Motive Power Depot - Engine Sheds in The Steam Era

Engine Sheds in The Steam Era

Engine sheds could be found in many towns and cities as well as in rural locations. They were built by the railway companies to provide accommodation for their locomotives that provided their local train services. Each engine shed would have an allocation of locomotives that would reflect the duties carried out by that depot. Most depots had a mixture of passenger, freight and shunting locomotives but some such as Mexborough had predominantly freight locomotives reflecting the industrial nature of that area in South Yorkshire. Others, such as Kings Cross engine shed in London, predominantly provided locomotives for passenger workings.

Nearly all depots at this time had a number of shunting locomotives. Normally 0-4-0T or 0-6-0T tank engines, these would be allocated to shunt turns and could be found in goods yards, carriage sidings, goods depots and docks.

It should be noted that many large rail connected industrial sites also had engine sheds primarily using shunting locomotives.

Read more about this topic:  Motive Power Depot

Famous quotes containing the words engine, sheds, steam and/or era:

    There is a small steam engine in his brain which not only sets the cerebral mass in motion, but keeps the owner in hot water.
    —Unknown. New York Weekly Mirror (July 5, 1845)

    Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    The windows were then closed and the steam turned on. There was a sign up saying that no one could smoke, but you couldn’t help it. You were lucky if you didn’t burst into flames.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)

    The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the transpolitical is that of anomaly: an aberration of no consequence, contemporaneous with the event of no consequence.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)