page_title: Durham Coast Line
section_title: Amalgamations and the creation of a through route
hierarchical_section_title: Durham Coast Line / History / Amalgamations and the creation of a through route
caption_attribution_description: English: Londonderry, Seaham and Sunderland Railway locomotive no. 21
context_page_description: The Durham Coast Line is an approximately 39.5 miles railway line running between Newcastle and Middlesbrough in North East England. Heavy rail passenger services, predominantly operated Northern Trains, and some freight services operate over the whole length of the line; it provides an important diversionary route at times when the East Coast Main Line is closed. However the tracks between a junction just south of Sunderland station and Pelaw Junction are shared with light rail services of the Tyne and Wear Metro's Green Line.
  The line developed from several small competing independent railway companies during the first half of the 19th century which ultimately came under the control of the North Eastern Railway. It was under their direction that these lines were gradually linked together to eventually create the Durham Coast Line in 1905.
context_section_description: The Clarence had struggled financially, almost continuously since its construction began, and so the more successful Stockton & Hartlepool Railway took out a 21-year lease on it in 1844 which became permanent in 1851. The two companies were then formally amalgamated together and with the West Hartlepool Harbour & Dock Company on 17 May 1853, to form the West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway.
  Meanwhile, as part of its expansion, Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway had took over the BJR on 1 September 1844, and then purchased the D&SR in 1846. Following its amalgamation with the Great North of England Railway, the Newcastle & Darlinton Junction Railway became the York & Newcastle Railway, and took out a lease on the HD&R before both became part of the York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway under an Act of 22 July 1848. Finally, in 1854, the YN&BR, LNR, and York & North Midland Railway were amalgamated to form the North Eastern Railway which eventually absorbed the WHH&R in 1865. Thus, from 1865, one company was in control of the whole through route between Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Sunderland and Newcastle, although the lines remained largely unconnected.
  Thus a series of improvements were initiated by the NER to better integrate is fragmented network. For the DCL, one of the first of these saw the construction of a new curve to link the ex-LNR Stockton branch to the former network of Stockton & Darlington Railway (absorbed by the NER in 1863), which linking Middlesbrough to lines towards Stockton and Hartlepool. Combined with the 1873 realignment of the south to east curve at Norton Junction, which eased the severity of its curvature, this massively improved the connections between Hartlepool and the rest of the Teesside region.
  The rope-worked 1 in 34 incline at Hesleden Bank was realigned in 1874 to reduce the gradient to that of 1 in 52 and thus enable locomotive working over the entire Hartlepool-Sunderland route.
  In 1877, the NER constructed a new chord between the ex-HD&R and ex-D&SR lines at Haswell and replaced the previously separate terminus stations with a new through station. In the same year, at Hartlepool, they also constructed a direct link between the ex-HD&R and former Stockton & Hartlepool Railway lines which skirts around the western edge of the docks and replaced a more circuitous link through them. Both the ex-Stockton & Hartlepool Railway and ex-HD&R termini were replaced by new stations at West Hartlepool (in 1880) and Hartlepool (in 1878), respectively.
  However, of these links constructed by the NER, arguably the most significant was the Monkwearmouth Junction Line of 1879 which linked the ex-D&SR lines at Ryhope Grange Junction to the ex-BJR lines at Monkwearmouth. This involved the construction of the Monkwearmouth Railway Bridge over the River Wear, a new station at Sunderland Central, and tunnels on either side of the station. Following the opening of Sunderland Central station, NER and LS&SR services  were diverted away from the earlier termini and focussed in one location for the first time.
  
  Following the completion of the improvements of the 1870s, the Durham Coast Line could be operated as a through route but, having not been constructed for such a purpose, doing so it remained challenging. One major issue was that any services running between Hartlepool and Sunderland still had to ascend or descend both the 1:44 incline at Seaton Bank, and the aforementioned incline at Hesleden Bank. To alleviate this, the NER developed plans to construct a new, more direct, line along the coast. Construction of this new line between Seaham Colliery on the LS&SR, and Hart Junction on the ex-HD&R route was sanctioned in 1894–95. However its construction was contingent on the NER purchasing the  Londonderry Railway's Seaham to Sunderland route and this was not agreed until 1900 when the NER agreed to pay £387,000 for it.
  This new coastal line had to cross the denes at Hawthorn, Castle Eden and Crimdon, each requiring a substantial viaduct; one of the most imposing of these, Castle Eden Viaduct, is 141 feet (43 
caption: Londonderry, Seaham & Sunderland Railway No. 21, at the front of what is likely an LS&SR passenger train, during the final years of the line's independence in the 1890s.
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