Crewe Works
The erecting shop at theLondon & North Western Railway Crewe Works,c. 1890
Operated	1840-present
Location	Crewe, Cheshire
Coordinates	53°06′N2°28′W / 53.10°N 2.46°W /53.10; -2.46
Industry	Railways Rolling stock manufacture
Products	Steam locomotives

Crewe Works is a Britishrailway engineering facility located in the town ofCrewe, Cheshire. The works, which was originally opened by theGrand Junction Railway in March 1843, employed around 7,000 to 8,000 workers at its peak. In the 1980s much of the engineering works were closed. Most of the site has been redeveloped, but the remaining parts are owned and operated byAlstom.

During the late 19th century, theLondon and North Western Railway used Crewe Works to produce many famous locomotives such as theWebb2-4-0Jumbo class and thecompounds, theWhaleExperiment andPrecursor classes, and theBowen-CookeClaughtons. In particular, Whale's 1912superheatedG1 Class0-8-0 developed from a locomotive introduced by Webb in 1892, lasted, in many cases until 1964, near the end of steam in 1968.

Aftergrouping, the works were taken over byLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway which was the successor to the LNWR. It was during this period that the works reached its zenith in size and output. Creating notable steam engines such asSir William Stanier's locomotives as well as the'Jubilee' andClass 5 4-6-0s, the'Princess Royal' and the'Princess Coronation' 4-6-2s.

The works continued to produce engines underBritish Railways such as theBritannia 4-6-2s and theFranco-Crosti boilered Class 9 freight locomotives. In the 1980s, a large part of the works was sold for redevelopment. Due to the scale of the works, it had its own internal narrow gauge tramway, theCrewe Works Railway, which was used from 1862 until 1932.

Access to Crewe Works[1] (Present)
Legend
from Mainline and Basic Layout
West toChester  A532  (Merrill's Bridge, West Street) Traverser Crewe Electric Depot (on opposite side) Old bridge from Electric Depot now removed East toCrewe Station
This diagram: view talk edit

The directors of the Grand Junction Railway determined to construct a works on a 3 acres (12,000 m²) site at Crewe in 1840 with the first locomotive, No. 32Tamerlane completed in October 1843.^[2] By 1846, the demand for space was such that wagon building was moved, first toEdge Hill andManchester, then to a new works atEarlestown. By 1848, the works employed over 1,000 producing one locomotive a week.

In 1845, theLiverpool and Manchester Railway was merged with the Grand Junction. These, in turn, merged in 1846, with theLondon and Birmingham Railway and theManchester and Birmingham Railway to form theLondon 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 reliablesafety 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 fromWolverton. Wolverton became the carriage works, while wagon building was concentrated atEarlestown.

In 1853, Crewe had begun to make its ownwrought iron and roll its own rails, and in 1864 installed aBessemer converter for manufacturingsteel. In 1868 it became the first place to useopen-hearth furnaces on an industrial scale. It also built its ownbrickworks. Later the works was fitted with twoelectric arc furnaces.

Production increased steadily and, with the sale to theLancashire and Yorkshire Railway of ten2-4-0 and eighty six0-6-0 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 untilBritish Rail Engineering Limited was established in 1969.

By 1920 Crewe Works had grown into a poorly laid-out establishment with nine separate erecting shops, four of which could only handle smaller locomotives, and the LNWR sanctioned plans for a new large erecting shop which placed on hold until revised and implemented later by the LMS.^[3]

When the LNWR became part of theLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1923, its passenger locomotives were eclipsed by those of the formerMidland 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.^{[citation needed]}

There followed thePrincesses andDuchesses, along with theJubilees 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. The 1935 documentaryNo. 6207; A Study in Steel about the construction of an LMS Princess Royal Class engine was filmed at the works.^[4]

DuringWorld War II, Crewe produced over 150Covenanter tanks for the army.

AfterBritish Railways (BR) was formed in 1948,Robert Riddles introduced theBR standard classes, and Crewe builtBritannia andClan mixed traffic engines and some of theClass 9F freight locomotives. The last steam locomotive built at Crewe, Class 9F number 92250, was completed in December 1958. Crewe Works built 7,331 steam locomotives.^[5]

Diesel production commenced, withD5030 the first main line example completed in 1959.^[6] The final diesel locomotives built at Crewe Works were theClass 56 with the last completed in 1984, while the final class of electric locomotives were theClass 91 with the last completed in 1991.^[7]

Crewe Works became a part ofBritish Rail Engineering Limited when the former BR Workshops were set up as a separate business in 1969 and was privatised in 1989. In the mid-1980s, much of the Crewe Works site was cleared and sold for major redevelopment. Around this time, British Rail Engineering Limited was sold toASEA Brown-Boveri, which merged withDaimler Benz in 1996 to formAdtranz. Adtranz was itself taken over byBombardier in 2001.^[8] Via thesale of Bombardier Transportation to Alstom in January 2021 the plant became part of Alstom UK & Ireland.^{[citation needed]}

At its height, Crewe Works employed between 7,000 and 8,000 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. In 2019 another part of Crewe Works was demolished for a new housing estate.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2021 the contract for delivery ofHS2 rolling stock was awarded to a partnership between Hitachi Rail and Alstom. Alstom's share in manufacturing of the 54 trains will take place atDerby Litchurch Lane Works and Crewe Works. All thebogies, which house thewheelsets, will be both assembled and maintained at Alstom's Crewe facility.^[9][10]

Citations

Bibliography

• Official website

• Locomotive manufacturers of the United Kingdom
• Railway workshops in Great Britain
• Buildings and structures in Crewe
• Bombardier Transportation

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