Carlisle Upperby TMD is a former railway

traction maintenance depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine shed ...

situated in

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...

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 ...

. The depot is owned by

DB Cargo UK DB Cargo UK (formerly DB Schenker Rail UK and English, Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS)), is a British rail freight company headquartered in Doncaster, England. The company was established in early 1995 as ''North & South Railways'', successful ...

. The depot was originally of service to steam locomotives (

shed code British Railways shed codes were used to identify the motive power depot, engine sheds that its locomotives and multiple units were allocated to for maintenance purposes. The former London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) alpha-numeric system w ...

12A). The depot code is now CL. The old steam shed used to be known colloquially as "the Lanky", a reference to its origins as the main depot of the Lancaster and Carlisle railway.

History

Constructed by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, the depot passed into

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 u ...

(LMS) ownership as part of the

1923 Grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

. The LMS rebuilt Upperby in 1948, replacing the original shed with a large concrete roundhouse. The LMS also constructed an enginemen's hostel on the hill adjacent to the depot (now the Hilltop Hotel). In the 1960s, Upperby was allocated diesel locomotives including Sulzer Type 2 (later Class 25) and the unsuccessful Metro-Vic Co-Bo Type 2. However, once the new purpose-built diesel depot, Kingmoor TMD was completed, work was transferred there and Upperby closed as a locomotive depot on 1 January 1968.Peter W. Robinson, "Rail Centres: Carlisle" Ian Allan Ltd, 1986. The roundhouse was demolished in 1979, but the remaining buildings continued in use as a carriage maintenance and servicing facility until closure in the early 1990s. When

British Rail 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 ...

was privatised in 1994–7, the disused depot became the property of EWS (now

) as part of a nationwide portfolio of sites which also included the nearby Currock wagon repair depot.

Present day

Upperby is no longer an operational depot, although some sidings are still present and used to store redundant wagons. Part of the land formerly making up the site is now used by

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

for office space and storage of equipment. The former carriage shed was demolished in December 2016.

References

*''Rail Atlas Great Britain & Ireland'', S.K. Baker

External links

A
overhead view
of the depot. Railway depots in England Buildings and structures in Carlisle, Cumbria Rail transport in Cumbria {{England-rail-transport-stub

History

Present day

See also

References

External links