Why was it built? The line needed

to take a one hundred and eighty

degree turn to avoid trespassing upon

the Duke of Northumberland’s estate.

The price: hacked-out sandstone, a tunnel,

and a viaduct crossing the Edlingham burn.

 

Blast those shooting parties! No matter:

the navies set to work. The curve adds

to its Grade II listed beauty.

A sign says Private: No Right of Way.

The line closed to passengers

almost a century ago, and never paid.

 

Floods cut it in half in the nineteen-thirties.

It was finished off by the motor trade.

The viaduct remains, beside

an eleventh-century church

and the ruins of a castle

fortified to deter border raids.

 

It appears shorter than from below.

I take snaps on my phone, think of locos

passing with single carriage, long goods train.

The drifting sound, exertion up the gradient,

whistling through the wind, steam clouds

over the burn.                           Just imagine!

 

A poem about an old railway line in Northumberland, posted today to mark the imminent 200th anniversary of the first passenger train on the Stockton to Darlington railway