Two views of the Thornaby Rail Depot. Photographs courtesy of Richard Watson 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Two views of the Thornaby Rail Depot. Photographs courtesy of Richard Watson
I am researching a mobile power unit locomotive no MPU2 ,converted from former LMS diesel loco no 7055 of 1934, which was used in the construction of the new Thornaby depot in 1961 when it was numbered 953 in the ER departmental series…I was wondering if anyone has any information or photos of this loco whilst at Thornaby?
Graham Hallett
tewkesbury
Gloucestershire.
I hope you claimed your 22p danger money Dick when you went up those towers like we did when we were apprentices!
Great photo Richard. My dad (Harold Clark) was a driver at Thornaby up to his retirement in 1992 and (John Trotter) remembers Stan Gray very well. They wenet up from Thornaby to Heaton together to do their DMU course at Heaton in the late 1960’s.
Jonathon, prior to the depot closing Stockton Council commissioned a photographer to record the depot’s activities and he interviewed workers took photographs and collected photographs from the people who had worked at the depot. This was displayed at a Stockton university and was due to be archived at Preston Museum. This information may be of some use to you. I am trying to contact you privately about my pictures via the site.
I recently came across an article from 1952 outlining plans for a new loco depot at Thornaby. The original plan – no doubt modified in the light of the 1955 B R Modernisation Plan – was for two roundhouses with 70 foot turntables and provision for a possible third. As it was only one was actually built.
Hello. My Dad worked at the Thornaby depot in the fifties. He was a coach painter for many years. I have been trying to find some mention of him in British Railway`s local history. When Queen Elizabeth came to Teesside by train – my Dad painted the lettering on the train and the station at Darlington. Especially chosen for his meticulous work.
Jonathon, prior to the depot closing Stockton Council commissioned a photographer to record the depot’s activities and he interviewed workers took photographs and collected photographs from the people who had worked at the depot. This was displayed at a Stockton university and was due to be archived at Preston Museum. This information may be of some use to you. I am trying to contact you privately about my pictures via the site.
I recently came across an article from 1952 outlining plans for a new loco depot at Thornaby. The original plan – no doubt modified in the light of the 1955 B R Modernisation Plan – was for two roundhouses with 70 foot turntables and provision for a possible third. As it was only one was actually built.
Engine sheds once schoolboy temples to the combination of darkness, dampness, steam, oil and grime are now virtually extinct. I was fortunate to get around most of them as a teenager and also the more modern diesel depots, so it is sad to see a survivor like Thornaby being demolished. A bad year for local railway history with the former Metro-Vickers/BP loco works at Bowesfield being demolished, not long after Blair’s Engine Works at Norton Road. It is a shame other uses could not be found for such remarkable buildings. In the 1960’s you could collect over a hundred locomotive numbers from Thornaby station, shed and yards during a typical day, and see well over fifty locomotives resting at the depot on a Sunday afternoon. The hump yard shunters seemed to work continuously all week, and it was amazing to see different types of free falling wagons being switched and retarded into the various sidings. There was a wagon inspection and wheeling facility with its elongated gantry close to the humps by the main road. As kids we went to watch Middlesbrough Football Club on Saturday afternoons and afterwards would pile on top of the O-bus back to Norton just to see what was new in Tees Yard and Thornaby shed. Even from the bus you could see the growing purple oil haze and hear the throbbing of powerful diesel engines as you approached the Newport end of the depot. Sometimes we never got as far as the football match or the bus home, having spent all our pocket money on army cap badges, cigarette cards or foreign stamps at the once numerous back street junk shops of Middlesbrough. Then we had to walk back to Norton via Newport Bridge, which still had a good view over the railway yards. On the evening of 7 May 1968 we asked an elderly railwayman leaving the depot if he would show us around. He gladly did so for an hour showing us around the cab and controls of Brush Type 4, 1986, which he had just brought into the depot. He then showed us inside one of the three centrally cabbed Clayton Type 1’s (8600/4/5) present. That evening there were 22 shunters and 15 main line locomotives on the shed, with eight locomotives in the vicinity, including two rare Brush namers (1673/5) probably a unique event, which is why we went after a tip-off from school. The demise of rail activity through Thornaby is just one measure of the economic decline of industrial Teesside.
I am currently writing a book on the history of the diesel depot at Thornaby, as well as Tees Yard. The two photos above are really good views that are of interest to me, if Richard would be willing I would love to include them. Also hearing that a number of you have connections with the depot over the past few years I would love to hear your memories of the depot’s operations and the personal memories it holds. Will keep an eye on this thread and see if any would be willing to help me out!
Good point made by Fred Starr re: the siting of The Teesside Freightliner Terminal at Portrack, Stockton. The Freighliner concept was the ‘great hope’- not really fulfilled – of B.R. in the early 1960s with a network of fast Liner (container) trains running between large industrial and population centres in the UK. The Portrack site near the A19 was chosen for road acess from different parts of the Teesside area, but within a few short years of Tees Marshalling Yard at Newport being built it was apparent that it would never achieve its potential throughput – such were the changes taking place in both goods transport and the railways – and it might well have been a better location for the Freightliner Depot. Had Dr Beeching been around earlier it is likely that many of the new super marshalling yards commissioned in the early 1960s; Tees, Tyne, Edinburgh (Millerhill)etc. would have had their plans either cancelled or severely downsized, as it was, some quickly became very large, under used, white elephants as wagon load traffic declined. At Portrack Liner Depot security became something of a problem in later years. Later of course it made sense to re-locate the rail container depot – C1988- nearer to the shipping points for the seaborne container traffic at Wilton.
Drove past today and the demolition teams are there, no doubt it will be soon totally flat. Did anybody who worked at Thornaby depot know either Stan Gray or Alfred (Chips) Gray? Would love to hear any stories or info on my Uncle and Grandad.
Passing over the viaduct bridge at Tees Yard, it appears the sheds are now being demolished. How much longer before Tees Yard also suffers the same fate?
What is puzzling about the Thornaby site is why when the Freightliner concept was dreamed up in 1964, British Rail located the Teesside Freightliner depot just outside of the Danby Road estate in Stockton. This was on the single track line which runs between Stockton station, round past the old bed of the River Tees, and then into ICI Billingham from the west. This new Freightliner depot had very bad road access and was closed down just a few years after it opened.
Sadly Ian, demolition of the depot has already started with part of the middlesbrough end of the shed already down.
The whole site should be given listed status. Would make an excellent workshop/museum for the heritage railway sector.
Alan Stuart Huitson, there is a photograph on this site of Eaglescliffe South Signal Box with a class 37 and brake tender passing. The photograph is one of the many excellent railway images on the site taken by Gordon Armes. I am sure Gordon will have many more in his library and should be contactable through the ‘Picture Stockton’ team.
As an aside, did you go to London to be made a driver the same time as Ronnie Watson and a driver called Stubbs both went to Kings Cross from Thornaby TMD to be made? When I started BR as an engine cleaner in December 1973 my instructor was Ronnie Watson who I believe had a brother in Stockton who was a Sergeant in the Police Force.
I recently went on a nostalgia trip to the above site, managed to find a way in. I went to Thornaby when Stockton MPD closed. It was like moving to a 5* hotel, compared to the
dirty rat infested depots of old ie Newport, Middlesbrough, Haverton Hill. We had lovely
clean Mess rooms, a locker each, shower rooms a room to use for our Mutual Improvement class. The use of firedroppers made shed link turns much better from a firemans point of view. I have been trying to get hold of pictures of The Tees Thames train using the V2s we had, also the brake tenders we had for the Diesels the Type 3s or now known as 37s which have just celebrated their 50th Anniversary, but to no avail so if you know of anyone who may have any, I would appreciate it to complete the chapter in my memoirs. I am now in my 70s and live in Maidstone, I transferred south in 1968 to get my Drivers appointment and ended my career at Victoria ‘E’. The ariel shots certainly brought memories flooding back, the Racecourse in the background where cleaners & fireman sneeked off to play football on occassions.
I remember that John M. Boyes was associated with the depot in the 60’s, he had taken thousands of photos, even gave lecture tours of the marshalling yards and round house at Thornaby. Sadly I checked him out on the internet, but he passed away in 2006. He photographed every sign, signal and piece of equipment and described thier function and operation in his slideshows. Perhaps this treasure is stored in an attic somewhere in Billingham! John was a well known railway photographer and railway modeller.
Great Photographs. A great shame the depot is closing. I spent many hours as a young man at the depot. I am building a model of the depot in OO scale. I would appreciate any info from past employees such as Drawings,photographs etc especially in its early days with the Coaling and water towers etc. Thanks in advance.
This closure comes as a shock to me,but I can not really say it was unexpected.When I.C.I. was still the dominant employer in the area the then Board of British Rail said they were going to do the same thing.I.C.I. said straight away that if the Rail Depot was closed then they would close their entire Teeside operation.British Rail of course relented,however with IC.I. being sold off into much smaller unjoined parts they could not muster the same clout. Thornaby was to me the place were the first ten class 37 diesel electrics were shedded,when I was a boy I gained an interest in the Railway system and Thornaby was our local Depot.I can remember 31s/37s/40s/47s all pulling freight Trains around the Country.I and my mates used to like a run out to York or Newcastle to see some Deltic”s,but those first ten class 37s were perhaps my real favourites.I have some old photographs dating from 1976/77 and the 37s and 47s are everywhere from Hartlepool stabling point to Peterborough.I do miss the old loco shed down Mainsforth terrace in Hartlepool.I recently traveled from H/pool to Darlington by Train and while we were stood on Thornaby station a convoy of class 66s (five in all coupled together) came from the Depot direction heading South.Straight away I thought they looke dlike they were being re-allocated.I wonder which will be the closest Diesel Depot now??.I suppose it will be Tyne Yard. This kind of vandalism was all we got in this area during the Thatcher 1980s the trouble is it does not look like it has stopped yet.
Richard, I have good memories of the depot from circa 1980. As 10 year olds me and my mates were allowed to roam free in the depot on a Saturday afternoon. We”d always ask politely at the office. The man there would suck trough his teeth, turn to a colleague repeat the question, pause and then say “Goo on then-but don”t touch nothing!”. At times the drivers would let us in the cabs and I even had the chance to drive several locos. Class 08,37 and 47 come to mind. I remember being let in the engine room of a 31 and the driver starting the thing up. Blimey did we shift! My dad was transport manager of Hartlepool steel works and his contacts got me a guided tour of Tees Marshalling Yard. It took all morning and I was shattered! I moved to the south of England in 1982 and had left all these memories behind before I discovered this site!
The railway depot at Thornaby on the images opened in June 1958 it replaced older engine sheds an Newport, Middlesbrough and Stockton but sadly is unlikely to reach it’s 50th birthday. I started work there in 1974 as an apprentice fitter and from my recollections of events there we maintained locomotives of the following classes 03, 08, 09, 20, 31, 37, 40, 47, 56, 60 and 66 also DMU’s and wagons. Though we had many others passing through which where repaired at the depot but which were not normal for us to maintain. The depot had envious facilities right up until the summer of 2007 with a good turn over of work but not of staff, very few workers left. The depot carried out work from servicing to heavy repairs very little work was turned away. The depot also has a long history in wheel lathe tyre reprofiling work and recovery work. I agree with Steve it is a shame to lose the depot and at the birth place of railways too.
It seems a shame to be losing the area”s last locomotive depot, after such a long history of loco building and maintenance on or near this site. Richard will know more than I can add, but these photos must date from the 1980″s when it was still the “BR Blue” era. On the left hand photo the steam era roundhouse can be seen to the left of the running lines around the right of the picture, with diesel multiple units being serviced in the straight shed on the left. In the right hand photo the roundhouse is in the right background and the DMUs are in the foreground. Locos present seem to be mainly Class 31 in front of the roundhouse with a 37 on the left hand side of the photo. Notice the old steam loco tender at the bottom right coupled to a short wheelbase van. Looks like an LNER tender. Of course there is the inevitable class 08 shunter with a parcels van bottom left. At least an 08 still inhabits the yard here.
I have worked at the railway depot (soon to close) Thornaby for 33 years and during that time I have taken a great number of photographs. These two were taken from the top of the lighting towers in August 1985.