- TitleElectrical equipment and wiring diagrams including for British Rail Western Region, Mersey Rail and Córas Iompair Éireann
- ReferenceGEC/2/2/4/91
- Production date1955 - 1957
- Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co LtdBiographyBiographyMetropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd was the new trading name given to British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co on 8 September 1919. The predecessor company had sold its controlling share to the Metropolitan Carriage Wagon Co in 1916 in order to gain membership of the Federation of British Industries. In 1919, Vickers acquired the Metropolitan Carriage Wagon Co, along with its controlling share in British Westinghouse, prompting the change in name to Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd. The American owned British Westinghouse had established its English operations at Trafford Park in 1899, and Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd continued on the same site from 8 September 1919. The company was initially known for its electricity generators, later diversifying into the manufacture of steam turbines, switchgear, transformers, electronics and railway traction equipment. The passing of the Electricity (Supply) Act in 1926 provided a boost to the company’s post-war fortunes, with the creation of the National Grid generating demand for the company's products. In 1928, Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd merged with its rival British Thomson Houston Co Ltd, retaining both names for trading purposes. The following year, on 4 January 1929, Associated Electrical Industries Ltd (AEI) acquired Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd and the British Thomson Houston Co Ltd. Again, both trading names were retained, and a fierce rivalry was established between the firms which the parent company was unable to control. In 1931, Sir Felix Pole joined Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd as its new chairman. He oversaw a period of expansion for the company leading into the Second World War. In 1939, seeking a more concise name for the company, the Board of Directors decided upon Metrovicks, which became interchangeable with the official company name of Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd. Under Sir Felix Pole's chairmanship, Metropolitan-Vickers developed new products for the aviation industry and during the war was one of the sites where Lancaster bombers were built. In 1941, the company developed the first British axial-flow jet engine, the Metrovick F.2. Following the Second World War, the company appointed Oliver Lyttelton as chairman, with the aim of increasing the efficiency and productivity of AEI. Despite his success in achieving this aim, Lyttelton was unable to resolve the commercial rivalry between Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd and the British Thomson Houston Co Ltd. During his second period as chairman, from 1954-1963, Lyttelton, now Lord Chandos, oversaw the development by Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd of the first commercial transistor computer, the Metrovick 950. Chandos also resolved to extinguish the competition and internal divisions between Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd and the British Thomson Houston Co Ltd, and both company names ceased to be used from 1 January 1960, with all subsidiaries going on to trade under the name of Associated Electrical Industries Ltd.
- Scope and ContentThe folder contains c 30 paper and waxed linen drawings of electrical equipment and wiring diagrams including for British Rail Western Region, Mersey Rail and Córas Iompair Éireann. Drawing number A2101301.
- Extent1 folder
- Archival historyThis roll of drawings was compiled by Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co Ltd
- Level of descriptionFILE
- Repository nameNational Railway Museum, York
- Trafford Park WorksBiographyBiographyIn 1900 the British Westinghouse Electrical & Manufacturing Co Ltd bought land in Trafford Park and built a factory which went into production in 1902 for the manufacture of mechanical and electrical equipment for the generation, transmission and use of electricity. In 1919, Trafford Park Works became owned by British Westinghouse’s successor, Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company (MV). The main shops, in common with factory construction throughout Trafford Park, were single floor type, with bays 1,000 feet in length, and had direct railway communication with the docks and trunk systems of the country. The main office block was a copy of the Westinghouse building in Pittsburgh, USA and the factory was to the American design and used imported steelwork for construction. Products manufactured at the Works included gas engines, stationary steam engines, electric generators, transformers, switchgear, meters, motors, control gear, and arc lamps. During the First World War, British Westinghouse built some small petrol-electric locomotives for the War Department Light Railways. In 1928 the Works were taken over by Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), which merged Metropolitan-Vickers and British Thomson-Houston, though these two companies continued their own trading names. Traction design and manufacture was always a minority of the workload at Trafford Park with the largest operations generally turbine manufacture. Very few vehicles were built there, and traction machines (i.e. motors, inductors and generators) were largely built in other places – notably at Sheffield or Rugby. Trafford Park traction manufacture was largely that of assembling control gear – contactors, switches, drivers’ controllers, camshaft controllers, relays etc. and building these into frames or equipment boxes for installation in vehicles made elsewhere. An important part of the Trafford Park Works site was the general switchgear operation, mainly for generation or distribution installations. The on-site Switchgear Testing Company was a “testing house” for these products and contributed to testing and development of traction circuit breakers and switchgear. During the Second World War MV acting for the Ministry of Aircraft Production produced more than a thousand Lancaster Bombers in the adjacent Mosley Road building. The company also manufactured war munitions and in the laboratories developed what became known as Radar. In 1959 the newly formed AEI Traction Division established its headquarters at Trafford Park, with a product range that included electric and diesel-electric locomotives; electrical equipment for tram-cars, trolley buses and trolley mining locomotives and traction motors. AEI was taken over by the General Electric Company (GEC) in 1967 whose Witton Works closed in 1969, with the design office and traction manufacture transferred to Trafford Park, as a result of the GEC reorganisation and mergers. GEC Traction Ltd took over the Works in 1972. In 1990 the former Low Voltage Switchgear site at Trafford Park (West Works) was renovated to be the new manufacturing facility for GEC Alsthom Traction, with an electronics workshop, machine shop and plating baths, and an assembly shop for switchgear, equipment cases and power modules. This building was vacated in 1998 when power modules and switchgear was moved to Tarbes in south west France. The Works housed the administrative, commercial and accounting functions, the majority of the design departments and the development section with its associated workshops and laboratories. The manufacturing area was devoted primarily to the production of components of traction control and railway signalling equipment. In 1993, as part of the rationalisation of the equipment group, it was announced that the headquarters of GEC Alsthom Traction would move to Preston, leaving only Power Module design and manufacture at Manchester, with the eventual closing of all activities at Trafford Park in 1998. The iconic original Westinghouse building was demolished and the site is now (2015) largely devoted to container handling and logistics operations.
- Córas Iompair ÉireannBiographyBiographyCóras Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) was formed as a private company under the Transport Act in 1944 and incorporated the Great Southern Railways (GSR) and the Dublin United Transport Company. CIÉ was nationalised and changed to a corporation status under the Transport Act in 1950 by merging with the Grand Canal Company. CIÉ railways became Iarnród Éireann in the mid 1980s.
- British Rail: Western RegionBiographyBiographyRailways in Britain were nationalised under the terms of the Transport Act 1947 which came into effect on 1 January 1948. The Act created the British Transport Commission and the Railway Executive. The Act vested the business and assets of the then existing railway companies in the British Transport Commission. The Railway Executive, a corporate body subordinate to the British Transport Commission, was created to manage and operate the railways. It divided them into six geographical regions, largely based on the areas served by the pre-nationalisation railway companies, one of which was Western Region. It comprised the railway operations in England and Wales of the former Great Western Railway Company with adjustments to eliminate “penetrating lines”. From the former London Midland and Scottish Railway Western Region gained the lines in central and south Wales, the Birmingham-Bristol-Bath line, the Somerset and Dorset Joint line (in part) and from the Southern Railway the lines west of Exeter. It also was assigned Marylebone to Northolt. Sections of the former Great Western Railway lines to Weymouth, the Midland & South West Junction, the Didcot Newbury & Southampton, and Reading – Basingstoke and Westbury – Salisbury were assigned to the new Southern Region. Subsequently Marylebone was transferred out of Western Region. Western Region served the south-west of England, south and central Wales, and the West Midlands. Its principal routes were London Paddington to Bristol, via Reading, Didcot and Swindon, and London Paddington to Birmingham. In Bristol the line divided, one route continuing to the south-west serving Exeter and terminating in Penzance and the other into South Wales, via the Severn Tunnel to Cardiff, Swansea and Milford Haven. There was a more direct route to Exeter through Newbury, Westbury and Taunton. From Didcot a line ran north to Oxford and then divided, the southern route serving Worcester and Wolverhampton, by-passing Birmingham, and the northern route going to Birmingham via Banbury Leamington Spa and Warwick. Western Region also had several cross-country routes including Birmingham to Bristol, and many branch lines, with a dense network serving the valleys of south Wales. Throughout the time Western Region existed, loss-making and underused branch lines were closed, some as early as 1951. Of the cross-country lines, passenger services ceased on the former Midland & South Western Junction in 1961 and freight services were withdrawn between 1964 and 1970. Following the Beeching report in 1962 the Somerset and Dorset line closed in 1966 (with the exception of a short length serving Writhlington colliery in Somerset). The decline of the coal-mining industry in south Wales was followed by closures in the Valleys. Duplicate lines, such as the Honeybourne line from Cheltenham (closed in 1976), were also closed. Between 1948 and 1953 the regional manager was responsible to the Railway Executive for day to day operations in his region. After the Railway Executive was abolished in 1953, he reported to the British Transport Commission. In 1963, the British Transport Commission itself was abolished and replaced by British Railways Board. Between 1963 and 1968 Western Region was a statutory board in accordance with the provisions of the Transport Act 1962, subordinate to and reporting to British Railways Board. It ceased to be a statutory board in 1968, following reorganisation of the railways’ business along functional lines. The name survived until 1992 when the railways were privatised.
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- contains 4 partsTOPGEC GEC Traction Archive
- contains 5 partsSUB-FONDSGEC/2 Drawing Office records
- contains 35 partsSERIESGEC/2/2 Drawings