Norwich engine shed was located in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

, England and was opened in 1843. It closed in 1982 and was replaced by a new modern facility at Crown Point.

Early history

Norwich engine shed was adjacent to the station on the south side of the line. It was established in 1843 by the

Yarmouth and Norwich Railway The Yarmouth & Norwich Railway (Y&NR) was the earliest railway in Norfolk, England. It was formed after it became apparent that it would be a number of years before the Eastern Counties Railway would extend their railway into Norfolk. Its Act o ...

and was built and designed by William Marshall. By 1845 the shed was the centre of locomotive maintenance for the

Norfolk Railway The Norfolk Railway was an early railway company that controlled a network of 94 miles around Norwich, England. It was formed in 1845 by the amalgamation of the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway opened in 1844, and the Norwich and Brandon Railway, n ...

.The Yarmouth and Norwich Railway had become part of the Norfolk Railway by this date. By 1848 the site was under the auspices of the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first nine miles at the Lond ...

who further developed the site. The main shed consisted of four through roads one of which dealt with everyday repairs and an adjacent site that dealt with more serious repairs.

Great Eastern Railway

In 1914 the District Locomotive Superintendent was responsible for the shed which at this point employed 260 footplate staff with a further 50 at the various out stations such as Cromer, Mundesley, Sheringham, Dereham, Foulsham and Forncett. The DLS had a running shed foreman and two other foremen who looked after the sheds at Lowestoft and Yarmouth. In addition to the footplate staff there were 120 fitting staff who were under the control of another foreman. These staff were actually located in the adjacent "factory" building where the major repairs were carried out. Like many GER engine sheds a lot of facilities were very basic. Ash (a waste product from the engines) was dropped directly into an area known as the old yard where it was then shovelled into wagons. In the early days coal was unloaded from wagons onto a wooden stage and then loaded manually into the locomotive's tender.This structure is described as "a kind of joke seaside pier" by authors Hawkins and Reeve. It was not until 1915 that the GER supplied a shelter for this work to be carried out but it was not until the 1930s that a mechanised coal plant was supplied. At the end of 1922 the shed at Norwich had an allocation of 119 locomotives being the fourth biggest shed on the Great Eastern behind Stratford (555) Cambridge (178) and Ipswich (131) sheds. The allocation consisted of:

London and North Eastern Railway

Following the grouping Act of 1922 the LNER became responsible for the operation of the shed on 1 January 1923. A March 1936 LNER Locomotive Committee report notes that there were two turntables at Norwich - one a 55-foot diameter example located at the south end of the shed (by Carrow Road) and the other with a diameter of 49 feet 8 inches being located close to Thorpe station. The report recommended replacement of one of these with a 70-foot turntable and also noted the shed was used by 300 engines each week in summer and 210 in winter. This bigger turntable was ordered in 1936 and fitted at the Carrow Road site. Modernization of the facilities in the 1930s saw rationalisation of the works site and general (heavy) repairs ceased in 1934. The facilities of the old factory were still utilised by the engine shed for a number of years however.

British Railways 1948-1982

The service was coded 32A under British Railways this code being used to indicate which locomotives were allocated there. A plan of the shed in the 1950s shows: * Fitting Shop * Smith and Machine shop * Engine Rapair shop * Timber Yard/Store * Water Softening Plant * Stores * Administrative Offices During the final years of steam, responsibility for the operation of the shed fell to shedmaster Bill Harvey. The shed enjoyed a good reputation for its work on steam locomotives at this time. When diesel operation started a fuelling point was established on the east side of the line adjacent to Carrow Road bridge (which spans the station throat). In 1973 the

TOPS Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), S ...

computer system Norwich's depot code changed to NO then later to NR. In mid 1975 the DMU allocation at Norwich consisted of Cravens Class 105 two-car units, Gloucester RCW two car units and Metropolitan Cammell two-car and three-car units. The shunter allocation at this time was still exclusively

British Rail Class 03 The British Rail Class 03 locomotive was, together with the similar Class 04, one of British Railways' most successful 0-6-0 diesel-mechanical shunters. 230 were built at Doncaster and Swindon works between 1957 and 1962, and were numbered D2 ...

. Before closure Norwich was home to a fleet of Class 03 and Class 08 shunters as well as the local DMU fleet which covered the local services and included examples of Class 105 Cravens Units and Class 101 Metropolitan Cammell units. 03103 at Norwich depot

References

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