Anne Leigh, heiress to the Middleton Estates, married Ralph Brandling from Felling near Gateshead on the River Tyne.

Brandling was in competition with the Fentons in Rothwell who were able to transport coal into Leeds by river, putting the Middleton pits at considerable disadvantage.

The first waggonway in 1755 crossed Brandling land and that of friendly neighbours to riverside staithes at Thwaite Gate.

An Act for Establishing Agreement made between Charles Brandling, Esquire, and other Persons, Proprietors of Lands, for laying down a Waggon-Way in order for the better supplying the Town and Neighbourhood of Leeds in the County of York, with Coals.The Middleton Railway, the first railway to be granted powers by an act of Parliament, carried coal cheaply from the Middleton pits to the Staith[3] at Casson Close, Leeds (near Meadow Lane, close to the River Aire).

Around 1799 the wooden tracks began to be replaced with superior iron edge rails to a gauge of 4 ft 1 in (1,245 mm).

Murray's design was based on Richard Trevithick's Catch me who can, adapted to use Blenkinsop's rack and pinion system, and probably was called Salamanca.

Living in Hunslet Lane, on the London Road, the old coal railway from the Middleton Pits into Leeds, ran behind our house a few fields off, and we used to see the steam from the engines rise above the trees.

Once I remember going with my nurse, who held my hand (I had to stretch it up to hers, I was so little) while we stood to watch the engine with its train of coal-wagons pass.

[6]Salamanca's boiler exploded on 28 February 1818, killing the driver, as the explosion "carried, with great violence, into an adjoining field the distance of one hundred yards.

This time the most likely cause was a badly worn boiler, kept going by in-house repairs which were no longer expertly carried out after Blenkinsop's death.

The Blenkinsop engines remained at work for thirty years: when John Urpeth Rastrick and James Walker visited the line on the behalf of the Directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in January 1829 noted they were still at work, one of them being recorded as pulling a load of thirty load coal wagons, weighing 140 tons.

Some rationalisation took place, the city centre staith at Kidacre street was closed and in the end coal movement was concentrated on the stretch of line from the GNR connection to Broom Pit.

Preservationists mainly from Leeds University were allowed to move into an abandoned part of the line, between Moor Road and the GNR connection, by its then owners Messrs. Clayton, Son & Co.

The Middleton Steam Railway is home to a representative selection of locomotives built in the Jack Lane, Hunslet area by the famous Leeds manufacturers of John Fowler & Co., Hudswell Clarke, Hunslet Engine Company, Kitson & Co. and Manning Wardle.

The locomotives include "Sir Berkeley", which was featured in the 1968 BBC TV version of "The Railway Children".

The site includes the Engine House museum and workshops along with a single platform for departing and arriving trains.

The site was once a junction between the link to the Midland Railway mainline via the "Balm Road Branch" and the line to Kidacre Street coal staith near the centre of the city.

Plans have existed for some time to extend the railway to the centre of the park, however this would require significant earthworks and funding.

It arrived in excellent condition however a full restoration is being completed to ensure it is a regular and reliable loco into the future.

It received major bodywork repairs and a body rebuild at the Vintage Carriages Trust workshop at Ingrow West (on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.