- For the now-defunct train operating company that ran the InterCity East Coast franchise, see Great North Eastern Railway (Also see: National Express East Coast and East Coast).
The North Eastern Railway (NER), was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854, when four existing companies were combined, and was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923.
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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, County Durham and Northumberland, with outposts in Westmorland 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 and Edinburgh, joining the Great Northern Railway near Doncaster and the North British Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Although primarily an English railway, the NER had a short length of line in Scotland, in Roxburghshire, with stations at Carham and Sprouston. It was also responsible for the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed.[1]
The total length of line owned was 4,990 miles and the company's share capital was £82 million. The headquarters were at York and the works at Darlington, Gateshead, York and elsewhere.[2]
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.
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.[3]
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 (1842)
- Newcastle and Berwick Railway (1847)
- Great North of England Railway (1850)
- York and North Midland Railway
- Leeds and Selby Railway (1844)
- Whitby and Pickering Railway (1845)
- East and West Yorkshire Junction Railway (1852)
- Leeds Northern Railway was Leeds and Thirsk Railway (1845-1849)
- Malton and Driffield Railway
1857
- Dearness Valley Railway
- Hartlepool Dock and Railway
1858
- North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway
1859
- Bedale and Leyburn Railway
1862
- Hull and Holderness Railway
- Newcastle and Carlisle Railway
- Blaydon, Gateshead and Hebburn Railway (1839)
1863
- Stockton and Darlington Railway
- Darlington and Barnard Castle Railway (1858)
- Middlesbrough and Guisborough Railway (1858)
- Middlesbrough and Redcar Railway (1858)
- Wear Valley Railway (1858)
- Bishop Auckland and Weardale Railway (1847)
- Eden Valley Railway (1862)
- Frosterley and Stanhope Railway (1862)
- South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway (1862)
1865
- Cleveland Railway
- West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway
- Clarence Railway (1853)
- Stockton and Hartlepool Railway (1853)
1866
1870
- West Durham Railway
1872
1874
1876
- Hexham and Allendale Railway
- Leeds, Castleford and Pontefract Junction Railway
1882
1883
- Hylton, Southwick and Monkwearmouth Railway
- Scotswood, Newburn and Wylam Railway
1889'
1893
- Wear Valley Extension Railway
1898
1900
- Cawood, Wistow and Selby Light Railway
1914
- Scarborough, Bridlington and West Riding Junction Railway
1922
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.
Its architects
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.
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 the first main line rail company in Britain to adopt electric traction (the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway followed about one week later), with the first stretch of track going live on 29 March 1904. The first experimental cars were built in 1903. The lines converted were known as Tyneside Electrics and totalled about 30 miles[2]:
- Newcastle Central via Wallsend and Whitley Bay to Gosforth
- Newcastle Central to Benton
- the Riverside Loop from Byker to Percy Main
- the short, 3/4 mile freight track from Trafalgar Yard, Manors to Newcastle Quayside Yard
NB Further extensions were carried out in 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway
Lines were electrified at 600v DC using 3rd rail system, although overhead line was used for much of the Quayside branch.
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. Its steamboats ran between Hull and Antwerp and other places on the Continent.[2]
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 had sufficient bogie coaches to cover normal service trains; six wheel coaches were reserved for strengthening and exursion trains.
References
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; by W.W.Tomlinson 1914 original available here
- Harmsworth’s Universal Encyclopedia. 1921.
- Conolly, W. Philip (2004). British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer. Hersham: Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN 0 7110 0320 3.
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