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North Eastern Railway (UK)
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Everything about North Eastern Railway Uk totally explainedThe North Eastern Railway (NER), unlike many other of the pre-Grouping companies, had a relatively compact territory, having the district it covered to itself. That district extended through Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland, with outposts in Westmorland and Cumberland. It formed the middle link between London and Edinburgh, joining the Great Northern Railway near Doncaster and the North British Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Incorporation took place in 1854, when four existing companies were combined.
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.
1854
Dock Companies
1853
Hartlepool West Harbour and Dock
1857
Hartlepool Dock and Railway
1893
Hull Docks
Principal stations
York station (York) 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), opened August 29 1850, became the largest on the NER.
Other principal stations were located at Sunderland, Darlington and Hull. The station at Leeds was a joint undertaking with the London and North Western Railway.
The NER was the first railway company in the world to appoint a full-time salaried architect to work with its chief engineer in constructing railway facilities. Some of the men appointed were based in, or active in, 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, 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 at Saltburn (1861-3), and the Royal Station Hotel at York (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 (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 then each filled the position of chief architect briefly, before the merger of 1923 into the LNER led to the abolition of the department.
The NER was the first main line rail company in Britain to adopt electric traction (the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway followed about one week later). The lines converted were known as Tyneside Electrics:
Newcastle Central via Wallsend and Whitley Bay to Gosforth
Newcastle Central to Benton
the Riverside Loop from Byker to Percy Main
NB Further extensions were carried out in 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway
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 and the Great Northern Railway) in the East Coast Joint Stock operation from 1860.
Docks
The company owned the following docks:
Hull Docks: acquired 1893. Dealt with a large variety of cargoes, including grain, seed and fruit
Hartlepool Docks: acquired 1865. A large timber trade
Tyne Dock: opened by NER in 1859. Timber and coal exports
Middlesbrough Dock: Opened in 1842. Iron and steel exports; and a world-wide trade in other goods.
The NER also owned coal-shipping staithes at Blyth and Dunston-on-Tyne.
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 32ft 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, 52ft clerestories for general use with a 45ft variation built for use on the tightly curved line from Malton to Whitby. There were also a series of 49ft 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 coaches 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/NER/NBR) 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 carriage works after grouping.
With the introduction of the standard 32ft 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), 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'd sufficient bogie coaches to cover normal service trains; six wheel coaches were reserved for strengthening and exursion trains.
References used
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; by W.W.Tomlinson (David & Charles 1967 reprint of 1914 original)
North Eastern Railway, Its Rise and Development; by W.W.Tomlinson 1914 original available here
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