Passengers & Pioneers
Passengers & Pioneers is a new collaborative album by singer-songwriter Sam Slatcher featuring poetry from Lizzie Lovejoy, Carmen Marcus, Rowan McCabe and Harry Gallagher, inspired by stories from the first passenger railway journey in 1825 on the Stockton and Darlington railway and stories collected from those travelling and working on the line today.
LISTEN TO 'PIONEERS', THE OPENING TRACK HERE
Celebrating 200 years of passenger travel
A brand new album of songs and poems that celebrates the world’s oldest passenger railway curated by singer-songwriter Sam Slatcher launches on 14 March 2025.
This year the North East celebrates 200 years of The Stockton & Darlington Railway, the railway that began the modern passenger railway.
The album titled ‘Passengers & Pioneers’ features original songs by folk singer Sam Slatcher woven with poems from Lizzie Lovejoy, Carmen Marcus, Rowan McCabe and Harry Gallagher.
The album is the culmination of the ‘Storylines’ project commissioned by the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership which last year saw the artists travel the line from Bishop Auckland to Saltburn gathering stories from passengers to create new pieces of work. The album has also been written using archive history from the first passenger railway journey in 1825 on the Stockton & Darlington Railway.
The album itself will be released on Friday 14 March with a unique performance at The Common Room as part of the Community Rail Network’s national awards ceremony with Railway200, nationwide partnership-led campaign to celebrate 200 years of the modern railway.
Limited free tickets are available but must be booked via The Common Room website.
This launch event is free of charge and will run twice, first at 12:00-13:00 and again at 19:30-20:30, in The Common Room Lecture Hall (Westgate Road, NE1 1SE), a 2 min walk from Newcastle Central Station.
A brand new album of songs and poems that celebrates the world’s oldest passenger railway curated by singer-songwriter Sam Slatcher launches on 14 March 2025.
The opening track ‘Pioneers’ begins the story with George Stephenson, walking through the night to convince stakeholders in Darlington to finance his creative vision for a modern passenger railway which would ‘set the world on track’. The track is released on 27 September 2024 to mark the year long countdown to the official 200 year anniversary of the launch of the Stockton & Darlington Railway.
The album was commissioned by the railway companies Cross Country and Northern that now operate the line along with the Community Rail Network and Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership. To create the content they each spent time as artists in residence on the historic line still in operation from Bishop Auckland to Saltburn.
The album tells the story of how this short line, connecting two North East towns changed the shape of the region, the country and the world. From the global experience that railways became to the ways it brings communities together today. It draws on a letter written by a 14-year-old boy to his younger sister describing his track-side view of the first journey, on news reports from the Jubilee anniversary and from testimonies of railway workers throughout the ages (from station staff to engineers to those who work on board). The songs and poetry also feature stories of passengers who commute, holiday, encounter strangers, meditate from train windows, find love, seek work, find pride and belonging and experience a sense of homecoming, on those same 26 miles of track.
The next single to be released will be ‘Set the World on Track’ on 1st March, the final of 3 pre-release singles from the album following Pioneers that released back in September 2024 and Take Me Home feat. Lizzie Lovejoy in November 2024.
The Storylines project and album was commissioned by the Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership, Cross Country and Northern along with the Community Rail Network.
The album was recorded at Blank Studios in Newcastle, produced by John Martindale. Dates for the Passengers & Pioneers Summer 2025 tour across the North East will be announced later this month.
If you would like to host a night of songs and poems please contact samslatchermusic@gmail.com
