One of the wonders of the North Eastern Railway is the extent of its early electrification. As Newcastle’s Metro light railway transit system marked its 40th anniversary in 2020, it is worth looking back at its predecessor of electrified suburban passenger travel, the North Eastern Railway’s (NER) electrification of North Tyneside on lines spreading from Newcastle towards the coast which opened in 1904. Using contemporary newspaper reports, it is not overly surprising to see how often the electric trains are reported on in their first twenty years of service, and the reasons why. Passenger behaviour was often the cause of its appearance, and usually for reasons that would not surprise modern travellers. Accidents, sadly, as always are prevalent and reported on, and other unfortunate disturbances to operations. Focusing on the social aspect of the NER’s electric trains, this article looks at their first twenty years of operation, as reported on in newspapers.
Trials and tribulations
The North East of England has a remarkable history related to electricity. Joseph Swan of Sunderland developed the electric incandescent lamp on Tyneside in the 1870s, followed by industrialist Sir William Armstrong lighting his country home at Cragside near Rothbury, Northumberland, by hydro-electricity in 1878. In February 1879 Mosley Street in Newcastle became the first street in the world to be lit by incandescent light bulb, and in January of that year it was reported that a Newcastle firm received permission from the NER “to illuminate the main platform of the York New Station with the electric light on the evening of 14th February - the day fixed for the half-yearly meeting of the company”. Similarly an electric lighting experiment was to be made by the same company in one of the NER’s Newcastle goods yards.1
The catalyst for the electrification of the North Tyneside suburban passenger service was the opening in 1901 of electric tramways in the local area which had an almost immediate severe effect on the NER’s passenger traffic in North Tyneside - down from ten million in 1902 to six million. At the half-yearly meeting of the NER in February 1904 it was said that “in two years the number of passengers carried in the Newcastle district had decreased to the startling extent of 61 per cent., which meant that more than half their short-distance passengers had been taken by the tramways”.2
To regain traffic, the NER would introduce electric trains, one of the first British main line companies to do so. The announcement of the NER in the Light Railway and Tramway Journal on Friday 25th July 1902 was seized on in the local area, on the same day the Newcastle Evening Chronicle reporting it under the headline ‘THE N.E.R. Co. and Electric Tramways - a local scheme to combat them’.3 Understandably the announcement caused a great deal of interest and was often reported on. Journalists were keen for information and turned to the NER for more information, although upon ”inquiry at the offices in Newcastle, and at the locomotive department in Gateshead, great reticence was observed”.4 A representative of the Newcastle Leader made enquiries to the Westminster Office of Mr. Merz, engineer in charge of the proposed electrification, of Merz & McLellan who were appointed to be the NER’s consulting engineers, eliciting the response:
“The line will be equipped with 50 motor coaches, which will supply the principal
