North Eastern Railway (UK) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The North Eastern Railway (NER), was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

railway

Rail transport

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...

company. It was incorporated in 1854, when four existing companies were combined, and was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway

London and North Eastern Railway

The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...

at the Grouping

Railways Act 1921

The Railways Act 1921, also known as the Grouping Act, was an enactment by the British government of David Lloyd George intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, move the railways away from internal competition, and to retain some of the benefits which...

in 1923. Its main line survives to the present day as part of the East Coast Main Line

East Coast Main Line

The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...

between London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

and Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

Introduction

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

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

and Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

, with outposts in Westmorland

Westmorland

Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...

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 Mainline" between London

London

and Edinburgh

Edinburgh

, joining the Great Northern Railway

Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)

The Great Northern Railway was a British railway company established by the Great Northern Railway Act of 1846. On 1 January 1923 the company lost its identity as a constituent of the newly formed London and North Eastern Railway....

near Doncaster

Doncaster

Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...

and the North British Railway

North British Railway

The North British Railway was a Scottish railway company that was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923.-History:...

at Berwick-upon-Tweed

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....

.

Although primarily a Northern English railway, the NER had a short length of line in Scotland, in Roxburghshire

Roxburghshire

Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh is a registration county of Scotland. It borders Dumfries to the west, Selkirk to the north-west, and Berwick to the north. To the south-east it borders Cumbria and Northumberland in England.It was named after the Royal Burgh of Roxburgh...

, 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.

The total length of line owned was 4990 miles (8,030.6 km) and the company's share capital was £82 million. The headquarters were at York and the works at Darlington, Gateshead, York and elsewhere.

Befitting the successor to the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the NER had a reputation for innovation. It was a pioneer in architectural and design matters and in electrification. In its final days it also began the collection that became the Railway Museum at York, now the National Railway Museum

National Railway Museum

The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the British National Museum of Science and Industry and telling the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001...

Constituent parts of the NER

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 parenthesis.

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.

1854

York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway was York and Newcastle Railway (1846-1847) and Newcastle and Darlington Junction Railway (1842-1846)
- Durham Junction Railway (1844)
- Brandling Junction Railway (1845)
- Durham and Sunderland Railway (1846)
- Pontop and South Shields Railway (1846)
  - Stanhope and Tyne Railway
    Stanhope and Tyne Railway
    The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was opened in 1834 from Stanhope, in County Durham, UK, to Tyne Dock in South Shields, via Consett. It originally provided a link between the limestone quarries at Stanhope and coal mines at Stanhope for the production of lime, with an outlet to the Tyne down river of...
    
    (1842)
- Newcastle and Berwick Railway (1847)
  - Newcastle and North Shields Railway (1845)
- Great North of England Railway
  Great North of England Railway
  The Great North of England Railway was an early British railway company. Its main line, opened in 1841 was between York and Darlington, and originally it was planned to extend to Newcastle. In 1850 it was absorbed by the North Eastern Railway ....
  
  (1850)
York and North Midland Railway
York and North Midland Railway
The York and North Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which opened in 1839, connecting York, with the Leeds and Selby Railway and in 1840 with the North Midland Railway at Normanton near Leeds.-Origins:...
- Leeds and Selby Railway
  Leeds and Selby Railway
  The Leeds and Selby Railway was an early British railway company and first mainline railway in Yorkshire. It was opened in 1834.The company was absorbed by the York and North Midland Railway and the line remained in use through the subsequent NER, LNER, BR and post-privatisation periods.As of 2010...
  
  (1844)
- Whitby and Pickering Railway
  Whitby and Pickering Railway
  The Whitby and Pickering Railway was built as the culmination of attempts to halt the gradual decline of the port of Whitby on the east coast of the United Kingdom...
  
  (1845)
- East and West Yorkshire Junction Railway (1852)
Leeds Northern Railway was Leeds and Thirsk Railway (1845-1849)
Malton and Driffield Railway
Malton and Driffield Railway
The Malton and Driffield Railway ran between the Yorkshire towns of Malton and Driffield. It opened in 1853, with stations at Malton, Settrington, North Grimston, Wharram, Burdale, Sledmere and Fimber, Wetwang, Garton, and Driffield...

1857

Deerness Valley Railway
Deerness Valley Railway
The Deerness Valley Railway was an 8-mile long single track branch railway line that ran along the valley of the River Deerness in County Durham, England...
Hartlepool Dock and Railway

1858

North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway

1859

Bedale and Leyburn Railway

1862

the "N.E.R. Foss Island BR" railway line, which appears on the 1860 Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

map near Elmfield College
Elmfield College
Elmfield College, York , originally called "Connexional College" or "Jubilee College" in honour of the Primitive Methodist Silver Jubilee in 1860, was a Primitive Methodist college on the outskirts of Heworth, York, England, near Monk Stray.-Primitive Methodism in York:The college was a national...
Hull and Holderness Railway
Hull and Holderness Railway
The Hull and Holderness Railway was a branch line in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which connected the city of Kingston upon Hull with the North Sea coast at Withernsea.-Background:...
Newcastle and Carlisle Railway
Newcastle and Carlisle Railway
The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, occasionally referred to as the Tyne Valley Line, is a railway line in northern England. The line was built in the 1830s, and links the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in Tyne and Wear with in Cumbria. Formal opening took place on 18 June 1838.The line follows the...
- Blaydon, Gateshead and Hebburn Railway (1839)

1863

Stockton and Darlington Railway
Stockton and Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway , which opened in 1825, was the world's first publicly subscribed passenger railway. It was 26 miles long, and was built in north-eastern England between Witton Park and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, and connected to several collieries near Shildon...
- Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway (1858)
- Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway
  Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway
  The Middlesbrough & Guisborough Railway was a railway line serving the towns of Middlesbrough and Guisborough as well as areas of the Eston Hills in North Yorkshire from 1853 through to 1964.-The Beginning:...
  
  (1858)
- Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway (1858)
- Wear Valley Railway (1858)
  - Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway (1847)
- Eden Valley Railway
  Eden Valley Railway
  The Eden Valley Railway was a railway in Cumbria, England. It ran between Clifton Junction near Penrith and Kirkby Stephen via Appleby-in-Westmorland....
  
  (1862)
- Frosterley and Stanhope Railway (1862)
- South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway (1862)

1865

Cleveland Railway
Cleveland Railway (England)
The Cleveland Railway was a railway line in north-east England running from Normanby near Middlesbrough, via Guisborough through the Eston Hills, to Loftus in East Cleveland. It carried minerals from numerous iron ore mines along its route to the River Tees for shipment to Tyneside and elsewhere...
West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway
- Clarence Railway (1853)
- Stockton and Hartlepool Railway (1853)

1866

Hull and Hornsea Railway
Hull and Hornsea Railway
The Hull and Hornsea Railway was a branch line in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, which connected the city of Kingston upon Hull with the east coast seaside holiday resort of Hornsea.-Early proposals and construction:...

1870

West Durham Railway

1872

Hull and Selby Railway
Hull and Selby Railway
The Hull and Selby Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which opened in 1840, connecting Hull with the Leeds and Selby Railway-Origins:...

1874

Blyth and Tyne Railway

1876

Hexham and Allendale Railway
Hexham and Allendale Railway
The Hexham to Allendale Railway was a single track branch railway line in Northumberland, England, that ran from through the Border Counties Junction to via the stations of , , and .-History:...
Leeds, Castleford and Pontefract Junction Railway

1882

Tees Valley Railway
Tees Valley Railway
The Tees Valley Railway was an eight and three quarter mile long branch railway line that ran between Barnard Castle on the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway line between Bishop Auckland and Kirkby Stephen East, and Middleton-in-Teesdale via three intermediate stations Cotherstone, Romaldkirk...

1883

Hylton, Southwick and Monkwearmouth Railway
Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway

1889'

Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway

1893

Wear Valley Extension Railway

1898

Scarborough & Whitby Railway
Scarborough & Whitby Railway
The Scarborough & Whitby Railway was a railway line from Scarborough to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England, the line followed a scenic route along the Yorkshire coast.It fell victim to the Beeching Axe closing in 1965...

1900

Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway
Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway
The Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway was a light railway in Yorkshire, England.-History:An act of Parliament in 1879 allowed the construction of the Church Fenton, Cawood and Wistow Railway from a junction at Church Fenton through Cawood and Wistow...

1914

Scarborough, Bridlington and West Riding Junction Railway

1922

Hull and Barnsley Railway
Hull and Barnsley Railway
The Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company was opened on 20 July 1885. It had a total projected length of 66 miles but never reached Barnsley, stopping a few miles short at Stairfoot. The name was changed to The Hull and Barnsley Railway in 1905...

Dock Companies

1853

Hartlepool West Harbour and Dock

1857

Hartlepool Dock and Railway

1893

Hull Dock Company

Principal stations

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 by finer set of grand principal stations than any other British railway company, with examples at Alnwick, North Shields, 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. Thankfully the four largest, at Newcastle, Darlington, York and Hull survive in transport use, and Alnwick in non-transport use as (currently) a second hand book warehouse, the others having been demolished during the 1950s/60s state-owned railway era, two (Sunderland and Middlesbrough) following World War 2 blitz damage, the others through sheer wanton disregard for the industrial North East region's architectural heritage.

York station
York railway station
York railway station is a main-line railway station in the city of York, England. It lies on the East Coast Main Line north of London's King's Cross station towards Edinburgh's Waverley Station...

(York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

) was the hub of the system, and the headquarters of the line was located here. The basis for the present station was opened on June 25, 1877. Until the advent of modern signalling, the 295-lever box was the largest manually-worked signal box in Britain.

Newcastle Central station
Newcastle Central station
Newcastle railway station , is the mainline station of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England and is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line. It opened in 1850 and is a Grade I listed building...

(Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

), opened August 29, 1850, became the largest on the NER.

Other principal stations were located at Sunderland

Sunderland station

Sunderland Station is a National Rail and Tyne and Wear Metro station in the city centre of Sunderland, North East England. It is the only station in the country where both heavy rail and light rail services use the same platforms...

, Darlington

Darlington

Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, part of the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It lies on the small River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees, not far from the main river. It is the main population centre in the borough, with a population of 97,838 as of 2001...

and Hull

Kingston upon Hull

Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

. The station at Leeds was a joint undertaking with the London and North Western Railway

London and North Western Railway

The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...

Its architects

The NER was the first railway company in the world to appoint a full-time salaried architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

to work with its chief engineer

Chief Engineer

In marine transportation, the chief engineer is a licensed mariner in charge of the engineering department on a merchant vessel. "Chief engineer" is the official title of someone qualified to oversee the entire engine department; the qualification is colloquially called a "chief's...

in constructing railway facilities. Some of the men appointed were based in, or active in, Darlington

Darlington

Thomas Prosser held the position from 1854 to 1874. He worked in Newcastle
his successor, Benjamin Burleigh, died after only two years in post.
William Peachey, who followed Burleigh for an equally brief period of office, was based in Darlington and his work had more impact in the town. Peachey had been architect to the Stockton and Darlington Railway
Stockton and Darlington Railway
The Stockton and Darlington Railway , which opened in 1825, was the world's first publicly subscribed passenger railway. It was 26 miles long, and was built in north-eastern England between Witton Park and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, and connected to several collieries near Shildon...

, and when this merged into the NER in 1863 was made Darlington section architect. Most of his work was to extend and improve railway buildings, though elsewhere he built the Zetland Hotel
Zetland Hotel
The Zetland Hotel is located on the north east coast of England at Saltburn by the Sea, North Yorkshire. It was designed by William Peachey, architect to the Stockton & Darlington Railway...

at Saltburn
Saltburn-by-the-Sea
Saltburn-by-the-Sea is a seaside resort in the unitary authority of Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. The town is around east of Middlesbrough, and had a population of 5,912 at the 2001 Census.-Old Saltburn:...

(1861-3), and the Royal Station Hotel at York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

(1877-82). He also practised privately and designed a few nonconformist chapels including Grange Road Baptist Chapel in Darlington, 1870-1.
William Bell worked for the NER for fifty years and was chief architect between 1877 and 1914. He designed a few buildings in Darlington as a private practitioner, especially for the Methodists, but his major contribution was as NER architect. Bank Top
Darlington railway station
Darlington railway station, also known as Darlington Bank Top, is the main railway station for the town of Darlington, in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. The station is located on the East Coast Main Line north of London Kings Cross....

(1884-7) is one of the best examples of his station designs, for which he developed a standard system of roof building, and he added various elements to the North Road Engineering works between 1884 and 1910. He also designed the offices of the Mechanical Engineer's Department in Brinkburn Road in 1912. While not quite as splendid as the Headquarters Offices in York, which he designed with Horace Field in 1904, it shows that Bell could adapt his usual style to accommodate the new influences of the Queen Anne revival.
Arthur Pollard and Stephen Wilkinson
Stephen Wilkinson
Stephen Wilkinson may refer to:*Stephen Wilkinson , choral conductor*Stephen Wilkinson, British music producer known as Bibio...

then each filled the position of chief architect briefly, before the merger of 1923 into the LNER led to the abolition of the department.

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.

Electrified lines

The NER was almost the first main line rail company in Britain to adopt electric traction - the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways...

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

Tyneside Electrics

The Tyneside Electrics refers to the suburban railways on Tyneside that were electrified by the North Eastern Railway and the London and North Eastern Railway. The North Tyneside loop was electrified from 1904 onwards and formed one of the earliest suburban electric networks, the South Tyneside...

and totalled about 30 miles:

Newcastle Central via Wallsend
Wallsend
Wallsend is an area in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. Wallsend derives its name as the location of the end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 42,842.-Romans:...

, Whitley Bay
Whitley Bay
Whitley Bay is a town in North Tyneside, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the North Sea coast and has a fine stretch of golden sandy beach forming a bay stretching from St. Mary's Island in the north to Cullercoats in the south...

, Gosforth
Gosforth
Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom, to the north of the city centre. Gosforth constituted an urban district from 1895 to 1974, when it became part of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. It has a population of 23,620...

and New Bridge Street (the Newcastle terminus of the former Blyth & Tyne Railway)
Heaton to Benton
Benton, Newcastle upon Tyne
Benton is a district to the north east of Newcastle upon Tyne. A section of this district is administratively part of the City, but the greater part, which lies inside the Parish of St Bartholomew, Long Benton, is within North Tyneside....

or Backworth via the East Coast Main Line
Riverside Branch from Byker
Byker
Byker is an inner city electoral ward in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in Tyne and Wear, England. It is in the east of the city, south of the Heaton area and north of St Peter's. Byker Metro station serves the area.The area also contains the Byker Wall estate. The population of the ward is...

to Percy Main
Newcastle Quayside Branch

The latter was electrically operated from June 1905 and was a 3/4 mile freight-only line from Trafalgar Yard, Manors

Manors railway station

Manors railway station is located in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is connected to the East Coast Main Line and all trains serving it are operated by Northern Rail...

to Newcastle Quayside Yard.

NB Further extensions taking the electrification to South Shields were carried out in March 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway

London and North Eastern Railway

The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...

The lines were originally electrified at 600v DC using the 3rd rail

Third rail

A third rail is a method of providing electric power to a railway train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway track. It is used typically in a mass transit or rapid transit system, which has alignments in its own corridors, fully or almost...

system, although after 1934 the operating voltage was raised to 630v DC. One the Newcastle Quayside Branch overhead line of tramway type was used for upper and lower yards with 3rd rail in the interconnecting tunnels between the yards.

Traffic

The NER carried a larger tonnage of mineral and coal traffic than any other principal railway.

The NER was a partner (with the North British

North British Railway

The North British Railway was a Scottish railway company that was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923.-History:...

and the Great Northern Railway

Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)

) in the East Coast Joint Stock operation from 1860.

Docks

The company owned the following docks:

The Hull Docks Company (Queens dock, Humber Dock, Railway Dock, Victoria dock, Albert dock, William Wright Dock, St Andrews dock): acquired 1893. Dealt with a large variety of cargoes, including grain, seed, wood and fruit
- King George Dock (opened 1914) - jointly operated with the Hull and Barnsley Railway
  Hull and Barnsley Railway
  The Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company was opened on 20 July 1885. It had a total projected length of 66 miles but never reached Barnsley, stopping a few miles short at Stairfoot. The name was changed to The Hull and Barnsley Railway in 1905...
  
  .
Hartlepool
Hartlepool
Hartlepool is a town and port in North East England.It was founded in the 7th century AD, around the Northumbrian monastery of Hartlepool Abbey. The village grew during the Middle Ages and developed a harbour which served as the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. A railway link from...

Docks: acquired 1865. A large timber trade
Tyne Dock: opened by NER in 1859. Timber and coal exports
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...

Dock: Opened in 1842. Iron and steel exports; and a world-wide trade in other goods.

The NER also owned coal-shipping staithes

Wharf

A wharf or quay is a structure on the shore of a harbor where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers.Such a structure includes one or more berths , and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships.A wharf commonly comprises a fixed...

at Blyth

Blyth, Northumberland

Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately 21 kilometres northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne...

and Dunston-on-Tyne. Its steamboats ran between Hull and Antwerp and other places on the Continent.

Locomotives

A comprehensive list of NER locomotives: Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway.

Coaching stock

The NER originally operated with short four and six wheeled coaches with a fixed wheelbase. From these were developed the standard 32 ft 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 ft clerestories for general use with a 45 ft variation built for use on the tightly curved line from Malton

Malton, North Yorkshire

Malton is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The town is the location of the offices of Ryedale District Council and has a population of around 4,000 people....

to Whitby

Whitby

Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...

. There were also a series of 49 ft 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 1908 built a series of vestibuled, corridor coach

Corridor coach

A corridor coach is a type of railway passenger coach divided into compartments and having a corridor down one side of the coach to allow free movement along the train and between compartments....

es with British Standard gangways, for their longer distance services. At the same time they built (in conjunction with their partners) similar coaches for the East Coast Joint Stock (GNR

Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)

/NER/NBR

North British Railway

The North British Railway was a Scottish railway company that was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923.-History:...

) 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

London and North Eastern Railway

The London and North Eastern Railway was the second-largest of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain...

carriage works after grouping

Railways Act 1921

.

With the introduction of the standard 32 ft 6w coaches NER carriage livery was standardised as 'deep crimson' (a deeper colour with more blue in it than that used by the Midland Railway

Midland Railway

The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish 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 program 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.

Sources

The Railway Year Book for 1912 (Railway Publishing Company)
British Railway Electrics (Ian Allen, 1960 edition)
The Railway Magazine February & March 1923 editions
North Eastern Railway, Its Rise and Development , William Weaver Tomlinson , online 1914 version via www.archive.org
North Eastern Railway, at the LNER Encyclopedia
North Eastern Railway locomotives: McDonnell, the Tennants, Worsdells and Raven

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.