Crewe Works

The first locomotive built at Crewe 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 between the tracks. 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, Crewe 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. Later the works was fitted with two electric arc furnaces.

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 its own needs. This remained in force until British Rail Engineering Limited was established in 1969.

Rebuilt Royal Scot Class No. 46123 Royal Irish Fusilers receiving attention at Crewe Works with other locomotives

When the LNWR became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1923, its passenger locomotives were eclipsed by those of the former Midland Railway, which offered light, fast and frequent services. As traffic density increased, there was a need for longer trains and more powerful locomotives to haul them. In 1932, William Stanier became Chief Mechanical Engineer and set out to rationalise production. Since Crewe had experience with heavier locomotives and had its own steel making facilities, he chose it as his main production location.

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.

Stanier 8F 2-8-0 on the Crewe Works internal railway in 1948

Bowen-Cooke Class G2a 0-8-0
No. 48932, built at Crewe in 1902 as a Webb Class B four-cylinder loco, was later rebuilt to two-cylinder status. Buxton shed August 1960.

After British Railways (BR) was formed in 1948, Robert Riddles introduced the BR standard classes, and Crewe built Britannia and Clan mixed traffic engines and some of the Class 9 freight locomotives. The last steam locomotive built at Crewe, Class 9 number 92250, was completed in December 1958. Crewe Works built 7,331 steam locomotives.[1]

Diesel production commenced, with D5030 the first main line example completed in 1959.[2] The final diesel locomotives built at Crewe Works were the Class 56 with the last completed in 1984, while the final class of electric locomotives were the Class 91 with the last completed in 1991.[3]

Much of the site at Crewe was cleared in a major redevelopment in the mid 1980s.

Crewe Works became a part of British Rail Engineering Limited when the former BR Workshops were set up as a separate business in 1969 and was privatised in 1989. This company was soon sold to ASEA Brown-Boveri, which merged with Daimler Benz in 1996 to form Adtranz. Adtranz was itself taken over by Bombardier in 2001.[4]

At its height, Crewe Works employed over 20,000 people; in 2005 fewer than 1,000 remained on site, with a further 270 redundancies announced in November of that year 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.