Yes there were nascent reasonably grand plans at one stage. Extension Royal Quays, new museum platform at the east of the site and extension over Middle Engine Lane up to Shiremoor and potentially beyond was being considered at one stage.
I think construction subsequent means this could never happen now. If money hadn't been wasted on various things the council and Museum Service might not have got cold feet.
It's a shame really as it could have turned into a proper industrial railway scene, couple of rakes of coal wagons on demonstration alongside the passenger service, the Harton electric loco in working order.
Looking at Google earth the platform thay was built is too short for a 3 coach train and there doesn't look to be sufficient room for a run round loop either. It really did end up as a right old mess and I've always suspected there was more than poor decision making or incompetence at play. In the circumstances it was remarkable the Council and Museum Service agreed to carry on at all (although it was a very close run thing).
The new Percy Main platform didn't have a run round loop for a lot of years. Trains were run down the bank with the 03 and hauled back up by the steam engine. It was great fun driving and firing them up the 1 in 40 gradient with 3 coaches and the 03 hanging off the back!
Eventually that knackered the 03 gearbox (even though we used to drop the pin to lick the final drive in a neutral position) so after that was repaired we used to detach the 03 at Percy Main to run back to Museum light engine. Always a bit nervous being alone at Percy Main, particularly when there were kids running all over the track.
I remember shunting the crane & runner, brake van, take of mk1 coaches, dogfish wagon, flat waggon and I think the B class through the loop at Museum and out onto the 'main line'. Only the Mk 1s had vacuum brakes and they were in the middle of the consist with incomplete through piping, so I had just the 03 air brake... Seriously thought it was going to run away at one point, took a VERY long time to stop! Pushing it all back up the slope was interesting too.
There was also a Gresley teak coach slowly rotting away under partial tarpaulins in the headshunt along with another wooden bodied vehicle which I can't remember.
There was a kink in the track at the reverse curves just south of the Museum complex. Before my time, Harry Friend had been driving an 060 tender loco that was on loan rather 'enthusiastically' and hit the curves too fast. It stayed kinked until the late 90s when the whole line was treated to an automatic ballast tamper as part of a Railtrack training programme which mostly removed it.
Disposing of the steam loco, the tap for the hose pipe was the other side of the siding that one of the rakes of coaches was usually stored in. Habit was to nip underneath them. I'd just emerged from underneath having turn the tap on and was leaning against them when there was an almighty bang and the 3 coaches shot forwards, crashed through the Museum roller shutter door and pushed the NER parcel van about 20 feet further into the museum. Somebody had 'helpfully' thrown the points for the shunter who was about to stable the other coaching set on an adjacent road, but didn't tell him. Shunted remembered he'd moved the parked rake earlier in the day and left the points set for that road, so there them to the empty road (or so he thought) without checking. 03 driver couldn't see what road was set due o the yard layout and obeyed the shunters hand signals.
We all learned something that day and I never went underneath or across the blind end of a vehicle with movements happening nearby ever again. I still break out on a cold sweat sometimes thinking about what would have happened of I'd been a bit slower turning the hose pipe on.
I'm rambling way off topic so shall leave it there!
