Catalogue description The Nine Elms Locomotive Works collection of railway photographs

The collection comprises photographs of newly completed locomotives; engines decorated for special occasions; Eastleigh Works and running shed; stations, including Waterloo; signalling; the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway; Waterloo & City rolling stock and a view of the NER headquarters in York.

Reference prints of many of these negatives are available for consultation in the Reading Room.

Nine Elms Locomotive Works, London & South Western Railway

• Railway transport

The first locomotive, a 2-2-2 single named 'Eagle', was built at the London & South Western Railway's Nine Elms works in 1843. At its peak the works employed about 2,400 men, each year building some thirty locomotives and carrying out maintenance work on a further 400 engines. The Nine Elms site, however, was too cramped to meet all the company's needs and could not be expanded because it was hemmed in by the LSWR's lines into Waterloo Station. In 1891, therefore, carriage production was transferred to Eastleigh in Hampshire, and in June 1908 the last locomotive was built at Nine Elms. A new, more efficient locomotive works was opened in 1910 at Eastleigh. It incorporated some of the Nine Elms buildings, which were re-erected on the site, and machine tools that had been transferred from London were also used in the new works. 832 locomotives had been built at Nine Elms, and on the closure of the works the site became a major depot.