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Overview | |
---|---|
Headquarters | York |
Reporting mark | NE |
Locale | North East, Yorkshire |
Dates of operation | 1854–31 December 1922 |
Predecessor | York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway York and North Midland Railway Leeds Northern Railway Malton and Driffield Railway |
Successor | London and North Eastern Railway |
Technical | |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
Length | 1,754 miles 73 chains (2,824.3 km) (1919) [1] |
Track length | 4,990 miles 44 chains (8,031.5 km) (1919) [1] |
The North Eastern Railway (NER) was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854 by the combination of several existing railway companies. Later, it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923. Its main line survives to the present day as part of the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh.
Unlike many other pre-Grouping companies the NER had a relatively compact territory, in which it had a near monopoly. That district extended through Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland, with outposts in Westmorland and Cumberland. The only company penetrating its territory was the Hull & Barnsley, which it absorbed shortly before the main grouping. The NER's main line formed the middle link on the Anglo-Scottish "East Coast Main Line" between London and Edinburgh, joining the Great Northern Railway near Doncaster and the North British Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Although primarily a Northern English railway, the NER had a short length of line in Scotland, in Roxburghshire, with stations at Carham and Sprouston on the Tweedmouth-Kelso route (making it the only English railway with sole ownership of any line in Scotland), and was a joint owner of the Forth railway bridge and its approach lines. The NER was the only English railway to run trains regularly into Scotland, over the Berwick-Edinburgh main line as well as on the Tweedmouth-Kelso branch.[ citation needed ]
The total length of line owned was 4,990 miles (8,030 km) and the company's share capital was £82 million. The headquarters were at York and the works at Darlington, Gateshead, York and elsewhere. [2]
Befitting the successor to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the NER had a reputation for innovation. It was a pioneer in architectural and design matters and in electrification. By 1906 the NER was further ahead than any other British railway in having a set of rules agreed with the trades unions, including arbitration, for resolving disputes. [3] In its final days it also began the collection that became the Railway Museum at York, now the National Railway Museum.
In 1913, the company achieved a total revenue of £11,315,130 (equivalent to £1,406,360,000in 2023) [4] with working expenses of £7,220,784 [5] (equivalent to £897,470,000in 2023). [4]
During the First World War, the NER lost a total of 2,236 men who are commemorated on the North Eastern Railway War Memorial in York. An earlier printed Roll of Honour lists 1,908 men. [6] They also raised two 'Pals Battalions', the 17th (N.E.R. Pioneer) Battalion and 32nd (N.E.R. Reserve) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. This was the first time that a battalion had been raised from one Company. [7] The company also sent two tug boats, NER No.3. [8] and Stranton [9] The latter became HM Tug Char and was lost at sea on 16 January 1915 with the loss of all hands. [10]
The NER Heraldic Device (seen above the tile map photo) was a combination of the devices of its three major constituents at formation in 1854: the York and North Midland Railway (top; arms of the City of York); the Leeds Northern Railway (lower left; arms of the City of Leeds along with representations of the expected traffic, wool and corn, and connection to the sea via the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway); and the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (lower right; parts of the arms of the three places in its title) [11]
Constituent companies of the NER are listed in chronological order under the year of amalgamation.
Their constituent companies are indented under the parent company with the year of amalgamation in parentheses.
If a company changed its name (usually after amalgamation or extension), the earlier names and dates are listed after the later name.
The information for this section is largely drawn from Appendix E (pp 778–779) in Tomlinson. [12]
1854
1857
1858
1859
1862
1863
1865
1866
1870
1872
1874
1876
1882
1883
1889
1893
1898
1900
1914
1922
1853
1857
1893
Having inherited the country's first ever great barrel-vault roofed station, Newcastle Central, from its constituent the York Newcastle & Berwick railway, the NER during the next half century built a finer set of grand principal stations than any other British railway company,[ according to whom? ] with examples at Alnwick, Tynemouth, Gateshead East, Sunderland, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Darlington Bank Top, York and Hull Paragon; the rebuilding and enlargement of the last-named resulting in the last of the type in the country. The four largest, at Newcastle, Darlington, York and Hull survive in transport use, as does Tynemouth. Alnwick is still extant but in non-transport use since 1991 as a second-hand book warehouse, [13] the others having been demolished during the 1950s/60s state-owned railway era, two (Sunderland and Middlesbrough) following Second World War bomb damage.
The NER was the first railway company in the world to appoint a full-time salaried architect to work with its chief engineer in constructing railway facilities. Some of the men appointed were based in, or active in, Darlington.
Professional design was carried through to small fixtures and fittings, such as platform seating, for which the NER adopted distinctive 'coiled snake' bench-ends. Cast-iron footbridges were also produced to a distinctive design. The NER's legacy continued to influence the systematic approach to design adopted by the grouped LNER.
The initial NER Board of Directors was drawn from the directors of its four constituent companies. [16] A director of the NER from 1864, and deputy chairman from 1895 until his death in 1904, was ironmaster and industrial chemist Sir Lowthian Bell. [17] His son Sir Hugh Bell was also a director; he had a private platform on the line between Middlesbrough and Redcar at the bottom of the garden of his house Red Barns. Gertrude Bell's biographer, Georgina Howell, recounts a story about the Bells and the NER: [18]
As the heirs of the director of the North Eastern Railway, the Hugh Bells were transport royalty. At Middlesbrough the stationmaster doffed his hat to them and ushered them onto the train at Redcar. Many years later, Florence's daughter Lady Richmond was to remember an occasion when she was seeing her father off from King's Cross, and he had remained on the platform so that they could talk until the train left. The packed train failed to leave on time. Remarking on its lateness, they continued to talk until they were approached by a guard. 'If you would like to finish your conversation, Sir Hugh', he suggested, doffing his hat, 'we will then be ready to depart'.
Among the other famous directors of the NER were George Leeman (director 1854–82, Chairman 1874–80); Henry Pease (director 1861–1881); Sir Joseph Whitwell Pease, Bart. (director 1863–1902, Chairman 1895–1902); John Dent Dent (director 1879–94, Chairman 1880–94); Matthew White Ridley, 1st Viscount Ridley (director 1881–1904, Chairman 1902–04); Sir Edward Grey, Bart (see below); George Gibb (solicitor 1882–1891, general manager 1891–1906, director 1906–1910); and Henry Tennant (director 1891–1910). [19]
In 1898 Sir Edward Grey became a director, later becoming Chairman (1904-5; curtailed by his appointment as Foreign Secretary). In his autobiographical work Twenty-Five Years Grey later wrote that ‘…the year 1905 was one of the happiest of my life; the work of Chairman of the Railway was agreeable and interesting…’. After leaving the Foreign Office Grey resumed his directorship of the NER in 1917, and when the North Eastern Railway became part of the London and North Eastern Railway he became a director of that company, remaining in this position until 1933. At the Railway Centenary celebrations in July 1925, Grey accompanied the Duke and Duchess of York and presented them with silver models of the Stockton and Darlington Railway engine Locomotion and the passenger carriage Experiment.
(Post renamed Superintendent of the Line):
(Post then divided between General Superintendent - Henry Angus Watson - & Chief Passenger Agent)
The above list only covers the most senior officers of the company and its passenger department. [20] Further lists covering the officers in the Engineering, Locomotive and Docks departments will be summarised here as they appear.
The Northern and Southern Divisions were established for operating and engineering purposes on the creation of the NER in 1854. When the merger with the Stockton and Darlington Railway took place in 1863 their lines became the ‘Darlington Section’ until 1873, and then the Central Division. In 1888 the boundaries were altered to remove anomalies; for example, the former Clarence Railway routes became part of the Central Division. The engineering and purchasing autonomy of the three divisions brought about diverging styles of infrastructure. In 1899 it was decided to abolish the Central Division and its area was divided between the Northern and Southern Divisions. [21]
The NER was one of the first main line rail companies in Britain to adopt electric traction, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway having opened its first electrified line between Liverpool and Southport one week earlier.
The Tyneside scheme commenced public operation on 29 March 1904. The scheme was known as Tyneside Electrics and totalled about 30 miles: [2]
The last-named was electrically operated from June 1905 and was a 3/4 mile freight-only line from Trafalgar Yard, Manors to Newcastle Quayside Yard.
Further extensions taking the electrification to South Shields were carried out in March 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway
The lines were originally electrified at 600 V DC using the 3rd rail system, although after 1934 the operating voltage was raised to 630 V DC. On the Newcastle Quayside Branch overhead line of tramway type was used for upper and lower yards (to avoid the danger of shunters and other staff coming into contact with live rails) with 3rd rail in the interconnecting tunnels between the yards.
The Newport-Shildon line was electrified on the 1,500 V DC overhead system between 1914 and 1916 and the locomotives which later became British Rail Class EF1 were used on this section. [22] [23]
After the success of the earlier schemes, in 1919 the North Eastern Railway made plans to electrify 80 miles (130 km) of the East Coast Main Line between York and Newcastle with a mixture of third rails and overhead lines at 1,500 DC. The scheme advanced as far as a prototype passenger locomotive, however the scheme was dropped on financial grounds by the time of the 1923 grouping, due in large part to the difficult economic climate of the time. [24]
The NER carried a larger tonnage of mineral and coal traffic than any other principal railway.
Year | Coal and coke | Lime and limestone | Ironstone | Total | Total receipts £ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1870 | 15,058,598 | 1,177,498 | 3,816,772 | 20,052,868 | 1,733,956 |
1880 | 21,689,915 | 1,630,683 | 5,785,724 | 29,106,322 | 2,489,293 |
1890 | 26,266,510 | 2,126,611 | 4,728,185 | 33,121,306 | 2,608,270 |
1900 | 33,316,191 | 2,213,779 | 5,019,268 | 40,549,238 | 3,057,050 |
1910 | 40,390,130 | 2,499,341 | 6,025,431 | 48,914,902 | 3,474,882 |
The NER was a partner (with the North British and the Great Northern Railway) in the East Coast Joint Stock operation from 1860.
The signalling of the NER and its constituent companies in the 1850s and 1860s was, at best, average for the period (with the notable exception of the Stockton and Darlington Railway). Passenger traffic density and train speeds were generally low and, despite the absence of continuous brakes, train crews were usually able to pull up short of an obstruction. The time interval system was in widespread use, and the interlocking of points and signals was very rare. It was only after a spate of accidents (notably at Brockley Whins in 1870, see below), and mounting public pressure, that the NER began to adopt the block system and interlocking. Once this decision had been taken, the company made reasonably speedy progress, aided by the scrutiny of the Railway Inspectorate (Board of Trade) whose officers were supported by increasingly comprehensive legislation. The inception of block signalling in particular brought with it a large increase in manpower to operate and maintain the new equipment, along with the need for staff literacy. This was essential to enable compliance with a large number of new rules and regulations covering block working and the operation of the electric telegraph. In the last years of the Nineteenth Century a combination of changes began to drive modernisation of the signalling systems in the north-east of England. The track layouts installed in the 1870s were no longer adequate to handle the increased traffic and the signalling equipment was worn out or becoming obsolete. Longer and heavier trains were running, often at higher speeds; electricity was playing an increasing role, and finally the managers of Britain’s railways were becoming aware of the radical changes by which the railways in the United States were improving revenues, productivity and safety. The NER made several bold moves towards automatic and power signalling, but these did not always bring the benefits hoped for.
By the end of its independent existence the North Eastern Railway had one of the most advanced signal systems of the LNER constituent companies – the Great Central was also well-equipped – and the progressive attitude of the signal engineers continued to make itself felt in the North Eastern Area of the new company. Despite this, features dating back to the mid- Nineteenth Century remained in use, such as slotted-post semaphore signals and rotating board signals. By 1910 about 1,150 block signal cabins controlled the NER network, along with numerous other signalling installations at level crossings and isolated sidings. [26]
The company owned the following docks:
The NER also owned coal-shipping staithes at Blyth and Dunston-on-Tyne. The numerous other coal export staiths on the Tyne, the Wear and at Seaham were owned by the colliery companies or the river improvement commissioners. Wilson's & North Eastern Railway Shipping Co. Ltd steamers ran between Hull and Antwerp, Ghent and Dunkirk. [2]
One tug, Stranton, used at West Hartlepool Dock was requisitioned by the Admiralty during the First World War but was lost at sea in January 1915.
A comprehensive list of NER locomotives: Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway.
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The NER originally operated with short four and six wheeled coaches with a fixed wheelbase. From these were developed the standard 32-foot (9.8 m) six-wheeled, low elliptical roofed coaches which were built in their thousands around the 1880s. One variety alone, the diagram 15, five compartment, full 3rd class, numbered around a thousand. The NER started building bogie stock for general service use in 1894, 52-foot (16 m) clerestories for general use with a 45-foot (14 m) variation built for use on the tightly curved line from Malton to Whitby. There were also a series of 49-foot (15 m) low ark roofed bogie coaches (with birdcage brakes) for use on the coast line north of Scarborough. Coach manufacture moved to high arched roof vehicles but with substantially the same body design in the early 1900s.
The NER had limited need for vestibuled coaches but from 1900 built a series of vestibuled, corridor coaches with British Standard gangways, for their longer distance services. The company introduced clerestory corridor dining trains on services between London and Edinburgh. The initial trial was run between York and Newcastle in 1 hour 30 minutes on 30 July 1900. [33] The new train consisted of eight coaches and was 499.5 feet (152.2 m) long (excluding the engine), and had seating for 50 first-class and 211 third-class passengers. At the same time they built (in conjunction with their partners) similar coaches for the East Coast Joint Stock (GNR/NER/NBR) and the Great Northern and North Eastern Joint Stock.
All NER coach building was concentrated at their York Carriage Works, which went on to be the main LNER carriage works after grouping.
With the introduction of the standard 32-foot (9.8 m) 6-wheeled coaches NER carriage livery was standardised as 'deep crimson' (a deeper colour with more blue in it than that used by the Midland Railway), lined with cream edged on both sides with a thin vermillion line. For a time the cream was replaced with gold leaf. Lettering ('N.E.R.' or when there was sufficient space 'North Eastern Railway' in full, together with 'First', 'Third' and 'Luggage Compt.' on the appropriate door) and numbering; was in strongly serifed characters, blocked and shaded to give a 3D effect.
The NER's bogie coach building programme was such that, almost unique amongst pre-grouping railways, they had sufficient bogie coaches to cover normal service trains; six wheel coaches were reserved for strengthening and excursion trains.
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At that time, it was divided into the new British Railways' Eastern Region, North Eastern Region, and partially the Scottish Region.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darlington and Stockton in County Durham, and was officially opened on 27 September 1825. The movement of coal to ships rapidly became a lucrative business, and the line was soon extended to a new port at Middlesbrough. While coal waggons were hauled by steam locomotives from the start, passengers were carried in coaches drawn by horses until carriages hauled by steam locomotives were introduced in 1833.
The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile long (632 km) electrified railway between its northern terminus at Edinburgh Waverley and southern terminus at London King's Cross station. The key towns and cities of Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The main line acts as a 'spine' for several diverging branches, serving destinations such as Cambridge, Leeds, Hull, Sunderland and Lincoln, all with direct services to London. In addition, a few ECML services extend beyond Edinburgh to serve Glasgow Central, although the principal London-Glasgow route is the West Coast Main Line (WCML).
Newcastle station is a railway station in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom. It is located on the East Coast Main Line, around 268 miles (432 km) north of London King's Cross. It is the primary national rail station serving Newcastle upon Tyne and is an interchange for local services provided by the Tyne and Wear Metro network whose Central Station is situated beneath the national rail station. It is the busiest station in Tyne & Wear, as well as the busiest in North East England.
The Wensleydale Railway is a heritage railway in Wensleydale and Lower Swaledale in North Yorkshire, England. It was built in stages by different railway companies and originally extended to Garsdale railway station on the Settle-Carlisle line. Since 2003, the remaining line has been run as a heritage railway. The line runs 22 miles (35 km) between Northallerton West station, about a fifteen-minute walk from Northallerton station on the East Coast Main Line, and Redmire.
The Durham Coast Line is an approximately 39.5-mile (63.6 km) railway line running between Newcastle and Middlesbrough in North East England. Heavy rail passenger services, predominantly operated Northern Trains, and some freight services operate over the whole length of the line; it provides an important diversionary route at times when the East Coast Main Line is closed. Light rail services of the Tyne and Wear Metro's Green Line also operate over the same tracks between a junction just south of Sunderland station and Pelaw Junction.
Darlington railway station is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line, serving the town of Darlington in County Durham, England. It is 232 miles 50 chains north of London King's Cross. It is situated between Northallerton to the south and Durham to the north. Its three-letter station code is DAR.
The North Eastern Railway (NER) Class P3, classified J27 by the LNER, is a class of 0-6-0 steam locomotive. The P3 Class was designed by Wilson Worsdell and was a relatively minor modification of the existing North Eastern Railway Class P2. The most significant change was a deeper firebox with shallower sloping fire grate. This was achieved by raising the boiler slightly, and by reducing the clearance between the firebox and the rear axle. The P3 Class were a freight engine by nature and used for hauling long trains of freight.
The South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway (SD&LUR) built a railway line linking the Stockton and Darlington Railway near Bishop Auckland with the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway at Tebay, via Barnard Castle, Stainmore Summit and Kirkby Stephen. The line opened in 1861 and became known as the Stainmore Line.
The York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was an English railway company that opened in 1839 connecting York with the Leeds and Selby Railway, and in 1840 extended this line to meet the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds. Its first chairman was the railway financier George Hudson, who had been called the railway king.
The North Eastern Region was a region of British Railways from 1948, whose operating area could be identified by the orange signs and colour schemes that adorned its stations and other railway buildings. It was merged with the Eastern Region in 1967. It was the near direct post-nationalisation descendant of the North Eastern Railway, that had merged with some other companies to form the LNER in 1923.
The NER 901 Class was a class of 2-4-0 steam locomotive of the North Eastern Railway, designed by Edward Fletcher. Between 1872 and 1882 55 of the class were built for the NER.
The Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway was a railway company that built the 6+1⁄2 miles (10.5 km) North Wylam branch or North Wylam loop on the former Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. The loop line opened between 1871 and 1876 and followed the former Wylam waggonway past the cottage where George Stephenson was born. The company was taken over by the North Eastern Railway in 1883.
The York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway (YN&BR) was an English railway company formed in 1847 by the amalgamation of the York and Newcastle Railway as well as the Newcastle and Berwick Railway. Both companies were part of the group of business interests controlled by George Hudson, the so-called Railway King. In collaboration with the York and North Midland Railway and other lines he controlled, he planned that the YN&BR would form the major part of a continuous railway between London and Edinburgh. At this stage the London terminal was Euston Square and the route was through Normanton. This was the genesis of the East Coast Main Line, but much remained to be done before the present-day route was formed, and the London terminus was altered to King's Cross.
The Clarence Railway was an early railway company that operated in north-east England between 1833 and 1853. The railway was built to take coal from mines in County Durham to ports on the River Tees and was a competitor to the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). It suffered financial difficulty soon after it opened because traffic was low and the S&DR charged a high rate for transporting coal to the Clarence, and the company was managed by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners after July 1834. An extension of the Byers Green branch was opened in 1839 by the independent West Durham Railway to serve collieries in Weardale.
Ferryhill railway station was located in Ferryhill, County Durham, Northeast England. It was located on what became the East Coast Main Line between Darlington and Durham, close to the junctions with several former branches, including the extant freight-only Stillington Line to Norton-on-Tees and Stockton.
Hartlepool railway station was a railway station that served the Headland area of Hartlepool in the ceremonial county of Durham, North East England. Though originally built as the coastal terminus of the Hartlepool Dock & Railway in 1839, for most of its life the station was the terminus of a shuttle service from the town's main station in West Hartlepool.
Wellfield railway station was a railway station that served the village of Wingate in County Durham, England. It was built by the North Eastern Railway (NER) on the route of the Hartlepool Dock & Railway (HD&R) to allow interchange between the existing line and their newly opened line from Stockton-on-Tees.
The network of railways in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, England, was constructed by three companies whose lines through the town were built between 1841 and 1852. They were all amalgamated into the North Eastern Railway (NER) which in turn was subsumed into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923 and British Rail in 1948. British Rail closed two lines, the Wensleydale line in 1954 and a section of the Leeds Northern Railway to Harrogate in 1969. The Wensleydale line was retained as a freight branch and resurrected as a heritage railway in 2003 but the line to Harrogate closed completely. Despite closures and rationalisation, the station still is at a major junction on the East Coast Main Line.
Ryhoperailway station was one of two railway stations to have served the village of Ryhope, Tyne & Wear. For much of its existence, it was served by the Durham–Sunderland and Hartlepool–Haswell–Sunderland lines.
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