THIS year we are celebrating the Dawn of the Railway Age, 200 years ago, because the Stockton & Darlington Railway — the world’s first public passenger line — was opened on Tuesday September 27 1825. And, five years later, we saw the start of intercity rail travel with the opening of a railway line between Liverpool and Manchester.

The railway transformed Britain and, then, the rest of the world. It’s cause, of course, for celebration; although I note that the people who built and ran the railways have tended to be forgotten as we mark this anniversary, and Aslef, and the other rail unions, were conspicuously not invited to the top table this year. Not for the first time in the history of our industry, the workers have been regarded, to use a phrase first muttered in the Middle Ages, as “below the salt.”

The Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester were not, in fact, the first railways — although they are remembered because they were the first to regularly carry passengers. Examples of colliery tramways go back to the early 17th century, typically using horse power.

The Tanfield Railway, part of which is now a heritage line, has a history dating back to 1625. The Industrial Revolution, building momentum from the late 18th century, led to more colliery tramways, or “rail-roads” as they were initially called, particularly in the industrial north of England. Some began to use steam power, such as the Middleton Railway near Leeds, as early as 1804 and the Hetton Colliery line in 1822.

The world’s first public line to carry passengers was the Swansea & Mumbles Railway which began operations in 1807. But it was the Stockton & Darlington in 1825, and the Liverpool & Manchester in 1830, which really started the railway revolution which swept first across Britain, and then Europe and the rest of the globe, which totally transformed the world in which we live.

Both railways were engineered by George Stephenson, the son of a pitman ridiculed by this country’s upper-classes for his strong Geordie accent. Stephenson was an engineering genius, who passed on his talent to his son Robert who designed the famous locomotive Rocket which won the Rainhill Trials in October 1829.

The Rocket set the pattern for the development of locomotives for the next 150 years, particularly through its adoption of the water-tube boiler. Britain’s last steam loco — the Riddles-designed 9F heavy freight loco Evening Star — is, essentially, a much bigger version of Robert Stephenson’s famous creation.

Much has been written about the Stockton & Darlington and the Liverpool & Manchester and the other early railways, but we seldom learn very much about the people who built, operated, and maintained the railways.

The men who built the Stockton & Darlington and the Liverpool & Manchester were a tough breed, itinerant “navigators” — or “navvies” — who had served time building the nation’s canal network only a few years earlier.

While trade unions were established in many factories, mills and mines by the middle of the 19th century, it took a little longer for us to get traction on the railway. There were occasional strikes, but the private railway companies were initially adamant in their refusal to let us organise. One director of one company went as far as to say: “You might as well have a trade union in Her Majesty’s army; it is quite unthinkable.”

The first rail unions were general organisations covering all grades. The moderate Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants — the name is rather revealing — was formed in 1871 but footplate staff wanted their own organisation and Aslef was formed, at the Commercial Inn in Leeds, in February 1880.

A note we still have at our head office in London reads: “We propose that a society be formed, consisting of enginemen and firemen only. Enginemen to pay 5 shillings, firemen 2 shillings.” And so the first eight branches of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen were established at Bradford, Carnforth, Leeds, Liverpool, Neath, Pontypool, Sheffield and Tondhu.

And we’re still here 145 years later! Celebrating the work we do for members, marking the 200th anniversary of the railway on which we work, as well as acknowledging the work of the Labour government — and Aslef has been affiliated to the Labour Party since 1903 — in bringing Britain’s railways back into public ownership, as the party promised in its manifesto, and for bringing in the Employment Rights Bill, delivering on its pledge to offer a New Deal for Working People.

There’s still a way to go, but we are on the right track!

Mick Whelan has spent 41 years on the railway, and 41 years as an active trade unionist. He was elected general secretary of Aslef in 2011; became chair of TULO, now Labour Unions, in 2016; and was elected to Labour’s NEC in 2017. This is his third and final term as GS and he is set to step down at the end of this year after his successor has been elected.