Ballast Railway/Harton Coal Company Railway

A Ballast Railway from St. Hilda's Colliery (HER ref. 2355) to a ballast hill on The Bents (HER ref. 2452). The western end of this line was at Cooksons/Swinburne's Glassworks (HER ref. 2340) which it reached via a tunnel. A wagonway was built c.1832 with a stationary steam engine working the lower section and horses working the upper section. As well as ballast it carried glass making waste from the works and coarse sand to the works. Locomotives were introduced in 1879 and the line became part of the Harton Colliery system in the 1890s, by 1895 linked to the South Shields, Marsden and Whitburn Colliery Railway (HER ref. 2466) by a spur (HER ref. 2467). It became part of the electrified Harton Railway in 1908, having been extended to the new Harton Low Staiths (HER ref. 2456) in 1904, and worked until 1989