When Robert Stephenson and Co’s Locomotion No 1 arrived in Stockton on 27 September 1825, the first rail vehicle ever to transport passengers, it was met by a seven-gun salute and a crowd bowled over by the spectacle. “It was found to be quite impossible to restrain the enthusiasm of the multitude,” reported a mildly concerned Durham County Observer journalist.

This weekend the celebrations are likely to be slightly less wild, as the bicentenary of the pioneering Stockton and Darlington railway line (S&DR) is marked. But they will undoubtedly be heartfelt. A replica of the pioneering engine is to recreate the inaugural journey, with viewing tickets sold out along the route and a big screen following its progress in Darlington’s town centre. A set of commemorative stamps is being issued, which feels appropriately old school. And coming in on time, the National Railway Museum in York – a magnet for visitors from the day it opened in 1975 – is reopening after a multimillion-pound refurbishment.

The businessmen who invested in the S&DR were motivated by the functional benefits of transporting coal more efficiently from Durham’s collieries. But their enterprise eventually unlocked far wider human possibilities, transforming perceptions of distance........

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