York engine sheds and locomotive works

Prior to 1922 the Great Eastern Railway had come to an arrangement with the NER who had worked their trains through from Lincoln.

In 1932 further modernisation took place with the fitting of a 70-foot Mundt type turntable built by Ipswich firm Ransomes & Rapier and the installation of a mechanical coaling plant.

Normal procedure was that arriving locomotives would have their ash cleared out from the firebox before being coaled and watered in anticipation of the next duty.

In April 1942 the shed was hit by a bomb during an air raid during the Baedeker Blitz and a number of locomotives were destroyed.

The roundhouses were closed to steam traction in 1967[2] and the straight shed became York diesel depot (see below).

In March 1970 an attempt was made to demolish the mechanical coaling plant, but the explosives used left the structure leaning over.

Attempts were made to pull it over with hawsers attached to locomotives, but they proved fruitless and it was only in May that a crane equipped with a wrecking ball finished the job.

[3] When the diesel depot closed in 1983 this was also taken over by the museum and part of this area is still used to overhaul preserved locomotives and rolling stock.

A number of Southern Railway King Arthur class locomotives were based in the Newcastle area during the war and were also frequent visitors to both York sheds.

As well as the main line diesels there were some powerful steam freight locomotives allocated to York such as the WD and 9F class.

LMS – London Midland and Scottish WD – War Department DE = Diesel Electric DM – Diesel Mechanical The original engine sheds at York were built on the York South site and designed to service the original station which was a dead end terminus within the city walls (although there was a temporary station outside the city walls prior to this).

As the railways developed it became apparent that this terminus was inadequate in terms of size and operational practicability; southbound trains had to reverse in from the main line necessitating additional journey time.

In 2012 the turntable pits and ground level remains of the sheds were excavated prior to the building of a new Network Rail signalling centre.

The depot was closed in January 1982, but stabling was undertaken in the sidings to the north of the site for at least another 18 months.

[9] The table below lists the locomotives owned by the DVLR Joem was purchased to run short lived steam train passenger operation.

In 1839 a small repair shop was opened on Queen Street by the York and North Midland Railway.

In the early days of the railway engines, locomotives required more repairs as this was an emerging technology.

[11] Most locomotives constructed on the site were put together by contractors rather than built by the York and North Midland Railway.

The North Eastern Railway decided in the late 1870s to concentrate carriage building on a new site in York at Holgate Road (see below).

For instance the Great Eastern Railway had a complement of seven staff in 1917 led by a boiler washer.

The Holgate Road carriage works was constructed from 1880 as a planned expansion and replacement of the North Eastern Railway's Queen Street site; the factory began production in 1884 and was substantially expanded in 1897–1900, and saw further modernisations through the 21st century.

The works closed in 1996, due to lack of orders caused by uncertainty in the post-privatisation of British Rail period.

This section is being researched, but this is an indicative list of the locations around the York area where shunting locomotives would have worked.

In steam days York men worked no further north than Newcastle and typically south to Peterborough or Grantham on the ECML.

The acceleration of services in the diesel era saw workings to London King's Cross begin as this could be achieved in a typical 8-hour shift.

On passenger workings York drivers covered many of the local lines including those to Bridlington, Hull (via Beverley), Scarborough and Whitby.

Goods workings took drivers a bit further and included Grimsby, Frodingham (Scunthorpe), Leicester, Colwick (near Nottingham), Manchester and Burton-on-Trent.

The factory, which still produces chocolate today as part of the Nestle group, opened in 1909 having relocated from a site in the city centre.

Study of aerial photographs and observation from public roads suggest that neither engine shed have survived.