The site of the works was original chosen by the Lynn and Fakenham Railway who undertook the initial building. The new works at Melton Constable were initially built and brought into operation by Mr J W Mann who had been appointed Locomotive Superintendent of the Lynn and Fakenham Railway in 1880. On 10th May 1881 the first track was laid, the foundations of the various shops were put in, part of the walls put up and the framework of many houses in Melton Street erected. Although commenced by the L&FR, completion was carried out by the Eastern & Midlands Railway.
The Works were brought into operation in 1883 by the Eastern & Midlands Railway when the local locomotive shops at Yarmouth and Fakenham were closed and all heavy repairs were transferred to Melton Constable. Mr JW Mann, who had overseen the construction of the works, resigned in 1884 and William Marriott, who had become Civil Engineer of the Eastern & Midlands in 1883, was appointed Locomotive Superintendent.
The works were compact and well equipped. The erecting shop had two roads and there was a machine shop, boiler shop, forge, smithy and other ancillary shops. Before the erecting shop was completed, lighter work, such as wheel removal, had been carried out in the open. The layout consisted of one island providing two 800 ft platforms enabling long trains to be divided as required. Most of the platforms were roofed.
Melton Constable Works not only repaired existing stock supplied to the former companies but also built a number of new vehicles. In 1902, for example, the works turned out some trucks for travelling oil-gas holders, the trucks being made and erected in the carriage and wagon shop the twin 4 ft. 0 ins. diameter x 17 ft. 2 ins. long dish ended tanks being dealt with by the boiler shop and hydraulically tested to 10 psi. During the whole of this period maintenance work at Melton covered not only railway vehicles but the large fleet of horse-drawn delivery vans and trolleys as well.
William Newman (Mr. Marriott’s first mechanical draughtsman and Chief Assistant to the Locomotive Superintendent since 1893) succeeded William Marriott as Resident Mechanical Engineer. He, like his predecessor, was faced with the ever-present demand for greater motive power to deal with the heavier trains, especially the summer excursions. No new engines were forthcoming and he tackled the problem by maintaining a rigidly high standard of maintenance of both locomotives and passenger stock. Mr. Newman retired in 1932.
He in turn was succeeded by Mr. A.H. Nash from Derby works. Apart from blast nozzle and chimney modifications, no fundamental changes were made to the engines in general during his period in charge and no new type of locomotive or new design was undertaken at Melton up to its closure. Mr. Nash left Melton in 1937 after the L&NER took charge.
From 1921 and onwards the Melton shops were on short time and were closed on Saturdays from 25th October 1930. On 1st October 1936 the Joint locomotive stock was transferred to the L&NER. Steadily between 1936 and 1945 the old engines were gradually withdrawn and broken up. However two of the sturdy shunting tanks lasted long enough to be taken in to British Railways stock in 1948.
The Works closed in October 1936 and the Melton Gasworks finally closed on 3rd March 1962.
Date
1881 - 1936
Scope and ContentThe collection consists of drawings relating to repair work done to carriages and wagons, details of steam cranes and various civil engineering installations on the Midland and Great Northern Railway network. A register, which records all the drawings made at the Melton Constable Works and the surviving drawings from those that were originally made there. They do not include any locomotive drawings as these were presumably absorbed into the system used by the Stratford Works as part of the London and North Eastern Railway in 1936. They represent only a fraction of the total output from the Melton Constable Works, the full output is detailed in the drawing register.
A full listing can be found on the National Railway Museum website under 'Drawing Lists' at https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/research-and-archive/further-resources/catalogues.
Extent13 boxes
Physical descriptionThe drawings are mainly wax linen and are attached to sticks from which they can be rolled out. This will limit the methods that may be used for providing copies. The register is a hardback volume
The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GN) was a joint railway owned by the Midland Railway (MR) and the Great Northern Railway (GNR) in eastern England and comprised three units. The first consisted of four small contractors lines crossing the district between Peterborough, Bourne, Spalding and Kings Lynn opened in 1858-66 and worked by the Great Northern and Midland Companies both wanting to extend into north Norfolk. The second was an independent line from Yarmouth to North Walsham opened in 1879-81. The Lynn and Fakenham Railway merged with this company in 1882 to form the Eastern & Midlands Company. The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway built its works at Melton Constable, the central junction on its system. The first track was laid in May 1881 and the works were brought into operation in 1883 and closed in October 1936.
As from July 1st 1893, the Eastern and Midlands Railway has become the property of the Midland Railway (MR) and Great Northern Railway (GNR) companies. It was formed by the amalgamation of many smaller local lines, rather than being conceived from the start as a single trunk route. However, it offered its two parents - the MR and the GNR - access to the ports of East Anglia, and also enabled them to develop what became a lucrative source of revenue from holiday traffic from the industrial Midlands to the east coast resorts. It was easily the longest joint railway system in the UK, exceeding 180 miles (295km). The railway is managed by a joint committee appointed by the two companies.
The M&GN's administrative headquarters was at Austin Street, King's Lynn, but its engineering centre and the heart of the system was at Melton Constable before the railway arrived this village had a population of just over 100 people. Within a few years it had grown ten-fold, with almost all the new arrivals employed by the railway and living in company-built housing, and it acquired the nickname of "the Crewe of North Norfolk".
With the creation of the nationalised British Railways Corporation in 1948, the M&GN looked vulnerable. It was one of the first major closures with the bulk of its routes shut in 1959; displaced traffic mostly transferring to the former GER routes. Throughout its years of operation under many different owners, and notwithstanding the high proportion of its route that was single-track, it was an extremely safe system - not a single passenger was killed on the M&GN.
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was one of the four railway companies that were formed in 1923 due to the amalgamation of 1921. During the First World War the government had taken control of the railways for the purpose of the war effort. After the war ended it was decided that the railway companies could not competitively return to their prior state, and so the decision was made to combine the 120 existing railway companies into four companies, which became known as ‘the big four’. Smaller railway companies were merged together to form LNER, these previous companies consisted of; Great Central Railway, Great Eastern Railway, Great Northern Railway, Great North of Scotland Railway, Hull and Barnsley Railway, North British Railway and the North Eastern Railway. LNER was the second largest company of the ‘Big Four’ in terms of route miles (total route mileage amounted to 6700) and became famous for its prestigious high speed trains, including the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard, which reached speeds of 126mph (breaking the world record for steam).
William Whitelaw, who was a public figure in Scotland, was appointed the first chairman of LNER operating mainly from the London headquarters. The management of LNER was decentralised as much as possible and one of Whitelaw’s main responsibilities became scrutinising proposals of expenditure, due to the shortage of investments. It was decided that the head of management should be Sir Lewis Wedgewood and it was under his management that three main headquarters should be created to best oversee the company. These areas were; Southern, North-Eastern, with offices being situated in York, and Scotland, which was then divided into Northern and Southern Scotland. By 1928 organisation in LNER had stabilised with the chairman being based in Marylebone, Chief General Manager being based in Kings Cross and the Southern headquarters being based in Liverpool.
Sir Nigel Gresley became the first Chief Mechanical Engineer of the company. Each of the big four had a Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineering department which was formed in 1923 with the creation of each company and after nationalisation in 1948, one CM&EE department was created. Gresley became very influential in the company, not only due to his designs of the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard, but also his Pacific designs and long-distance locomotives with the ability to overcome difficult operating conditions. Gresley died in office in 1941 and was succeeded by Edward Thompson, who remained CME until 1946. Arthur Peppercorn, a student of Gresley’s, succeeded Thompson but remained CME for just 18 months, as nationalisation cut short his career.
After the Second World War all four railway companies were in financial trouble. The growth of road transport and the effects of the war had meant that each company was in need of severe maintenance work (LMS calculated it would have to spend £40 million on maintenance). Investors of the railways were also at a loss, the LNER’s investors had received no dividend since 1941. With the arrival of a new labour government in 1945, the decision to nationalise all public transport was put forward and in 1948 the ‘Big Four’ were replaced with the British Transport Commission, which separated LNER into Eastern and North Eastern Regions, as well as surrendering the Scottish territory.
Conditions governing accessAccess is given in accordance with the NRM access policy. Material from this archive is available to researchers the Search Engine.
Conditions governing ReproductionAccess is given in accordance with the NRM access policy. Material from this archive is available to researchers through the Search Engine facilities. The archive is fully open to researchers. Where items from this archive have been microfilmed, access is gained through the microform surrogate.
AppraisalNo appraisal of this archive has been undertaken
System of arrangementDue to successive historical transfers of the material the original order of the archive has been lost. Where possible the drawings have been retained on their original sticks. There are frequently several associated drawings on one stick and these do not necessarily follow in numerical sequence. The drawings have therefore been sorted into boxes and catalogued in that order, excluding those fragile drawings that have been copied into microform.
