Notes: The temporary Newcastle terminus of the railway from Carlisle was located at was then the edge of the city’s built-up area. The first passenger trains used the station on 21 May 1839 for a special inaugural trip, and regular services commenced five months later. Sources refer to this station as ‘at Shot Tower’ and ‘Railway Street’. Simple wooden structures were provided at the station, which closed when the line was extended into the centre of Newcastle. (Collard’s map of 1841 ‘jumped the gun’ in showing the station further east at the Infirmary, a short distance south west of Central station. For some time this was the intended terminus of the line: see Fawcett [2008] p103-6).

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEWCASTLE - CARLISLE EAILWAY
The first few miles of the cross-country journey from Newcastle to Carlisle were thoroughly urban and industrial. To the left, the extensive buildings of Vickers-Armstrong’s Elswick engineering works hugged line, whilst to the right, immediately beyond the famous Scotswood Road, rows of impossibly steep streets of terraced flats plastered the slope. After Paradise Bridge, shortly before Scotswood station, the Victorian landscape gave way to a council estate, and a clear view of the river. Approaching Scotswood, the railway divided; the main pair of tracks diverged to the left through the station’s lower platforms, and crossed the Tyne on a six-span hogback girder bridge into Blaydon in County Durham. The lesser-known ‘North Wylam loop’ carried straight on through the higher-level platforms, and disappeared into a short tunnel. The Blaydon and North Wylam routes reunited before Prudhoe, and the remainder of the journey to Carlisle was through some of England’s finest rural landscapes.

The Newcastle (or, more accurately, Gateshead) to Carlisle line was the first to cross the breadth of England from the east to the west coast. Horse-drawn goods trains commenced between Blaydon and Hexham in late-1834, and passenger services on 9 March 1835. Newcastle passengers were conveyed to and from Blaydon by horse-omnibus or boat. Steam locomotives hauled passenger trains from the opening day. On 11 June 1835 a 1¼ mile extension opened eastwards to Derwenthaugh, followed by 7½ miles from Hexham to Haydon Bridge on 28 June. Carlisle to Blenkinsopp Colliery, near Haltwhistle (20 miles), opened on 19 July 1836. On 1 March 1837 trains were introduced on the 2½ miles from Derwenthaugh to Redheugh (Gateshead), passengers being ferried by steamboat across the Tyne to a ‘station’ in Newcastle at No. 66 The Close, where the later High Level Bridge crossed the river. (The Close was one of a scarce breed of rail-less stations in Britain, others being Dartmouth and Hull Corporation Pier.)

N&CR rails reached Newcastle via a three-mile route including a ‘temporary’ Tyne bridge at Scotswood (which was eventually replaced with the present structure in 1870). Formal opening to a station at Railway Street, close to the Shot Tower, took place on 21 May 1839; regular services began on 21 October. The new Forth terminus, replacing that at Railway Street, opened on 1 March 1847. From 1 January 1851 the company used Newcastle Central, shared with the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway. Although access to Carlisle Citadel had yet to be achieved, the 60½-mile route was complete.

The Newcastle & Carlisle was absorbed into the North Eastern Railway empire in July 1862. Its eccentric arrangement of right-hand running was discontinued after the re-signalling of the route for the standard left-hand operation in 1863-4.

In the 1960s the transformation of the townscape surrounding the railway between Newcastle and Blaydon began. Many of the terraces of two-storey Tyneside flats were demolished and high-rise blocks took their place, and more recently the Elswick works site has been all but cleared and redeveloped as a business park.

Sources:

• Railways in Northumberland by Alan Young (Pub: Martin Bairstow 2003) from which this article is adapted.
• Railway passenger stations in England, Scotland and Wales by M A Quick
  (Pub: R&CHS 2002)
  
• A history of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway by Bill Fawcett (Pub: NERA 2008)
• Private and untimetabled stations by Croughton, Godfrey; Kidner R W and Young, Alan  (Pub: Oakwood Press 1982)
• The High Level Bridge and Newcastle Central Station by John Addyman & Bill Fawcett (Pub: NERA 1999)

To see other stations on the Newcastle - Blaydon click on the station name: Newcastle (N & C 2nd site), Elswick, Scotswood Works Halt, Scotswood & Blaydon