The Midland Railway Sheds at Carnforth. The first Midland Railway shed consisted of a dead end single road building of sufficient length to hold two small locomotives together with an adjoining turntable road with a 42ft turntable. It was sited just beyond the River Keer viaduct and was connected to the Furness and Midland Joint Railway a few yards east of the Junction with the Furness Railway. The precise date of its opening has not been established but it must have been shortly after the opening of the Furness and Midland Joint Railway in 1867 The first locomotive shed was replaced by a second locomotive shed opened in 1874 on the north side of the Furness and Midland Railway line. The second shed was sited about one mile further to the East than the first shed. Access to the shed was from the 1819 Garstang and Heron Syke Trust Road at a point where the Furness and Midland Joint Railway crossed the Road on a skew bridge. The shed was built to service the Midland Railway engines being used on the Irish boat trains running between Leeds and Barrow and the increasing goods traffic to Yorkshire from the Furness lines and the Ironworks. At that time all through traffic to and from the Furnes lines changed engines at F&M junction. The locomotive shed building was 180 feet square and along with the ancillary buildings was built to a standard Midland Railway design. The shed and other ancillary buildings were substantially constructed in red brick with round window heads and red sandstone sills. All the window glass was inset in a diamond pattern in the metal window frames and the gutters at the roofline were supported on a cornice made from moulded bricks. Red brick was specified by the Midland Railway engineering department and brought in by rail from their suppliers. Red brick was not a traditional building material in Carnforth at the time of construction and the shed may well have been one of the first buildings in the area to use it The shed was a traditional Midland Railway square round house, a layout adopted by the Midland Railway for all its major locomotive sheds. Inside it had 24 roads radiating from a central 42 ft turntable, the longer roads could hold one large or two small locomotives. A set of shear-legs was installed on one of the roads for lifting one end of a locomotive for maintenance and repair. A smithy a sand-drying house with a chimney and stores, mess room and shed foreman’s office were conveniently placed around the outside walls. A tank house with a large water tank with a joiner’s shop beneath was sited near to the shed. A through road covered coal stage was installed on the line leading into or out of the shed. The shed was connected at its West End with both the up and down lines of the Furness and Midland Joint Railway and controlled by the "Engine Shed" Midland Railway signal box. In 1920 sixty-one locomotives were allocated to the shed over half being small Midland Railway standard 0-6-0 goods engines. These engines would have been rostered for general goods traffic to Yorkshire, pig iron traffic form the Ironworks to South Yorkshire and local iron ore traffic from Heysham docks to the Ironworks. The Midlands Railway also had a number of passenger engines for working the Wennington and Leeds trains and a few small tank engines for trip work and shunting duties around Carnforth. When the Furness Railway shed closed in 1927 the locomotives and the engine men and sheds staff were split up such that the passenger workings went to the L&NWR shed and the goods workings to the Midland Shed. The Midland Railway shed and signal box closed in1944 and all of its duties were transferred to the new LMS Carnforth shed The tank house and shed still stand and are in use today as industrial units. [ Top ] [ Home ] [ webmaster(at)carnforth-station.co.uk ]
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