in June 1960 to carry passengers using a former Swansea and Mumbles Railway railcar hauled by what was the first diesel locomotive to work on the national railway network – a 1932 product of the Hunslet Engine Co. of Leeds. The Middleton Railway became once again a pioneer – the first standard gauge railway in the world to be preserved and operated by volunteers. After the initial period of passenger carrying the preserved section of the railway resumed its historic role of serving the industries of South Leeds – through this time the trains were operated by volunteers, many draw from the ranks of students at the University of Leeds. In 1968 Broom Pit finally closed and the northern and southern sections of the Railway were reunited. Passenger carrying from the Railway's depot at Moor Road, Hunslet, to a platform near the site of Broom Pit started in 1969 and today the passenger service provides the bulk of the Railway/s income. For reasons driven by changes in the attitudes of British Rail, the then operator of the national railway network, to wagon load traffic the Middleton Railway's freight service stopped in 1983. Today the Middleton Railway remains an all-volunteer operated heritage railway keeping alive the remarkable story of the Middleton Railway and its contribution to the development of railways and railway locomotives. KB: What kind of locomotives are on the trains? The Middleton Railway operates on Saturdays and Sundays from start April to end October, on Wednesdays from last week in July to end August and during school half term holidays within the running season and on Bank Holiday Mondays during the running season. The Railway also operates Santa Specials on weekends in December. Historic diesel locomotives built between 1932 and 1968 are used on Saturday and Wednesday trains and historic steam locomotives built between 1890 and 1955 on Sundays, Bank Holiday Mondays and on the Santa Specials. The locomotives are all 4- or 6-wheel locomotives built for shunting (or switching) duties and the majority were built in Leeds. The locomotives are painted in the liveries they would have carried when in commercial service and many are elaborately lined out and feature polished brass and copper work. Colors range from red through multiple shades of green to grey and black with one locomotive waiting repainting in yellow and another in light blue. KB: Where are the trains going to from your station? What are the connections? Trains travel from the station at Moor Road to Park Halt which is near the site of Broom Pit on the edge of the historic Middleton Park in South Leeds. The Park contains ancient woodlands as well as the remains of mediaeval bell pits. Near the Park visitor centre is a replica horse gin – the horse powered device used to lower miners into the bell pits and lift them plus coal back to the surface. There is no connection to the national railway system at Moor Road Station though it can be accessed by public transport from the centre of Leeds, and it is easily accessible from Junction 5 of the M621 Motorway – use post cos de LS102JQ in the sat nav – and has on site car parking KB: How many passengers a year does the station get? Including Santa Specials approx. 19,000 passengers travelled from Moor Road Station in 2019 before the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. Numbers are building back to these levels. KB: Has the station appeared in movies, series or documentaries? The Middleton Railway has featured in a number of documentaries including 'The Architecture the Railways Built' presented by Tim Dunn and was also the star of 'Fred the Fugitive Engine' – a pilot for a Channel 4 Comedy. KB: How many platforms does the station have and how many trains depart and arrive daily? Moor Road Station has just the one platform. When trains are running 8 trains/day depart from the station to travel to Park Halt and there are the same number of trains arriving from Park Halt. Visitors can buy an all-day rover ticket which allows them to ride on as many trains as they wish. KB: Describe for the RSR readers what they would see on a visit to Middleton Railway. Moor Road Station is typical of the kind of passenger station which graced many of Britain's light railways in the 1920s consisting of a paved platform, a timber built open fronted shelter and a palisade fence. Park Halt is even more austere and is typical of the platforms to be found on those industrial railways which carried workers from pit village to the colliery: it consists simply of a platform with no shelter or lights. The approach to Moor Road Station is via 'The Engine House' which is a modern purpose-built structure comprising a ticket office with traditional wainscoting, a café, shop and toilets and a display hall. Visitors walk through the display hall to access the station. The contains a display of those members of Railway's collection of historic steam and diesel locomotives which are not under repair or currently in service with information boards describing their history plus other artefacts. These include the longest surviving section of the original toothed rail which was cast locally in what became Dennison's Foundry, examples of stone sleepers dating back to the launch of steam power on the Railway plus a sectioned locomotive boiler, patterns used to make moulds for casting parts of locomotives such as wheels and cylinders, a foot powered metal working lathe of 1919 and hand powered tools for cutting rails and drilling holes in rails for bolting lengths of rail together. All the engines in display in the Museum have worked on the Railway at some time or another and the majority are like actors 'resting' between engagements. In time the majority will pass through the Railway's workshops to be returned to service whilst the locomotives now working will be allowed to 'rest' for a while. In total about 14 locomotives will be on display with 3 under overhaul and 7 or 8 available for service of which 4 are usually steam locomotives. KB: Why should people travel with Middleton Railway and visit the station? Middleton Railway is one of the most important places in the development of railways and railway locomotives and remarkably has operated every year since opening in 1758. Travelling on the Middleton Railway provides a direct link to the very earliest days of railways and steam locomotives. It should be place of pilgrimage for all bona fide railway enthusiasts. To this day it is a proud independent railway designing and constructing its own coaches, maintaining its locomotives and stock in house and doing all of this with volunteer labour. What the ride may lack in scenic splendor it more than makes up for with its history and whilst its locomotives may be small and lack the glamour of more famous mainline locomotives such as 'Flying Scotsman and 'Mallard' these little engines were the back bone of the manufacturing and extractive industries of three British Isles for more than a century and played a vital, if often unseen, role in the country's history. They alone are deserving of the visitor's attention. Check out Middleton Railway's website: HERE Click Here to Order Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime By "Bad" Brad Berkwitt Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form. Name * First Last Email * Comment or Message * Submit