Darlington’s Iconic Brick Train

After living here in Darlington nearly all of my life, apart from a few years over in Cumbria, I had still never got round to stopping off and taking a closer look at Darlington’s iconic Brick Train up at Morton Park.  With the Festival of Ingenuity coming up this weekend in Darlington town centre it seems the perfect timing to fit in a visit too.

The brick train can be seen as you drive along the A66 on the outskirts of Darlington. The 23ft (7m) high and 130ft (29m) long structure commemorates the Stockton-Darlington Railway which opened in 1825 and was Britain’s first permanent steam locomotive railway. It consists of 185,000 bricks, and is modelled on locomotive Mallard, which broke the world speed record for steam in 1938.

The access to the train itself and it’s viewing platform is from the other side of the A66, you can enter Morton park from the roundabout off the A66 and then we parked up in the Morrison’s car park, we headed down the side of Morrison’s to be greeted by quite a surprise.

I was expecting maybe just a plain path along to the access but there was nothing plain about it. There is a lovely walk alongside reed-filled ponds crossing over wooden bridges and surrounded by trees and flowers. A really peaceful serene so close to such bustling places.

We enjoyed the walk along looking out for wildlife, spotting a duck in the reeds nesting. Water beetles and bees along with lots of beautiful flowers. There was seating so far along and informative plaques about the brick train too. We got up to train and had a few photographs, guessing wildly how many bricks we think it would have taken between us.

If you haven’t been it’s worth a little stroll along out of your day to explore something you have no doubt passed many times, I know I’m glad I did.