Brighton railway works
The works grew steadily between 1841 and 1900 but efficient operation was always hampered by the restricted site, and there were several plans to close it and move the facility elsewhere.
After use as a factory for constructing bubble cars, the facility was demolished and has since been redeveloped as part of the New England Quarter of Brighton.
[2] Following his appointment as the Locomotive Superintendent of the successor company, the London Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) in November 1847, John Chester Craven changed the plan of moving the works to Horley.
However the situation of the works, close to the main line, on top of a cliff, in what would soon become a built-up area, always imposed restrictions on the space available for its efficient operation.
The space created was used to accommodate a new much enlarged motive power depot in 1861, thereby permitting the closure of the existing facilities and their incorporation into the works proper.
[7][8] This new construction solved the problem for a while, but did not address the underlying issue of the inadequate site so that by the end of the century the works was again suffering from serious difficulties affecting its efficient operation.
As a result, the LB&SCR established concentrations of locomotives awaiting entry to the works or else scrapping at East Grinstead, Horsted Keynes and Horley.
[10] Lawson Billinton, the District Locomotive Superintendent at New Cross depot had sought to alleviate the situation by executing repairs and boiler changes, but this had little impact on the problem.
Marsh received much of the blame for the problem, which had been developing for some years, and he was granted leave of absence due to sickness in 1910, followed by his resignation in July 1911.
Billinton had been invited to take over on a temporary basis during Marsh's sickness, and promptly set about re-organising the works and reducing the backlog by using emerging time and motion study techniques.
[13] Fears of possible air attacks on Ashford and Eastleigh together with the need for more steam locomotive and armaments construction during World War II brought about the re-opening and re-equipment of the workshops in 1941.
The motive power depot was officially closed 15 June 1961, but remained in use for stabling steam locomotives until 1964, and was demolished in 1966.
After the closure of the main works, part of the workshop was used for the building of Isetta microcars between 1957 and 1964 and some of the land remained in railway use, associated with the stabling of electric multiple unit trains and other maintenance functions.
Some land on the eastern side was given over to an assortment of retail units including a number of car dealers with temporary structures being the predominant building type, and a strip below the yard was used for retail premises; behind these remained the stone and brick columns over which the yard had been extended when space was at a premium.
[17] The heyday of locomotive building at the works was during the decade after the war, when Brighton built more than 100 Bulleid light pacifics of the West Country and Battle of Britain classes.
During the early years of British Railways Brighton works constructed two further batches of "West Country" pacifics and would have been responsible for the entire class of 110 locomotives, had not the works become overstretched due to its involvement in the design and construction of Bulleid's problematic and ultimately ill-fated Leader class in 1949.
