Carnforth MPD

The regionally competing London and North Western Railway (LNWR) took over the L&CR, and created a jointly - This growth continued from the late-Victorian era to post World War II and into the early 1950s.

At its height Carnforth handled up to 100 trains a day of holidaymakers, commuters, freight and fuel bound for the seaside, cities, ports and industrial centres.

[1] When the Midland Railway reached Carnforth in 1857, it developed a small roundhouse depot and maintenance shed to service its locomotive stock.

From 1936 onwards under instruction from the Air Ministry's Sir Kingsley Wood, in a programme headed by Herbert Austin many key industries in London and the industrialised Midlands, had created a shadow factory to enable production should war break out.

The raw materials going in and requirement of distribution of output, the transport result was a relative boom in both freight and passenger traffic.

Therefore, in late 1942, the Government agreed to fund the construction of a new shed at Carnforth, to allow for the new and planned level of locomotive servicing requirement.

Built on the site of the former Furness facility and opened in 1944,[2] it allowed for the servicing of many more locomotives, and together with highly mechanised supporting infrastructure greatly reduced the need for operational manpower.

[3] A group of enthusiasts chaired by Dr Peter Beet formed the Lakeside Railway Estates Company, with the idea of preserving both the line and Carnforth MPD, to provide a complete steam operating system.

However, although backed by then transport minister Barbara Castle, the need to build a number of motorway bridges and re-routing of the A590 road from Haverthwaite via Greenodd to Plumpton Junction, meant that the complete vision was unsuccessful.

[5] In 1974 Sir Bill McAlpine became a shareholder in the company,[4] allowing his LNER A3 Pacific 4472 Flying Scotsman to make Carnforth its home for many years.

[6] Subsequently, McAlpine acquired a controlling interest in the company, in order to fund the purchase of the complete site including the track from BR.

In 1990 McAlpine's controlling stake in Steamtown Railway Museum Ltd was sold to David Smith, who over the following years has bought out the majority of the minority shareholders.