At the time, Liverpool and Manchester were proper cities, and while smaller towns, the railway that opened five years before this one that connected Stockton and Darlington clearly operated a similar model of moving goods and passengers.
It’s amazing to see this. How good are the transports in these modern units? I seem to remember when cassettes died the first time, the whole ecosystem went away, from Chrome Dioxide cassettes to good quality transports, which took a long time to get right. How do these compare to a good quality unit from the 80’s and 90’s?
I grew up in South Hylton where the Cretehawser was basically dumped near Claxheugh Rock (good luck pronouncing that if you’re not a Mackem!) Proper fun 70’s and 80’s adventure to be had getting on board at low tide. Can’t imagine the authorities being happy with kids doing this today!
It had lots of stories associated with it and it was a strange thing to see just sitting there in a shipbuilding town. Happy to see it get a mention on the site [1] and there’s an article with better photos here [2].
I was working in London in 1994 and remember visiting for the cultural experience but work provided a Sparc machine and ISDN at home as I was on call and it felt like slumming it to go to a cafe with a shared internet connection and PCs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_and_Darlington_Railwa...
So I’d argue that they were moving first!