Early Preservation History 1993-2008 formed the majority of passenger services on the Weardale Railway; here 141103 is pictured at Stanhope station in early 2008 The Weardale Railway preservation project was founded in 1993, with the intention that a private company should take ownership of the line and start a steam service for tourists on the scenic western section. The operating company was known as the Weardale Railways Ltd, a
company limited by guarantee. The Weardale Railway Trust (WRT) is a voluntary group whose members are supporters of the project. WRT was initially just a supporters' club but it assumed a more prominent role as Weardale Railways Ltd got into difficulties. In 2006 WRT took a 12.5% minority stake in the ownership of Weardale Railways Ltd. Large sums of public sector grant finance were obtained or conditionally pledged from various donors including the
regional development agency (
One NorthEast),
Durham County Council and the
Wear Valley District Council. The
Manpower Services Commission contributed to the wages of paid staff in what had become an area of high unemployment, and this allowed a 40-strong workforce to be recruited, a depot and base of operations to be established at
Wolsingham and the station at
Stanhope to be restored. Services started in July 2004, initially from Wolsingham to Stanhope but with the intention of extending them along the full length of the remaining line. There were even plans to rebuild the Eastgate to Wearhead section which had been lifted. The line subsequently went into administration in January 2005, just 7 months after it reopened. Eventually, a community interest company known as
Ealing Community Transport agreed to pay £100,000 for a 75% stake in Weardale Railways Ltd and provide management support to the project. Ealing Community Transport also agreed to underwrite any further operating losses incurred by Weardale Railways Ltd. This undertaking was sufficient to allow the creditors of Weardale Railways Ltd to permit the resumption of limited services on the line in August 2006.
British American Railway Services Ownership 2008-2020 In September 2008, Ealing Community Transport's 75% interest in WRC was transferred to
British American Railway Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of US private company
Iowa Pacific Holdings. Ed Ellis, the spokesman for these firms, visited the Weardale Railway in October 2008, and announced an intention to reopen the line to Bishop Auckland by the end of 2008. In October 2008, the line's paid staff and volunteers undertook the "Brush Blitz" to clear 14 years of vegetation growth from the track between Wolsingham and Bishop Auckland. After two damaged sections of track were repaired, in early 2009 a passenger-carrying
Wickham trolley (light rail vehicle) was able to negotiate the line from Wolsingham to within sight of Bishop Auckland station. Ellis also announced plans to build a rail freight terminal at Eastgate for the loading of aggregates from local quarries together with other freight, including mineral, food and agricultural commodities. On 27 March 2009 the railway's website reported that
Network Rail had undertaken to re-install missing points and crossings at Bishop Auckland to reconnect the Weardale Line with the national rail network. It was stated that this would be done before 31 July 2009. Network Rail completed the connection in early September 2009. On 29 September 2009, the development of the
Eastgate Renewable Energy Village received unanimous outline approval by the County Durham strategic planning committee, thus providing a potential boost to the line's future prospects. By 2013 this project appeared stalled. On 25 January 2010,
Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate travelled on the Weardale line checking bridges, fences and crossings along the stretch between Stanhope and Bishop Auckland. Only a few minor works were needed to get the line ready for passenger use, and these were completed in time for a to Stanhope charter train to run. In February 2010, this became the first mainline passenger service to travel the line since the 1980s. It was followed on 27 February by a railtour from Crewe to Stanhope, operated by Spitfire Railtours. Regular passenger services to Bishop Auckland started on 23 May 2010, with 5 trains a day running between Stanhope and Bishop Auckland West, ending in 2012. For the 2013 season a scheduled service was not offered, the railway instead offering themed operations, such as Dine and Ride and the Polar Express. Since 2014, the Railway Trust has operated passenger trains on selected weekdays and weekends for mostly tourist traffic using a
Class 122 "Bubble Car". Initially, this only ran between Wolsingham and Stanhope but, on 27 March 2016, this service was extended to Witton-le-Wear. In April 2018, the Weardale Railway CIC announced that works had commenced to lift a short section of track at Broken Banks (approximately west of Bishop Auckland) to enable the embankment to be repaired after subsidence had made the line unusable for passenger traffic. Once the works were completed it was intended to reinstate the tracks and extend the Stanhope to Witton-le-Wear passenger service back to Bishop Auckland West station. After receiving planning permission to load opencast coal, mined in the Crook area, alterations and arrangements were made to the Weardale Railway Depot at Wolsingham, to receive and transship the coal from road to rail. The first loaded coal train left Wolsingham on 16 June 2011 bound for steel works in Scunthorpe. Later, services were extended to include the
power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, near Nottingham. This became a five-train-a-week operation that operated until 2 October 2013, and halted as a result of the financial collapse of UK Coal, following the spoil tip landslip that destroyed the connecting railway at Hatfield Colliery in February 2013, preventing coal shipments, and the underground fire at Daw Mill Colliery the following month which plunged UK Coal into financial crisis.
Auckland Project Ownership 2020-Present In February 2020, Iowa-Pacific, the parent company of British American Railway Services, announced its intention to sell the line. It was purchased in March 2020 by the Auckland Project, a County Durham charity. After a period of closure while the company waited for a license to operate, services to Wolsingham resumed in May 2022 and services to Bishop Auckland resumed in April 2023. As of 2025, the railway operates trains using its DMU fleet on select weekends and weekdays, with some trains only going as far as Wolsingham. In addition, the railway offers driver experiences using an 0-6-0 Sentinel, and special event services throughout the year. ==Rolling Stock==