DarlingtonCounty Durham

The birthplace of the railway (the Stockton and Darlington Railway of 1825 was the world's first public steam railway), the Head of Steam museum, the covered market, and a County Durham market town of global industrial significance

The Stockton and Darlington Railway — the world's first public railway to use steam traction — opened on 27 September 1825. George Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1 pulled the first train. This single event transformed the world. Darlington's Head of Steam museum preserves Locomotion No. 1 and tells the story.

The Head of Steam museum is free and genuinely extraordinary — Locomotion No. 1 is there. The covered market is excellent. The town's Quaker heritage (the railway's backers were Quakers) is told throughout the town.