Catalogue description Doncaster Works official photographs

This collection represents the work of generations of official photographers, and includes images of locomotive, carriage and wagon construction, together with views of road vehicles and war work. The photographs are mostly 8½ x 6½ ins glass plates that generally produce high quality prints.

Doncaster Works

Handwritten registers ordered chronologically, listing images in numbered sequences. Large numbers of reference prints are available for consultation in the Reading Room.

Construction of a locomotive and a carriage works for the Great Northern Railway Company began at two sites in Doncaster in 1853, and in 1889 these were followed by a wagon works, which was built a short distance away.

The first engines were manufactured at Doncaster in 1866 and in the years that followed many famous locomotives were built and serviced at the works, such as Stirling's Singles and, in LNER days, Gresley's A4 Pacifics, including the record-breaking 'Mallard'. Following nationalisation the works turned out British Railways Standard locomotives and built its last steam engine in 1957. Doncaster continued to produce electric and diesel engines until 1987, when the Works was converted to serve as a maintenance depot.

The Carriage Works produced its first vehicles in 1866, and built all types of carriage, including the UK's first dining car, together with sleeping cars, kitchen cars and the carriages for the LNER's 'Flying Scotsman' service. Production ceased in 1960, when the Works turned to maintenance. The Carriage Works was privatised in 1987.

The Wagon Works built vehicles from its opening until the GNR was absorbed by the LNER in 1923, and from then on concentrated on repairs. The site was closed in 1965, when wagon maintenance work was transferred to the Carriage Works.