IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Radcliffe Crescent, STOCKTON-ON-TEES, TS17 6BS

Teesside Development Corporation's vision for the redevelopment of Stockton and its surroundings involved a mix of office buildings a residential areas around the River Tees, whose water quality was much improved by fixing its level at 2.65m above Ordnance Datum by means of the Image], thus avoiding twice-daily exposure of large areas of stinking mudbanks. It is hardly Venice, but some of the developments are quite striking and in this area the buildings styles seem to go together quite well. Some of the other nearby developments look more like something built by a six-year-old in a video game...

Teesdale Business Park is a redevelopment of land formerly occupied by the large heavy industrial works belonging to Head Wrightson. At its peak the Head Wrightson plant employed some 6000 people in the construction of sizable industrial components. The works closed in 1987. The centre of the redeveloped area is the Wharf, connected to the Tees by two canals.

This photograph of Thornaby railway station was taken from Railway Terrace looking in a north-easterly direction towards the Stockton campus of the University of Durham.

Looking along the Up line towards Tees Yard (whose floodlight towers can be seen in the centre of the picture) and Middlesbrough.

View eastward from Thornaby station, towards Newport Yard, Middlesbrough, Saltburn etc. Locomotive crew are believed to have been paid bonuses in this District, based on distance moved as well as the normal hours of work, so they drove their engines flat-out and Thornaby was a marvellous spot to see pyrotechnics. Nevertheless these ex-NER Raven 0-8-0s thrived: here No. 63347 (pre-1946 No. 1254, built 3/13, withdrawn 10/65) is thrashing westward on a Class H train consisting mainly of flat-wagons conveying steel slabs from the great Tees-side Dorman-Long etc. Works. (See also Image]).

Towards Middlesbrough.

View eastwards, towards Middlesbrough, Saltburn etc.; ex-North Eastern Tees-side main line. The train is typical of the constant flow of freight traffic to and from the Newport Yards and the heavy industry of the Middlesbrough area, which dominated the passenger services. The traffic was so intensive that the men who worked these engines in the District were paid a mileage bonus and therefore thrashed them. The ex-NE Q6 (No. 63388) with a long train of empty mineral wagons is probably working from Newport Yard to a colliery in Co. Durham, which will return with coal for the steelworks in the Middlesbrough District; it was blasting up through Thornaby station on full throttle - and a splendid noise.

View westward, towards Stockton etc., Eaglescliffe, Northallerton and Darlington. It was an immensely busy station on the western outlet of the great Newport Marshalling Yard and the industries of Middlesbrough. The Class J freight is headed by ex-NE J27 0-6-0 No. 65868; the Diesel - seeming then an 'interloper' - is BR/Sulzer Type 2 No. D5149.

Looking towards Darlington these two locomotives have come from the nearby locomotive shed at Thornaby. For many years a large number of class 31s and class 37s as seen here ,were based at the depot and used on the many freight trains that ran to and from Teeside.