History
Wrexham's Croes Newydd locomotive shed was the last of the GWR 'northlight' designs, being a roundhouse and depending on a central turntable for access. It was built by the Great Western Railway and opened in 1902, to replace outdated facilities at Wheatsheaf junction. It was located in the centre of a large fork junction, with the Chester to Shrewsbury line running along one edge, and the branch being the Wrexham and Minera Branch. The sheds also featured a GWR combined Water tower and coaling stage, of a design which was later to become standardised.
While the 'northlight' design was meant to allow maximum sunlight, the skylight windows quickly became sooted and black, reducing lighting conditions. The sheds stored several locomotives known as "workhorses" as they did the goods work. The last of these locomotives were the BR Standard 9F locomotives, the last of the British steam locomotives.
Under the cutbacks of BR in the 1960s, the shed finally closed in 1967.
Read more about this topic: Croes Newydd
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)