The Bowes Pontop to Jarrow  Railway
The coal industry prospered in North East England during the 13th and 19th century.  The needs of the increasing population had already destroyed the countries great forests and with the advent of the industrial revolution the demand for coal as an alternative fuel grew enormously.  The pit owners had to look for new coal areas to open up which were some distance away from the rivers that were used to transport the coal. A solution was found in the building of waggonways to move the coal to the riverside staiths and the collier boats that took the coal around the country by sea.
One group of owners consisting of the families, Wortley, Ord, Liddle (who later became Lord Ravensworth) and Bowes, and known as "The Grand Allies", decided around 1821 to build a waggonway from their Stanley Colliery to Jarrow on Tyne. John Buddle was employed to carry out the work hut he was later replaced by George Stephenson.
Under Stephenson^'s plan, the coals from the new colliery at Springwell and owned by Lord Ravensworth and Partners, were to be conveyed by a self acting, gravity worked, incline of one and quarter miles to Springwell Bank Foot at Gingling Gate (the area not far from the Washington Road and Leam Lane crossroads), The repair sheds on the site were probably in the original plans arid can still be seen today as they are listed buildings. The next four and three quarter miles to Jarrow drops was by locomotive and passed through Wardley which was then still an agricultural community and also, sadly, through the site of the ancient Wardley  Manor House.
The line was completed on the 17th January l8L~6 and the opening ceremony started at Mount Moor Colliery at Springwell. The two locomotives ordered from Stephenson's Works had not been delivered (they eventually arrived in April) and it was decided to use horses to take the waggons to Jarrow staiths. At about 8,3Oam in the morning the group, comprising of his Lordship Lord Ravensworth and Partners, miners at Mount Moor Colliery and a band in its new uniforms with cockades in their hats, marched to the pit playing several airs and were followed by a large crowd of spectators, including one who was 100 years old who when a young girl had seen the first coals from the old Springwell Colliery sent to the River Wear. The procession left the pit at 9.00 clock in 4 wagons fitted up for accommodation for the band, the agents of the colliery, several ladies and gentleman visitors and with 8 caldrons of coal. A good number of people followed on foot as they descended down the incline. Preceded by the band, as the waggons crossed the Sunderland to Newcastle Turnpike Road at Wardley they played "God Save the King" and the company gave three cheers. The group arrived at the top of the incline near the river at about ll.3Oam. The chaldrons then descended the plan one at a time landing upon the platform of the drop where the staiths had been erected on the Jarrow Grange estate of Cuthbert Ellison, they were then lowered to the ship "Industry". The emptying of the first waggons was announced by the discharge of a cannon on both sides of the river.
John Bowes was the illegitimate son of the Earl of Strathmore who was also one of the "Grand Allies". Bowes became a Member of Parliament for South Durham in 1832 and had entered coal speculation on his own account as one of the Directors of the Durham Coal Company. Dissatisfied, he left and reopened a pit near the derelict Marley Hill Colliery and about 1840 formed the Marley Hill Coal Company. His partners were William Hutt M.P, for Gateshead (he later became President of the Board of Trade) and Nicholas Wood, the railway and mining engineer.
 On the 1st January 1846 Charles Mark Palmer became a full member and shortly afterwards the coal company became known as ¹¹John Bowes Esq. & Partners". In 1850 Lord Ravensworth and Partners leased to Bowes their Northumberland collieries of Killingworth and Seaton Burn and also sold to them the Springwell Colliery and its railway to Jarrow staiths. Charles Mark Palmer died in 1907 and for many years he had been the sole acting partner. When John Bowes died in 1885 the firm became a limited liability and Palmer became Chairman till his retirement in 1895. Although the 15 mile railway was never completed to Pontop Colliery, in November 1853 he named the line the "Pontop to Jarrow Railway".
When Bowes opened Wardley pit in 1871 a mineral line connected it to the nearby Pontop to Jarrow Railway. A railway line also ran through the colliery and down in front of the school where waste was dumped onto the site of the first pit heap. Shortly after the opening of the colliery, houses were soon built on the South side of the Pontop line. Waggonway Row was next to the line. It was also known as Railway Street and "Smokey Row", which it was after the old steam loco's passing by had puffed out their thick black smoke onto the houses. Another mineral branch line was built to Follonsby Colliery in 1908 and came into use when the pit opened in 1912. It went under the White Mare Pool bridge and behind South Wardley Farm to link up with the Pontop Railway line. The rails and sleepers have now all been removed and the area left to become an overgrown wilderness but the route of the line can still be clearly distinquished from the "Pool" bridge.
In the early 1900's locomotives grew heavier and more attention had to be given to the track. An experiment using rail weighing 9Olbs per yard was laid near Wardley in 1906 and as a result all the locomotive worked sections of the line were re-laid with 951bs rail. The 751bs rail continued to be used on the inclines for many years.
In later years, a gatekeepers two story crossing box was built at the South side of Wardley Crossing and the gateman was responsible for the trim and lighting of a signal post lamp some 300 yards South of the roadway. In operation the signal had not to be taken off before both gates were closed to traffic. On the Springwell Bank Foot to Jarrow section the trains hauled the equivalent of 45 loaded ten ton waggons. The mechanically operated gates were replaced by hand worked gates in October 1953. Accommodation for the first gatekeeper at the crossing was probably "Springwell Cottage", a small building a few yards from the line and opposite West Crescent, its last occupants were the Waggott family. One of the gatemen after the 1930's was Bob Woodruff, another was Harry Anderson and the last before the line closed was Albert Armstrong.
During the Second World War the cottage was used by the fire watch, Ken Hodgson and George Kerridge spent many nights there on duty. It was behind the cottage and further up the Pontop railway line that the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb close to Wardley. It missed the line and landed in Charlie Gillespie's field. Behind the cottage was the Wardley Coal Dispensary depot which opened in 1926 and was made of concrete and corregated sheeting. Billy Cooper, who lived in West Crescent, was the manager. He evenually went to Jarrow Landsale Depot and was replaced by Billy Brown, a Springwell man  One of the entrance gateposts still stands opposite West Crescent and also a concrete wall at the bottom of Montrose Drive to show where it once stood. I'm told that in its busy times the horse driven coal carts used to wind up Palmers Bank waiting to take on their load of coal.
It was in 1932 that the Pontop and Jarrow Railway became known as "John Bowes and Partners" and the "P & J.R" logo on trains and rolling stock began to be replaced by "Bowes". Modern coal loading staiths were built at Jarrow in 193b and opened by the Queen Mother when she was the Duchess of York. Her father, Claude Bowes-Lyon the 14th Earl of Strathmore, was Chairman of John Bowes and Partners.
A small cabin was at the Wardley Lane crossing at the bottom of Waggonway Street and Bob Jardine (known as Cabin Bob) is well remembered as the gateman. He had one arm and slept in the cabin at night. Jack Kennedy and Bobby Wilkin also worked here and, in later years, Tom Urwin and Ken Hodgson worked this section. Finally, Ken worked it himself. Ri5 family were from Third Street and his father employed as a fireman for the colliery boilers (used for generating steam to operate the cage). For a short time the family moved to newly built houses on Watermill Lane but as his father was always on call at the pit the family moved back to Wardley. At this point on the line the waggons had to be separated and identified from which colliery they came by a coloured tag on each waggon and gravity led into one of 7 sidings beside the coal separation plant. Near the cabin was a pedestrian tunnel under the railway line. It was probably there before the turn of the century and can still be seen today, as can many of the railway sleepers and the crossing gate posts.
Tommy Chambers worked the crossing gate at Gingling Gate on the Washington Road. He also may have been a Bowes employee who had lost an arm and then given the task of gatekeeper. It was said he pushed a wheelbarrow by placing a sling over one shoulder and fixing one of the handles into it, would cobble shoes and used a shotgun! In later years he lived in Whitemere Gardens.