Bow railway works was at Bow, an area of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England, in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

. It was built in 1853 by the

North London Railway The North London Railway (NLR) company had lines connecting the northern suburbs of London with the East and West India Docks further east. The main east to west route is now part of London Overground's North London Line. Other NLR lines fell ...

. Bow railway works was built by the North London Railway in 1853 on a site which also included a sizeable wagon repair shop, under the direction of William Adams the locomotive superintendent. At first it was used for the repair of locomotives purchased from outside contractors, but from 1860 it was enlarged to enable it to undertake locomotive construction. The first locomotive completed was 4-4-0T No. 43 which incorporated the

Adams bogie The Adams axle is a form of radial axle for rail locomotives that enable them to negotiate curves more easily. It was invented by William Bridges Adams and patented in 1865. The invention uses axle boxes that slide on an arc in shaped horn bloc ...

, to improve high-speed stability. The last steam locomotive to be built at Bow was 4-4-0T No. 4 in 1906. A new erecting shop was built in 1882 under Adams' successor J.C. Park, who continued producing 4-4-0 and

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

tank engines for the railway. At its height the workshops were employing 750 men. Between 1879 and 1901, thirty 0-6-0 tanks designed by J.C.Park were built, of which fourteen lasted until

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ownership, the last being taken out of service in 1958 some seventy years old.

Merger and grouping

In 1908 the North London Railway was merged with the

London and North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lo ...

, and thereafter the works reverted to locomotive repairs. The North London Railway line was included in the L.N.W.R. electrification scheme between 1914 and 1923. The L.N.W.R. was in turn grouped with other railways in North west

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

to form the

London Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally ...

on 1 January 1923. Bow works was then the smallest of fifteen workshops owned by that company, but was one of the newest and best equipped. From 1927 it also became responsible for repairs to locomotives from the former

London, Tilbury and Southend Railway The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway (LT&SR), was a British railway company, whose network connected Fenchurch Street railway station, Fenchurch Street station, in central London, with destinations in east London and Essex, including , , , T ...

following the closure of the repair facility at Plaistow. In the 1930s the works developed and manufactured the Hudd automatic train warning system for the L.T.S.R., which later led to a British Railways (BR) team from the national headquarters setting up in Bow to develop BR's standard

Automatic Warning System The Automatic Warning System (AWS) was introduced in the 1950s in the United Kingdom to provide a train driver with an audible warning and visual reminder that they were approaching a distant signal at caution. Its operation was later extended t ...

. The workshop, was badly damaged during the blitz and the wagon workshop destroyed. In 1956 the workshop repaired diesel-electric locomotives for the nearby motive power depot at Devons Road (the first in the U.K. to become all-diesel). The works closed in 1960, and the workload was transferred to

Derby Works The Derby Works comprised a number of British manufacturing facilities designing and building locomotives and rolling stock in Derby, England. The first of these was a group of three maintenance sheds opened around 1840 behind Derby station. Th ...

References

Sources

*Larkin, Edgar (1992) ''An illustrated history of British Railway Workshops'', Oxford: Oxford Publishing Co., 184 p., {{coord, 51.5268, -0.0190, type:landmark_region:GB-TWH, display=title Railway workshops in Great Britain North London Railway Bow, London