The Waggonway

Saturday and Sunday WAGGONWAY buses call at the Beamish Museum Entrance all year around.

Monday to Saturday buses call at the Beamish Museum Entrance from 2 April 2012 until 26 October 2012. 

The Waggonway name was selected working in partnership with Beamish Museum. Read more about Waggonway history in the section below.

25% discount at Beamish Museum when you travel by bus.

Travel to Beamish Museum by bus and get 25% discount on the standard admission charge*.

Our Tickets & Fares

We’ve some great value tickets and fares for travel on The Waggonway.

Our Cheap Day return tickets are available from just £2.50 or you can travel as much as you like from just £4.20 a day with a Buzzfare day ticket available from the driver.

If you travel on our services a few times a week then you will save money with our range of weekly, monthly or annual Buzzfare tickets.

What’s more, once you get your ticket, you can use it as much as you want including evenings & weekends!

If you travel on our services a few times a week then you will save money with our range of weekly, monthly or annual Buzzfare tickets.  What’s more, once you get your ticket, you can use it as much as you want including evenings & weekends!

The Waggonway route runs within our Green & Purple Buzzfare zones giving you a week of unlimited travel for just £16.30.

Plus, you could save another 25% if your employer buys an annual ticket for you under our corporate discount scheme, compared to the price of individual 28 day tickets - contact us for full details.

For 19-22 year olds our range of Get Around tickets give massive discounts with tickets offering unlimited travel starting at £3.20 a day!

Find out more information on our fares and tickets.

Help and Advice

We want you to enjoy using our services and are working hard to make sure you find them easy and reliable to use.

You can speak to Dean Young (pictured) our Service Delivery Manager for The Waggonway, who will be out and about on the buses.

Our customer services team can be contacted by Freepost, telephone or e-mail

Contact Us

Cleaner buses - Our Kite Mark explained

Go North East has one of the cleanest bus fleets of its size in the country and to make it even easier for you to see how well your bus is doing to help look after the environment, we have introduced a new ‘kite mark’ on our buses.

Using simple illustrations based on a red kite bird taking flight, each symbol lets you see at-a-glance how each of our buses meet European standards on emissions. Find out more about cleaner engines.
 

Waggonway History

Waggonways predated railways and first appeared in the UK in 1604. At first they were little more than improved roadways, with wooden rails to guide the wains carrying the coal.

In the North East they developed into sophisticated transport networks for the carriage of coal. This also saw the development of the chaldron waggon – an icon of the region’s industrial history.

Waggonways ran on dedicated routes. The rails were wooden and a downhill gradient towards the river staithes (where the coal was shipped from) was favoured, enabling gravity to play a role in the process. Horses hauled the empty chaldrons back up hill to the collieries. As the tonnages of coal increased, waggonways were replaced by railways, with metal rails and steam locomotive haulage.

There were numerous waggonways along the route of the No.28 bus, carrying coal from collieries around Beamish and Stanley down to the River Wear at Fatfield. Many lasted only a few years, while others were eventually converted into railways.

Beamish Museum

For the cost of a single admission you can visit time and time again for a whole 12 months at no extra charge with a Beamish Unlimited Pass. Buy your pass online at www.beamish.org.uk or when you next visit Beamish.

*Terms and conditions apply.
Discount applies to all individual tickets, including the Beamish Unlimited Pass. Not available on family tickets. Valid bus ticket for each passenger must be shown at admission desk.
The museum reserves the right to refuse admission.