Passengers & Pioneers

In 2025, the album will be performed in celebration of the 200 year anniversary of the first passenger journey.

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.

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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.

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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.

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Details of the 2025 tour of songs and poems will be announced later in the autumn. If you would like to host a night of songs and poems please contact storylines2025@gmail.com