Shildon 1986

Another Café Royal Books production, this time from photographer Janine Wiedel:

In 1986, I was commissioned by ITV television to document Shildon, a small town in County Durham once known as “the cradle of the railways”. My son was just one year old and still light enough to carry on my back. It was February and very cold. Two years before, the town’s lifeline had been cut off, by the ending of 150 years of continuous rail vehicle maintenance and construction.

Shildon was central to the story of Britain’s railways. It was here that the world’s first steam-powered public railway opened and where one of the first rail engines was built.

The town grew up alongside the development of the railway and was a major transport hub for coal mined in the nearby Durham collieries. The mining industry had been an important site of development in rail technology, and so it made sense that early railway locomotives were developed in and around the coalfields of the North of England.

Shildon’s commitment to rail was unparalleled, making it a single occupational community which stood apart from the surrounding towns. It was almost inevitable that any male born there would work in the Wagon Works, which would offer a job for life. However, in 1984 the Railway Works, once the biggest wagon works in the world, was closed with the loss of 2600 jobs or 85% of the male manufacturing jobs in the town. Unemployment in the town soon reached over 40%.