Lancing carriage and wagon works was a railway carriage and wagon building and maintenance facility in the village of Lancing near Shoreham-by-Sea in the county of

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

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 ...

from 1911 until 1965.

History under the LB&SCR

The cramped situation of

Brighton railway works Brighton railway works (also known as Brighton locomotive works, or just the Brighton works) was one of the earliest railway-owned locomotive repair works, founded in 1840 by the London and Brighton Railway in Brighton, England, and thus pre-dat ...

and the lack of space to expand was a constant problem for the chief engineers of

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR; known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at its ...

(LB&SCR). In 1902 it was decided to move the carriage and wagon works to Lancing to relieve the pressure on Brighton and in 1905 the company purchased land at Lancing to add to its existing holding giving for a works. The works were constructed in 1907–10, with wagon production started in 1909 and carriage production in early 1912 with many employees transferred from Brighton. Because of the rural situation of the new factory the railway operated a special daily train from Brighton for the workforce. This became known familiarly as the ''Lancing Belle''. In 1913

L. B. Billinton Lawson Butzkopfski (or Boskovsky) Billinton (4 February 1882 – 19 November 1954) was the Locomotive Engineer of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1912 until the company became part of the Southern Railway in 1923. He joined the ...

, the Chief Mechanical Engineer, presented proposals to the LB&SCR board to close the

Brighton works Brighton railway works (also known as Brighton locomotive works, or just the Brighton works) was one of the earliest railway-owned locomotive repair works, founded in 1840 by the London and Brighton Railway in Brighton, England, and thus pre-da ...

and concentrate all locomotive building and repair at Lancing, but the advent of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1914 put an end to this plan.

Grouping

Following the merger of the LB&SCR and other railways in southern

to form the Southern Railway as part of the

Railways Act Railways Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used in India, Malaysia and the United Kingdom for legislation relating to railways. List India * The Indian Railways Act, 1890 * The Railways Act, 1989 Malaysia *The Railways Act 1991 *T ...

grouping of 1923, the Lancing works became one of three such facilities owned by the new railway, the others being at Ashford and

Eastleigh Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census. The town lies on the River Itchen, o ...

. The new railway decided to concentrate carriage construction at Lancing and close the carriage works at Ashford. As a result, 500 workmen and their families eventually moved to Lancing. In 1927 a new moving 'assembly line' system was introduced for repairing coaches more efficiently. A plan of the works, dating from 1931, shows large carriage and paint shops, together with smaller shops for springs, frames, wheels, gas and brakes, accumulator cells. There was also a traverser between the roads of the carriage shop, and a separate shop for Pullman cars. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the works was kept busy repairing bomb damaged carriages and wagons and in converting carriages to mobile hospitals to support the army during the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

invasion. The works were also involved in constructing

Bailey bridge A Bailey bridge is a type of portable, pre-fabricated, truss bridge. It was developed in 1940–1941 by the British for military use during the Second World War and saw extensive use by British, Canadian and American military engineering units. A ...

s and the tailplanes for

Airspeed Horsa The Airspeed AS.51 Horsa was a British troop-carrying glider used during the Second World War. It was developed and manufactured by Airspeed Limited, alongside various subcontractors; the type was named after Horsa, the legendary 5th-century c ...

gliders for the invasion.

British Railways and Closure

The works continued to operate after the

nationalisation Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

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 ...

ways (BR) in 1948 and gained a reputation for its efficiency and industrial harmony. By the 1960s over 1500 employees worked at Lancing. In 1962 efforts to rationalise BR's manufacturing capacity resulted in the decision to close Lancing in favour of

Eastleigh railway works Eastleigh Works is a locomotive, carriage and wagon building and repair facility in the town of Eastleigh, in the county of Hampshire in England. History LSWR The London and South Western Railway (LSWR) opened a carriage and wagon works at Eas ...

. Many of those concerned felt the decision to close Lancing rather than Eastleigh was for political rather than economic reasons, due to Eastleigh being a marginal Parliamentary constituency in the 'sixties that the Government of

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

was fearful of losing, whilst Lancing fell within a 'safe' Conservative Parliamentary seat. The run down of the carriage works took place over the next three years, with final closure coming on 25 June 1965.

Subsequent use of the site

West Sussex County Council purchased the site, which became the Churchill Industrial Estate. The original carriage shop remained in 2002, occupied by a furniture manufacturer.

Departmental motive power

The works had a number of small locomotives used for shunting purposes. These included LB&SCR A1/A1X classes nos. DS 680 and 681, a four-wheeled petrol locomotive DS499, and two

SR USA class The SR USA class are some ex-United States Army Transportation Corps S100 Class steam locomotives purchased and adapted by the Southern Railway (SR) after the end of the Second World War to replace the LSWR B4 class then working in Southampton ...

locomotives DS 236 and 237.

References

{{Reflist Railway workshops in Great Britain London, Brighton and South Coast Railway