Crewe Works
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Crewe railway works was set up, beginning in 1840 by the Grand Junction Railway in the town of Crewe, in the county of Cheshire, in the north west of England.
The railway also built 200 cottages establishing a new community in what had been the rural township of Monks Coppenhall. Among the first workers to arrive were those from the old works at Edge Hill producing an increase in the town's population by some 800 men, women and children.
The first locomotive went into service in 1843. By 1846 the demand for space was such that wagon building was moved, first to Edge Hill and Manchester, then to a new works at Earlestown. By 1848 the works employed over 1,000 producing one locomotive a week.
In 1845 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was merged with the Grand Junction. These, in turn, merged in 1846, with the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway to form the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) All four had their own workshops but, in time, locomotive building was concentrated at Crewe.
In 1857 John Ramsbottom became Locomotive Superintendent. He had previously invented the first reliable safety valve and the scoop for picking up water from troughs in the track. He went on to improve the precision and interchangeability of tools and components.
In 1862 locomotive work was transferred from Wolverton. Wolverton became the carriage works, while wagon building was concentrated at Earlestown.
In 1853 it had begun to make its own wrought iron and roll its own rails, and in 1864 installed a Bessemer converter for manufacturing steel. In 1868 it became the first place to use open-hearth furnaces on an industrial scale. It also built its own brickworks.
Production increased steadily and, with the sale to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway of ten 2-4-0 and eighty six 0-6-0 locomotives, privately-owned manufacturers took out an injunction in 1876 to restrain the railway from producing anything but is own needs. (This remained in force until BREL took over in 1974).
In its time it produced many famous locomotives: the Webb 2-4-0 Jumbo class and the compounds, the Whale Experiment and Precursor classes, and the Bowen-Cooke Claughtons. In particular, Whale's 1912 superheated G1 Class 0-8-0 developed from a locomotive introduced by Webb in 1892, lasted, in many cases until the end of steam in 1965.
When the LNWR became part of the LMS it was eclipsed for a while by the former Midland Railway's light, fast, frequent passenger trains. With increasing traffic density, they were increasing in length and greater power was needed without sacrificing speed. In 1932 William Stanier became Chief Mechanical Engineer and set out to rationalise production. Since Crewe had experience with heavier engines and, moreover, its own steel making facilities, he chose it as his main production unit.
There followed the Princesses and Duchesses, along with the Jubilees and the "Black Fives". Crewe produced all the new boilers for the LMS, and all heavy drop stampings and forgings. It also produced most of the heavy steel components for the track and other structures.
During World War II, Crewe produced over 150 Covenanter tanks for the army.
After British Railways was formed, R.A.Riddles introduced the BR standard classes, and Crewe built Britannia and Clan passenger engines and the Class 9 2-10-0 freight locomotives. At the end of steam, it had built over 7000 locomotives in its long career. From 1957 it built a succession of diesel locomotives.
Crewe Works is now (2005) largely owned by Bombardier, who acquired the previous occupier, ADtranz, in 2001. At its height, Crewe Works employed over 20,000 people; now fewer than 1,000 remain on site, with a further 270 redundancies announced in November 2005, and more cutbacks or even closure possible. Current work is largely focused on general maintenance, and the inspection of seriously damaged stock. Much of the site once occupied by the works has been sold off and is now occupied by a supermarket, leisure park, and a large new health centre is planned to be opened in 2007.
References
- Simmons, J., (1986) The Railway in Town and Country, Newton Abott: David and Charles
- Larkin, E.J., Larkin, J.G., (1988) ''The Railway Workshops of Great Britain 1823-1986,' ' Macmillan Press
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