Let’s Make A Train (1)

Litchurch Lane is an unassuming turn off Osmaston Road, not too far from the centre of Derby.

It used to be a convenient “rat run” to get you across to London Road; the Lane is seen on the map below as the yellow wiggly bit!

Sadly for the rats, they can no longer run, as the London Road end has been blocked off and this bit of the Lane is now a footpath only.

The building of the new London Road bridge …

… was the excuse to deprive knowledgeble commuters of this vital short cut.

But Litchurch Lane has a metaphorical bogie brake van packed full of history.

When, in 1840, the North Midland Railway, the Midland Counties Railway and the Birmingham and Derby Railway merged to form the Midland Railway, it was natural that Derby would become the company’s headquarters. Not only that, it would be the site for its locomotive works and, later, for its carriage and wagon works.

This fbb edited map pulls it all together.

The Midland’s two main lines (RED) split at Derby with one going to Birmingham and Bristol and the other to Leicester and London. To the north of the London tracks was developed the Loco works. It was huge.

It made loadsa locos.

Between London Road and Osmaston Road, the Wagon and Carriage Works was developed. It was equally huge.

There is very little left of the loco works today, being handed over to light industry and housing. But the carriage works remains and is still producing carriages!

Passenger coaches are no longer built on a massive steel underframe …

… with a wooden frame for the body …

… and wood for the cladding.

Later, the cladding and then the frame became steel; and the railway carriage that many of us know and loved evolved.

The carriage works became part of The London Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923 when the national railways were grouped into five giant companies. The Midland had merged with the London and North Western company, but the Derby operation remained firmly in place. The business transferred to British Railways on nationalisation from 1st January 1948.

In 1970 an independent company as created to run the former BR engineering works. British Rail Engineering Limited had a variety of logos …