The S&DR200 festival – marking the two hundredth anniversary of the passenger railway journey on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) – is to launch with an open-air event in Bishop Auckland on Saturday 29 March 2025.

Tickets for the event cost £5 per person and £5 park-and-ride per car.

Organisers promise “dazzling projections, drones and up to 100 live performers bringing history to life”.

The local councils for Darlington borough, Durham county and Stockton-on-Tees borough are delivering the festival. A National Lottery grant is also helping the Stockton and Darlington Railway to celebrate its bicentenary.

The festival will include a recreation of the first journey on the S&DR hauled by a replica of Locomotion No. 1. It will also feature large-scale outdoor events, and exhibitions about the history of railways.

The launch event, All Change, will present two centuries of railway history, marking historical moments from the Industrial Revolution to the present. The organisers say that it aims to celebrate “the transformative power of trains on the landscape and our lives”.

The event will feature large-scale set pieces, projection mapping and original music. A fleet of four hundred drones, provided by SKYMAGIC, will provide a visual show with the night sky as background. The show will last for twenty-five minutes, and is suitable for all ages.

Performance company imitating the dog is creating All Change.

On 27 September 1825, Locomotion no.1 hauled the first passenger train along a twenty-six-mile journey between Shildon and Stockton via Darlington.