Ashford railway works

Ashford railway works was in the town of Ashford in the county of Kent in England.

History

outh Eastern Railway

Ashford locomotive works was built by the South Eastern Railway on a new convert|185|acre|km2|sing=on site in 1847, replacing an earlier locomotive repair facility at New Cross in London. By 1850 over 130 houses had been built for staff (called Alfred Town by the railway but New Town by everybody else), [Turner (1984), p. 76] The works employed about 600 people in 1851 increasing to about 950 by 1861, and around 1,300 by 1882. [Andrews (2000), p. 76] .A carriage and wagon works was opened on an adjacent 32 acre site in 1850, which had provided all the company's new carriages and wagons.

outh Eastern and Chatham Railway

In 1898 the railway amalgamated with the London Chatham and Dover Railway to become the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (SECR) each of which had its own locomotive works. Ashford was larger and more conveniently sited than Longhedge works and so became the principal locomotive works for the new company, and the latter facility was gradually run down and converted into a subsidiary works.

outhern Railway and British Railways

Following the grouping of the SECR with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the London and South Western Railway to form the Southern Railway on 1 January 1923, most new locomotive and carriage design and construction was transferred to the more modern facilities at Eastleigh Works. Nevertheless, Ashford continued to operate both building and servicing locomotives and wagons until well after the nationalisation of the railways to form British Railways in 1948.

The locomotive workshops eventually closed in 1962, but the wagon works continued for a further two decades producing continental ferry vans, Freightliner vehicles, merry-go-round coal hopper wagons and the Cartic4 articulated car transporter. It became one of BREL's main wagon works, but as trade declined it operated on an ever-decreasing scale until it closed down in 1982.

Locomotive building at Ashford

In 1853 the Locomotive Superintendent James I. Cudworth built the first of ten 'Hastings' class 2-4-0 locomotives there. In 1855 these were followed by two freight engines. (An unusual feature of these was a dual firebox, each side fired alternately.) Over the next twenty years, Cudworth built 53 freight locomotives at Ashford and around 80 larger ones with six foot driving wheels, plus the first eight of his sixteen express passenger locos, the 'Mails', with seven foot drivers. He also produced four classes of 0-6-0 tank locomotives.

In 1878 James Stirling, the brother of Patrick Stirling of the Great Northern Railway took over and introduced a deal of standardisation. He believed in the benefits of the pony truck and produced a class of 4-4-0 with six foot drivers and his '0' class freight with five foot drivers. He also produced over a hundred 0-4-4 tank engines, and in 1898 the 'F' Class.

The first Locomotive, Carriage & Wagon Superintendent for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway was H.S. Wainwright who produced a series of successful and elegant designs at Ashford. Wainwright's tender engines built at Ashford included 0-6-0 freight locomotives of the 'C' class, and the 4-4-0 passenger engines of the 'D' and 'E' classes. His tank engines built at the works included the versatile and long-lived 0-4-4 'H' class, the larger 0-6-4 'J' class and the diminutive 0-6-0 tank engines of the 'P' class. Wainwright was followed by R.E.L.Maunsell, who introduced the ultimately unsuccessful 'K' class 2-6-4 mixed traffic tank locomotives (which were later rebuilt into 2-6-0 tender locomotives), and the useful 'N' class 2-6-0 mixed traffic locomotives in 1917.

However, more of the 'N' class locomotives were produced at the works, and parts for 'K' class locos that were assembled by Armstrong Whitworth of Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1942 the works also built twenty of the Bulleid 'Q1' class 0-6-0, the remainder being built at Brighton Works. During the later war years the works also built a number of the LMSR Stanier type 2-8-0 freight locomotives for the War Department. The last of the 639 steam locomotives built there was LMSR 2-8-0 No. 8674.

In 1937 it was involved with in the English Electric company in the construction of three experimental diesel-electric shunters and after the war, Ashford works continued manufacturing a further series of 350h.p. 0-6-0 diesel-electric shunters. Under British Railways Ashford works built the first two of the Southern Region prototype 1Co-Co1 diesel electric locomotives of the D16/2 class numbered 10201 and 10202 in 1951. In 1962 all locomotive production and repairs were moved to Eastleigh.

Notes

References

* Andrews, Frank W. G. (2000) 'Employment on the railways in east Kent, 1841-1914', "Journal of Transport History", March, 2000
* 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
*Larkin, Edgar (1992) "An illustrated history of British Railway Workshops”, Oxford: Oxford Publishing Co., 184 p., ISBN 0-86093-503-5
* Bradley, D.L., (1980) "The locomotive history of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway," Railway Correspondence & Travel Society
* Turner, G. (1984), "Ashford: the coming of the railway," Maidstone.