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	Darlington changed the world as a pioneer of the modern railway. Hopetown Darlington will engage and inspire the innovators of the future by connecting them with pioneering railway heritage.

Something to look forward to!

Darlington Railway Centre and Museum a.k.a. Head of Steam has been closed since the end of 2023 while it undergoes extensive updates and renovations. It will reopen as Hopetown Darlington in Summer 2024 in good time to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company in 2025. It has been a long wait but there will be considerable expansion with the area around the Museum becoming a centre for railway heritage including a new building for the A1 Steam Trust. Other remaining railway buildings on the site had been restored and repurposed.

What future there is for the Friends of Darlington Railway Centre and Museum has yet to be determined. Hopefully it or a successor organization will carry on in some form continuing to support Hopetown Darlington as it has done the Museum for all these years but for now the Friends is in a state of limbo. The domain registration and hosting for this site is paid up until the end of 2024 so it will remain in this truncated form with information that is still accessed and used until then.

There is only one thing left to do and that is to steer you to the new website for Hopetown Darlington where you can find out about the ambitious plans for what is effectively a whole new railway attraction for the North East and a new chapter in the history of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.