 Hello, thank you for joining me. It's day four of the IFA weekend in the north east. Here I am with my larder, joined with a couple of Wartburgs, the Kubel Wagon Trabant, another Wartburg. Here, it's a railway line. This is a tanfield railway. I've never been to this railway before, but I've always wanted to go there. It's famous for passing the Corsi Arch, the oldest railway arch in the world, so we're definitely going to go and walk up there, have a look at that later. The train is out at the moment. It's number 49, National Cold Board Hunslet Saddle Tank, so looking forward for a trip behind her. She's going to be a winning loco for me. There's also Ford Escort, but I don't think that's with us, but it makes a nice addition to the block, a bit of Ford Classic as well. So this is East Tanfield station here. So this is where we're going to catch the train. There's the carriage head just there, so really what I've got to do now is wait for the train to arrive. I won't go through the station building because there's a bit of a queue and I'll have to put my face covering on now, but I don't need to wear the face covering on the platform. I've been told. So this is East Tanfield station, so it is the terminus of the line. The line carries on for three miles up that way to Sunnyside. We'll be going as far as Andrew's House and then the line literally ends there just by the pylon. I'll just show you along the platform a few things. So just there we have the station building and there's some coal wagons. So back in the day when this was an industrial railway, you'd have seen trains of coal wagons like this and I did get some footage of number 49 shunting these coal wagons this morning. So I'll put that probably on a separate video of just number 49 in action. So what we're going to do now I'll just show you the ends of the platform. It's a bit like it reminds me of Foxfield Railway, a bit another colliery railway. Foxfield Railway is down in Staffordshire where we have also had IFA meetings. If you have a look at link on screen now you can see a link to that video and there's the carriage head with no carriages in because they're out. Railway goes that way. I'm just going to wait for the train to arrive now and enjoy a trip on the Townfield Railway. As you can see the trains arrived just sawed a loco run around. The funny thing is there's more of that steam engine in existence probably than there is my lard because there's over 70 of those Huns itself. I think this Zafra jet has just arrived as well and another warp work. So the train is here so we just have a quick look at the train. Here it is. It's quite a nice vehicle on the end. It's a northeastern railway direct to saloon. So I won't take you inside but I'll let you have a look through the window. Looks very nice this one. So that's on the back and there's almost like a little veranda here. So then here's another one of the carriages. There's the guard's compartment. It's a bit like, carriages are a little bit like Thomas, Annie and Clarabel's. Yeah Thomas, Tank Engine pulls Annie and Clarabel. These carriages are a bit similar to that I think. And compartments, no corridors, no toilets but very nice for a little journey we've got today. Now if we come up here we saw a loco run around the train but here she is. That's your cold ward number 49 waiting to take us up to Andrew's house. Winning loco for me. Not having this loco for haulage before. New track as well so I'm really happy with that. One thing I'm just going to quickly show you about the loco is its number is 49. That's an actual cold ward number. Have a look here this is the works plate. So it's built by Robert Stevenson the Hawthorne in 1943 and that's the works number. So that's its official identity because there could be other loco's carrying the number 49. Charges either probably are. There'll only be one Robert Stevenson Hawthorne's loco with that number. So it's now time for me to board the train. Behind NCB number 49 this is the current end of the line. It does carry on further towards sunny side. The loco's flowing up impatiently and when I say the current end of the line I mean as far as passenger trains are going at the moment. So it does carry on further up towards sunny side. Also just over there is Mali Hill End instead where there's loads and loads of loco's. So what I'm going to do is we'll get back over the bridge. You get a complimentary thing on the train which I think is very nice of a railway. So I've got to go and get my complimentary drink before enjoying the ride back. Probably a bit less fresh because it's all downhill. I saw called the arts from the train. The plan is to walk up to call the arts when I've had the train ride. The loco's been blown off so I don't need to shout quite as much. So I'll go down there. There's a very good little footbridge here because the way it's shaped means it's very easy for anyone who wants to watch trains. You can effectively see how it's shaped like this. So I could stand here, film the loco and pan around. So I'm going to go down onto the station now and get my coffee before enjoying the journey back. This is called the art station. I thought they'd be here on the platform. There's the art. The railway is very kindly given us permission to have a look in the engine shed. So I just want to show you this. This is the main running line. Andrew's house station is the other side of the bridge because I said when we were at Andrew's house that I continued our way to Sunnyside to have a bit of work on the station at the moment. That's the reason why we didn't go that far. If you have a look here you might just be able to see some sleepers. There was one to flat crossing here where another line crossed on the level and it had in tail failure recently been used as a head shunt. They're now just doing a bit of track relaying so they've put temporarily a through running line but eventually they will put the flat crossing back there just to create a longer head shunt. Go and see. So I'm grateful to see that because there's quite a few industrial loco's probably would only see here so I'm just going to stop and put my face coming on then we're going to go inside. Right let's go in the shed. Quite a big carriage, much bigger than the ones out. It's a bow of a carriage rather than a four or six wheeler. It looks like it's probably one that would have taken minus to work because it's an NCB on it. Here we have one of the steam locomotives. This one's having some work done. One's built by Robert Stephen of Hawthorne's in Newcastle in 1948. We have Andrew Barclay steam engine. This one has a lot of these around but most of them are four wheel ones. This is the longer six wheel ones. These were built in Kilmarnock in Scotland as you can see it's number 1015, 1904. And this loco is carriage number number two. It's a bit more of a name number two but as I was saying there's so many other loco's number two. So if you want the actual identity, this here, this is a dirty at the works plate. I think our loco will come here tonight and on shed because the carriage there having some painted. I'll take you down here. So this is the loco we've just had a look at. Here we have another Hawthorne and Leslie steam locomotive. Go down the other side and get this mooring and get a bit of view of the loco's down there. There's one loco I'd always wanted to see. Read about it in magazines before and the reason I particularly wanted to see this loco is just because I really like the name of the loco. So I'll show you that. This is the one we just saw. So another industrial sales tank. For those of you who don't know much about railways the reason it's called a saddle tank is if you look this is the tank for the water and it sits on the boiler like a saddle so hence saddle tank. This is the loco here though. I was particularly excited to see. Twizzle. I just think that's such a cool name. I really like the name Twizzle for a loco and built by Robert Stephen Hawthorne in 1891. It's the oldest loco I've seen so far today. I haven't finished looking at it so I might find something older. We come up here get a good view of Twizzle and here we are by a locomotive called Stagshore. Now Stagshore's had a rather interesting life. I'll tell you in a moment. I'll just let you while we're here see the cab. Stagshore was built as an experimental form of steam loco that I believe used compressed steam and as a picture here I'll show you what she looked like originally. Yes that is the same locomotive. It's called Stagshore. If you have a look around the front you might just be able to see there's a stag on her funnel. What I'm going to do now I'm going to go outside have a look around and see what else we can find at Causey Arch Railway Station. That's more of a rail halt. I'm just deciding here with some coal wagons here the train just passed through and very nice grass platform. It's supposed to be one of the nicest peaceful railway stations I've ever been to but there's no facilities here but there's something very very unique something you will not see anywhere else called Causey Arch. The reason it's called Causey Arch is because just over there it's the oldest railway arch in the world. Now that obviously because it's the oldest it predates every other railway so of course it predates this railway. There used to be a horse drawn tramway for moving stone on minerals etc and this is its track bed and there's talk of recreating a section just so you can see what it would have been like and I'll be able to show you as we leave the station. This station has no road access. It's a little walk to the nearest road the car park is about a quarter of a mile away so yeah it's a pretty remote railway station but as I said it's unique so that is the old tramway track bed and this is the sort of wagons that would have been running nearly 300 years ago so before steam trains were invented steam locomotives were invented the horse would have pulled this along and really it was only controlled by this brake and tracks were probably wooden the wheels were certainly wooden but to get them over the gorge they built this the Causey Arch so we're going to walk over it and then we're going to find a way down into the gorge to walk under it so as we come across to here you can see now as we come out to this little lookout area we're pretty high up above the treetops so I'm going to walk over the arch I'm going to go down those steps take you under the arch it's um really I like it up here up in the trees on a nice hot bay you can hear the relaxing sound of the river below the last time I did a video a bit like this was um in Manchester when I went to Healydale Nature Reserve and I walked over an old railway viaduct but obviously newer than this one um have a look at link on screen now if you'd like to see that video that reminded me a bit of this but this and I said it is the oldest railway arch in the world and so only when you'll get underneath it see how impressive it is because obviously we can appreciate the height up here look down to the river below but the sheer scale of the arch can only really be appreciated from down below so I'm now following the old um tramway I'm not gonna walk along it I've got um I'm gonna go for another little walk and um I'll see more that might see more of the trains on the tanfield railway I did really enjoy my trip this morning on the tanfield railway it's a very attractive industrial railway so I get to hear as a junction to pass so the tramway would have carried on down there but I'm going to go down here not wild garlic growing have a this plant here looks like it's pre-passed itself by date but that's wild garlic you can pick it it's quite nice if you cook it into oh yeah there's a strong smell now of wild garlic that's kind of because I'm surrounded by it really strong garlicky smell not so nice to only say but if you pick it you can cook it pretty much so it can be quite nice so there's the arch there still we can't really see the arch itself because um there's some trees in the way so I need to go down these steps you start to see the sheer height of it as we go down to the river and then I've got to find a way back up the other side oh yeah now look at that there it is it's huge it's enormous that's um got to be one of the biggest circumferences of an arch I've ever seen it's pretty high I don't know about I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the highest arch I've ever seen but I don't know if I've seen an arch with such a large circumference it's just massive oh that is really really impressive and to think how old it is how you know it's been here the last 300 years and it was new horses were clipped over it pulling wagons right so we're right underneath it now the sign saying beware of the sudden drop we're still not down quite at the river level and here a waterfall directly down there and it's funny because it's the waterfall's really echoing I can actually hear the sound of water coming from up there but of course there is no water up there it's not raining it's like um you know a similar thing to the whispering gallery at St Paul's we can't try it I'm I reckon if I stood over there and whispered to someone standing there I reckon we'd hear each other quite clearly but it's I don't realize that can we stand underneath you realize that the sound of the waterfall below echoes around so I'm going to take you down to um a less interesting and much much more modern wooden bridge I suppose it's very old stone bridge but from that bridge we should get a view behind us of the cause the arch and there's probably then some steps to take me back up the other side so as we come down here here we have I said a newer not so exciting bridge oh here it's enormous so here we are down in the burn the bridge towering above is the cause the arch the world's oldest arch we was up there a moment ago I hope you enjoyed this video um thank you very much for watching thank you to the tanfield railway for a great day very much appreciated being able to go and have a look in the shed that was really nice and um the things get back to normal they'll be able to run a service where you get on and off at each station they'll start running to sunny side again it's a great day out to do come and visit the tanfield railway and as for the ifa events do look out for them there will be more of them in the future and I'll be making more videos like this with the ifa club other interest in railways other historic sites etc so hope you enjoyed this little series of the ifa event up in the northeast the road run the visit to beamish the railway museum at darlington thank you very much for watching there'll be a few more videos coming from the ifa event I've done on my own a few little places I've been to with my larder so do also look out for them but from cause the arch in county Durham the oldest railway arch in the world thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like subscribe and comment goodbye