The Stockton and Darlington line in the North East of England is hailed as ‘the first public railway in the world’ – a line that kickstarted the global railway revolution.
However, it turns out that the idea of the line as a ‘revolution’ was actually created for cash in 1875 by a local newspaper journalist on a tight book deadline working to a biased brief from a railway company.
Thanks to subsequent newspaper coverage of a costly jubilee event, the