Yorkshire Engine Company — BrandWiki

Yorkshire Engine Company

The Yorkshire Engine Company (YEC) was a small independent locomotive manufacturer in Sheffield. The company was formed in 1865 and produced locomotives and carried out general engineering work until 1965. It mainly built shunting engines for the British market, but also built main line engines for overseas customers.

Steam locomotives were built by the firm from 1865 to 1956 and diesel locomotives from 1950 to 1965.

The early years

The idea of a locomotive builder based near Sheffield was first suggested in 1864 by W. G. Eden, who later became the fourth Baron Auckland. At the time, Eden was Chairman of the South Yorkshire Railway, and a director of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR), posts which he had taken up after retiring as a diplomat. He invited Archibald Sturrock, who was employed by the Great Northern Railway as its locomotive engineer, to be the Chairman of the new company. Alfred Sacré would be the Managing Director, and his older brother, Charles, then the Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent for the MSLR, was also part of the team.

By April 1865 investors had promised £120,000 towards the estimated cost of £200,000 for setting up the company. Although Sturrock joined the board in May 1866, he did not become chairman until January 1867. A 22 acre site near Blackburn Meadows was chosen for the works. Construction and the procurement of machinery began in mid-1865, and Meadowhall Works was virtually complete in May 1867, by which time all of the 2,000 shares had been taken up.

The first order received was for three 2-2-2 locomotives for the Great Northern Railway.

Mainline engines

YEC undertook orders for mainline locomotive for the UK and overseas countries.

Locomotives were built for the Great Northern Railway, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the Great Eastern Railway.

In 1871, a 2-4-0 locomotive was ordered by Japan's first railway, making the only order for Japan. This locomotive is still in existence, and now displayed at Sakuragicho railway station in Yokohama.

In 1872, three Fairlie 0-6-6-0 Articulated Locomotives were supplied to the Mexican Railways for the Orizaba, Veracruz to Esperanza, Puebla Route.

In 1874, an order for 13 F class locomotives was dispatched to New Zealand. Two of these engines survived into preservation.

In 1901 four locomotives were built for use on the Metropolitan Railway main line to Aylesbury. These were F Class 0-6-2Ts and survived for around 60 years, the first being scrapped on 1957 and the last in 1964. More orders from the Metropolitan Railway followed in 1915 and 1916 for larger G Class 0-6-4Ts. Unlike the F Class, the G Class locomotives passed to the LNER on 1 November 1937, when that company became responsible for providing motive power for trains north of Rickmansworth, and the locomotives only lasted in service for 30 years.

1928 saw the LNER get locomotives delivered directly from Sheffield. These nine locomotives (LNER 2682 to 2690) were Class N2 0-6-2Ts for working suburban trains.

Along with a number of other private builders, YEC built a batch of GWR 5700 Class 0-6-0PTs in 1929/1930.

Between 1949 and 1956, 50 GWR 9400 Class 0-6-0PTs were built for British Railways (BR). The last of these, BR No. 3409 (YE2584 of 1956), was the last steam locomotive built at Meadowhall and the last BR locomotive to be built to a pre-nationalisation design. The order for these locomotives had been given to the Hunslet Engine Company in Leeds but as it was already busy, the work was sub-contracted to Sheffield.

Far bigger than anything built for use in Britain were the export locomotives. 2-8-2 and 4-8-2 tender locomotives for South America.

F12 at Ferrymead Railway, in a derelict state,
F180 "Meg Merriles" at Auckland's Museum of Transport & Technology, Was in a static restored condition after retirement in 1966, but was restored to operating condition over many years and returned to service in 2018. Fifty years after being built, the builder's photo of F180 was included in an advertisement for the Yorkshire Engine Company, in a 1924 edition of The Railway Magazine.

United Steel Companies and diesel locomotive development

The business was bought by the United Steel Companies (USC) on 29 June 1945. USC needed replacement locomotives so it made sense to buy a manufacturer (at the right price) and the idea had been put forward of developing a central engineering workshop for their steelworks at Templeborough (Rotherham) and Stocksbridge. Both works were being expanded and redeveloped, and were easily accessible by rail from the YEC works. In the post war climate, the YEC management were willing to sell.

Following the purchase, work began on building steam locomotives for the internal rail systems at several steelworks as well as ironstone mines around Britain. YEC continued to build locomotives for other customers, just as they had before the takeover. The design for a modern 0-6-0ST locomotive was bought from Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns and locomotives of this type were built for steel works, primarily as replacements for locomotives worn out during the Second World War. This design was undoubtedly chosen because a number were already in use at Appleby-Frodingham works, Scunthorpe and given various type names (these include "Type 1", "16inch" and "Group 17"). A small number of locomotives were built for ironstone mines to a War Department ‘Austerity’ design. It is believed that the use of this design was connected with the sub-contract of other locomotive construction from Hunslet Engine Company.

In 1950 a diesel-electric locomotive was built for use in the melting shop of Templeborough steelworks. The duty had special requirements for a locomotive to fit through a small opening and around tight curves while being powerful enough to haul heavy ‘Casting Cars’. The weight of the locomotive had to be high to give better grip. The design featured a Paxman engine and British Thompson-Houston electric equipment powering and 0-4-0 chassis. The first locomotive (Works number 2480) left the works at the end of 1950 with a second (No. 2481) leaving in early 1951. No.2480 was displayed and demonstrated before final delivery while No.2481 was delivered direct from the works (a journey of about 1 mile). Both locomotives survived to be preserved in the late 1980s.

No other locomotives were built to this design.

Closure

Locomotive construction ended in 1965. It is not recorded exactly why the works was closed but three facts seem to have all had an influence on the decision. Firstly the market for new locomotives was shrinking rapidly with a number of other manufacturers closing around this time. Secondly, most of the USC works were fully equipped with YEC locomotives. Thirdly, nationalisation of the British steel industry was to take place in 1967 and it is unlikely that the locomotive business was wanted as part of the new corporation.

Several locomotives under construction at the time of closure left the works before they had been completed. These locomotives were destined for USC steelworks which had the capability to complete the construction work in their own engineering works.

The rights to the YEC designs and the good will of the business were sold to Rolls-Royce Sentinel Division at Shrewsbury who had previously supplied a high proportion of diesel engines used by YEC and were a competitor in the industrial locomotive market. In 1967 three locomotives were bought from Shrewsbury for use at Scunthorpe Steelworks, these were built to the Janus design to match the many similar locomotives there built in Sheffield. A fourth locomotive, to a different YEC design, was supplied to AEI in Manchester.

When Rolls-Royce hit financial problems in 1971 they stopped all locomotive work and the YEC designs, along with those for Rolls-Royce locomotives passed to Thomas Hill at Kilnhurst, near Rotherham who had been agents for Rolls-Royce for some time. (Thomas Hill built three locos to Yorkshire design, for the Durgapur Steel Works in Eastern India).

The former Yorkshire Engine Company works at Meadowhall, Sheffield, was transferred to McCall and Company another part of the United Steel Companies group. Reinforcing bars (for concrete) were produced here. The works passed to Rom River Reinforements in the mid-1990s but was closed early in the 21st century when the roof of the main building was deemed to be beyond repair. Subsequently the works has been completely refurbished and is now (2009) occupied by the engineering firm of Chesterfield Special Cylinders.

Locomotives returned to the site on a regular basis between 1988 and 2001 when the South Yorkshire Railway Preservation Society used the few remaining railway lines in the Meadowhall works to load and unload preserved locomotives that were moved by lorry (the lines between the buildings were set into the roadway). A number of these locomotives were products of Yorkshire Engine Company, including YE2480, the first diesel locomotive they built.