IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Moss Field Place, CREWE, CW1 3ZL

40123, an English Electric type 4 locomotive, succumbs to the cutters torch in Crewe Works after a twenty year career. The type were ordered for the pilot scheme dieselisation of British Railways in 1955 and the first entered service in 1958. Built by Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns, she entered service as D323 in May 1961. She was withdrawn from Haymarket (Edinburgh) shed in 1980. Although partly cut up in this photo, she would hang on for another 9 months before being broken-up completely in February 1983.

This is Class 91024, which now regularly runs in service up and down the East Coast Main Line (ECML). The line-up of locomotives, under construction, started with 91022, which was almost completed. I followed a group of excited enthusiasts as they progressed along the production line, starting with 91022. They almost ran down the line eagerly writing down the numbers of each less finished than the one before. After we passed the just started 91028 I expected to see them huddled around a packet of nuts and bolts desperately searching for the number 91029.

Class 90050 and Class 91020 stand in the works on Crewe Open Day. I'm not quite sure of the correct title for the works, nor its correct grid reference, but I don't think I'm far off with the latter.

The damage to British Rail Class 40 No. 40 189 is obvious. The locomotive was involved in the Weaver Junction crash on 6 August 1975. It was hauling a freight train which was unable to stop due to a lack of brake power, over-ran a signal and collided with another freight train. Seen during the Crewe Works Open Day, 1975. Location within Crewe Works where photographed is a guess.

The Crewe-Chester Railway crosses the image diagonally; the Crewe-Manchester line crosses along the bottom. The large pale, squarish building by the railway in the centre is the Bentley Motors car plant, the long buildings to the lower left of Bentley is the Bombardier train manufacturing plant, and the wooded circle above is Queen's Park.

With an 0-8-0 in front and an 0-6-0 behind, 5'6" 1P 2-4-2T No. 6740 awaits its fate at Crewe Works in 1948. These 2-4-2Ts had been common motive power on LNW branch lines in the previous 50 years or so. A line of locomotives awaiting scrapping seems to have been near the Iron Foundry, but I am uncertain of the precise location in the Works complex.

Heading a line of ex-LNW locomotives awaiting scrap is 0-8-2T No. 7892, which had spent it much of its life shunting in the marshalling yard at Speke, near Liverpool. (See also Image]).

LNWR 2-2-2 3020 Cornwall, dating from 1847 (rebuilt in 1858) alongside a new (in 1975) Class 43 HST at the Crewe Works Open Day. Grid reference approximate.

Crewe Works Open Day, May 2003

This ex-LNW 2F 'Special' 0-6-0 saddle-tank had been so long on the Chief Mechanical Engineer's stock of Works shunters that it retained its LNW No. 3323 and kept it until condemned in 1954.