Passengers & Pioneers is a collaborative album by singer-songwriter Sam Slatcher featuring poetry from Lizzie Lovejoy, Carmen Marcus, Rowan McCabe and Harry Gallagher, inspired by stories from the first passenger railway journey in 1825 on the Stockton and Darlington railway and stories collected from those travelling and working on the line today.
In 2025, the album will be performed in celebration of the 200 year anniversary of the first passenger journey.
The album was commissioned by the railway companies Cross Country and Northern that now operate the line along with the Community Rail Network and Bishop Line Community Rail Partnership. To create the content they each spent time as artists in residence on the historic line still in operation from Bishop Auckland to Saltburn.
The album tells the story of how this short line, connecting two North East towns changed the shape of the region, the country and the world. From the global experience that railways became to the ways it brings communities together today. It draws on a letter written by a 14-year-old boy to his younger sister describing his track-side view of the first journey, on news reports from the Jubilee anniversary and from testimonies of railway workers throughout the ages (from station staff to engineers to those who work on board). The songs and poetry also feature stories of passengers who commute, holiday, encounter strangers, meditate from train windows, find love, seek work, find pride and belonging and experience a sense of homecoming, on those same 26 miles of track.