A NEW children’s book captures the launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway almost 200 years ago.
Written by Lartington archaeologist Caroline Hardie, Little Loco’s Big Day is an uplifting tale of the railway’s first locomotive, known as Locomotion No.1, which has to pull wonky waggons along the railway on its opening day in 1825.
Trouble brews when the wonky waggons grumble because they want to be pulled by horses, not locomotives, and Herald the Horse is worried about being replaced by Little Loco and put into a horrible home for hopeless horses.
Ms Hardie, who is trustee for the Friends of the Stockton and Darington Railway, said: “I have written for adult audiences but this is the first time I have written for a young audience and it was much harder than I thought it was going to be. You have amassed this vocabulary over your life and you can’t use a lot of it.”
She began writing the book before the Covid pandemic as part of the run-up to the railway’s bicentenary in 2025 and roped in the former archaeologist for County Durham John Pickin to do the illustrations.
The author said: “Some of them just make me laugh out loud. I asked him to put in horse poo and things, because one of the [pieces of advice I was given] is children like to point at things in pictures, and he would have little dung-beetles crawling over it saying ‘yum, yum, yum’.”
The book is aimed at children aged seven and younger and includes fun activities that families can enjoy doing.
Ms Hardie has planned a series of books about Little Loco ahead of the 2025 celebration.
She said: “The one out now is just the opening day. Locomotion No.1 is still around today so there are 200 years’ worth of stories and in that time she blows up, she gets two chimneys, she gets new wheels – this is all in the first three years.
“She has a series of drivers, one of whom is a drunk, I don’t know how I will tackle that one. Also, as time passes, she gets neglected and forgotten about and then she is celebrated and is taken abroad.
“And then there’s the fight about where she should be, which was just a few years ago, so you could bring all these stories right up to the present.”
Ms Hardie hopes to have three books published about Little Loco before the bicentenary celebration.
Little Loco’s Big Day is available from the Teesdale Mercury Shop, or can be ordered online from therailwaystation.shop/little-loco.
