Hopetown Carriage Works, also known as the Stockton and Darlington Railway Carriage Works, was a carriage works of the

Stockton and Darlington Railway The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected coal mining, collieries near with ...

built in 1853 in Hopetown, near

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. It lies on the River Skerne, west of Middlesbrough and south of Durham. Darlington had a population of 107,800 at the 2021 Census, making it a "large town" ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

, England. The works built railway carriages from 1853 to around 1884. Now preserved, it is still used as a museum workshop.

Description

The building was to a design by Joseph Spark, completed by architects ''Ross & Richardson'' of Darlington. It is constructed of coursed squared stone and has a roof of Welsh slate; the building consists of a two storey centre section with Venetian style entrance, with two single storey wings.

History

The building was used for the manufacture and maintenance of two axle railway carriages; there were two internal rail track running the length of the building and wings connected to the main network via a small turntables located in the central two storey building. The central building included lifting facilities (later removed). Construction on the site ended in the 1880s (about 1884.) with the introduction of longer wheelbase bogie vehicles for which the works was unsuited - all carriage manufacture was transferred to the York Railway Works after 1863 under the

NER The Ner is a river in central Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Ru ...

. The building was later used as a store, and to repair wagons, as well as being used as a rifle range by the railway company. In the 1980s the site and building was acquired by

Darlington Borough Council The Borough of Darlington is a unitary authority area with borough status in County Durham, England. Since 1997 Darlington Borough Council has been a unitary authority; it is independent from Durham County Council. It is named after its largest ...

and became part of the

Darlington Railway Centre and Museum Hopetown Darlington, previously known as Head of Steam and formerly known as the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, is a railway museum located on the 1825 route of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the world's first steam-powere ...

. The building was Grade II listed in 1986.

Current use

The

A1 Steam Locomotive Trust The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust is a Darlington, England based charitable trust formed in 1990 for the primary purpose of completing the next stage of the locomotive heritage movement, the building of a new steam locomotive from scratch (i.e. no ...

, constructors of the new locomotive 60163 Tornado took over the tenancy buildings east wing in 1995. The North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group (NELPG) took over the west wing in 2002. The New Build

LNER Class P2 The London and North Eastern Railway Class P2 was a class of 2-8-2 steam locomotives designed by Sir Nigel Gresley for working heavy express trains over the harsh Edinburgh to Aberdeen Line. As they were to serve on Scottish expresses, they wer ...

, is being built here by the same people that created Tornado. In 2023, after 28 years of building steam locomotives in the works, the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust left the works for a new site in Darlington.

References

Literature

External links