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Coventry ShedCoventry's first engine shed was built in 1838 at the same time as the London to Birmingham Railway opened their station as seen illustrated in Gerald Broom's superb painting which features both the station and 'Engine House'. It was allegedly used by the Midland Railway after the LNWR built a new shed in 1867, sited alongside Quinton Road and in the vee of the Leamington junction with the main line to London. The London & Birmingham 'Engine House' was described by Francis Whishaw in his book 'The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland' with the following comment: There is an locomotive engine house at Coventry to hold one engine and tender with folding gates at the entrance; within these are a smith's forge, anvil and bench. In their book LMS Engine Sheds - Volume One - The LNWR Chris Hawkins and George Reeve state that 'the 1867 building, which was a non-standard design, had a pitched slated roof with two arched entrances. In 1897 the shed was doubled in size, after Webb had complained that the allocation of eight locomotives was too great for the room available. The extension was based upon the original design although the front of the shed was opened up by the use of lintels and cast iron columns supporting the front gable roof. According to Hawkins and Reeve, the 1897 extension made use of the materials being dismantled at Crewe. Whilst the enlarged shed was provided with a 42 foot turntable the other maintenance and service facilities were still very basic. The coaling of locomotives was undertaken manually. The coal being transferred directly from the coal wagon into the locomotive although a coaling shelter was provided on the side of the shed to provide some protection from inclement weather. Coventry shed was a sub-shed of Rugby and whilst the city was significantly larger and more prosperous than its near neighbours of Rugby and Nuneaton, it was always a second division shed. Its locomotives were in the main allocated to local workings in the area, primarily mineral traffic, and any major servicing and repairs were carried out at Rugby some ten miles away. The turntable was replaced by a 57 foot turntable during its LMS ownership on a site slightly to the north of the original 42 foot turntable. It wasn't until the mid-fifties that the decrepid state of the shed was tackled by British Railways who built a modern and airy structure of brick walls and corrugated steel to the front elevation. Coaling was also addressed by being part mechanised through the provision of a coal conveyor belt which allowed coal to be loaded by hand into its hopper and then up via the belt where it fell into the locomotive's tender or bunker. However this modernisation occurred at the same time as the shed saw a significant loss of traffic as the short workings it specialised in were affected by the growth of motor transport and it eventually closed on 17th November 1958 along with the shed in Milverton, Warwick. The shed was then used for many years to store condemned locomotives, some being marooned during the rebuilding of the station and the new power signal box by contractors cut off the yard. The following is an extract from one of Reg Kimber's scrapbooks compiled over 50 years.Extract from the biography of JM Dunn reflecting on his long career associated with sheds of the LNWR and BRCoventry ShedCoventry Shed which had been built in 1865-1866 to provide accommodation for 4 engines, was extended soon after 1896 and had four roads each 100 feet long. It was provided with a 42 ft. turntable 1 - L.M.S. 2-6-2 3 PT Parallel boiler) 103 Later there were slight changes. There were 30 sets of men. Mr. Clews of Rugby was appointed an assistant to the Super-intendent of Motive Power at Watford Headquarters in June 1940 and was succeeded by Mr. S. T. Clayton. In October heavy air-raids on Coventry started and it was the usual all too familiar tale which need not be repeated, though perhaps I may mention my experiences on the morning of Friday, the 15th November 1940 after the heaviest raid of the lot, for all of which we have to thank the internal combustion engine, the flying machine and the clever men who, as is usually the case, were just not quite clever enough. Fortunately for me I had been unable to obtain lodgings in Coventry and was travelling daily from and to my home at Nuneaton. On this particular morning the train was unable to go beyond Longford owing to the line having been damaged and I had to walk all the way from there to Coventry and through what was left of it to the station, which was on the far side of the town. I got to the engine shed about n.o a.m. and found the place deserted. Two coaches of a passenger train standing on the down Leamington line opposite the shed were blown to pieces, the passengers fortunately having got out a few minutes earlier. There was a string of about half-a-dozen "dead" engines standing on one of the through roads at the station where another bomb had dropped at the Rugby end of the up platform and brought down about 15 yards of the platform roofing. There was neither water nor electricity and as all the wires had been brought down there was neither telegraphic nor telephonic communication in any direction. A bomb had dropped in the yard at the Birmingham end of the station and blown up about 50 wagons which were piled high. The engine shed had escaped with nothing worse than a few broken windows and I am thankful to be able to record that not a single member of the motive power staff sustained even the slightest scratch. On Tuesday, the 28th January 1941 I received a telephone message from the Police Station asking my name as "someone" wanted to see me. I gave my name and asked what was the matter but the only answer I got was a chuckle and a remark that I'd soon find out! Not long after one of the staff knocked on my office door and said a lady wanted to see me. My visitor was an elderly- I might say "old"-well-educated but somewhat shabby-looking lady who was very short of breath-so short, in fact, that it was about five minutes before she could talk. I gave her a seat, told her to take her time and waited with considerable curiosity for her to speak. When at last she did so she talked for about ten minutes about her hospital experiences in the War-to-End-Wars and said that her brother had been an Admiral in the Royal Navy. Then she said that she believed the police had spoken to me about her, that she had an "idea" and asked if I would tell her how much space there was underneath a railway engine?! Well, I told her and said that if she liked to take me into her confidence and say what her idea was, I might be able to help her. To cut a long story short she wanted to turn the steam-"smoke" she called it-from the chimney into a perforated box underneath the engine so that the exhaust would not be visible from enemy aircraft. I told her that what she called "smoke" was 90 per cent steam and tried to explain as well as I could why her idea was impracticable. It took some doing but I think I eventually convinced her and she went away full of thanks and apologies. I never heard any more of her. Going to Coventry in the train on the 21st March 1941, a man attempted to get out of the carriage on the wrong side at Foleshill and if I hadn't grabbed him he would have landed on the rails in front of an engine going towards Nuneaton. I reported the incident on arrival at Coventry and the next morning the Station Master told me that acting on my information they had caught two men doing the same thing that morning and handed them over to the police. After another air-raid on the 11 th April 1941 we suspected that an unexploded bomb had fallen in the "six-foot" near the shed signal and had buried itself under the track but there was little sign except that the ballast appeared to have been disturbed. Anyhow it was quite enough for me and as soon as telephonic communication had been restored I reported the matter to the Regional Commissioner's office and asked them to send some bomb-disposers to have a look at it. In a few hours time a couple of policemen came and started prodding the ground with iron rods while I kept well out of the way but they soon gave it up and went off. Nobody else appeared so I once more 'phoned the Commissioner's Office and they replied that as it had been there for 48 hours without exploding they considered it was a "dud" and did not intend taking any further action. I answered that it was bad enough having to work in the place when bombs were falling without having to move engines over the top of possibly "dud" bombs afterwards and that they could give my compliments to the Regional Commissioner in person and tell him that I was not going either to ask or allow any of my staff to take any engine anywhere near the spot until a proper investigation had been made and that he could do what he liked about it. In the meantime no engine was going to leave Coventry Shed. An hour or so after that a lorry load of soldiers and beer (which latter they well deserved!) arrived and they began to dig. After taking up a section of the permanent way they eventually found the bomb at a depth of about 12 feet right under the "four-foot". After they had successfully performed the tricky feat of removing the fuse they tied a rope round the bomb and fastened the other end to the drawbar of an engine which then moved ahead and so pulled the "find" to the surface. The last I saw of the bomb was a soldier sitting on it on the pavement of Quinton Road drinking a bottle of beer! On the 15th April 1941 Lord Stamp of Shortlands, the President of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company, his wife and son were drowned when a dug-out in which they were sheltering at their home in Kent was flooded through a water-main being bombed. Lord Stamp, I think, had the distinction of being almost the only prominent figure in the British railway world after whom no engine was ever named. A railway antiquity at Coventry was the water-column at the Birmingham end of the down platform which had been made by Bury, Curtis & Kennedy. It is now in the Museum of British Transport at Clapham. Back at Coventry on the 24th September 1941 I received instructions concerning a special train of such a nature that I thought it best to go myself to the homes of the men concerned to give them their instructions instead of sending verbal or written messages. I accordingly set out on the errand walking from one end of the town to the other and as it was a beautiful but very hot day I was a bit footsore before I got back to the shed. The train was W699, due to arrive at Coventry the next night and I had to be there to see to things. The passenger was no other than Winston Churchill who was going to spend the night in the train in a siding at Berkswell before visiting Coventry the next day. A certain locomotive inspector who shall be nameless had the job of going to Berkswell with the train and seeing that all the arrangements for stabling and heating it were properly carried out and during the time we were awaiting its arrival at Coventry. I had the pleasure of witnessing as fine an exhibition of the antics of what are often called by railwaymen "hard-hatted swine" as one could wish for. First, Mr. Inspector bawled across the station to the driver of an engine whose headlamp he considered was "dim". Then an engine came round the corner from Leamington with a red headlamp and he chased and roared after that. Next an engine arrived from Birmingham and began to "blow-off" whereupon Mr. Inspector did likewise. After that another engine came along en route for Berkswell and he wanted to know the why and the wherefore; in his opinion, expressed at the top of his voice, it was q uite unnecessary and so on. Shortly after that the special, W699, arrived five minutes before time and with only one headlamd alight instead of two which occasioned another outburst of song. I could hold my tongue no longer so told him that I thought he'd had an exceedingly good bag and that when next he went to bed he ought to be able to sleep with a clear conscience! The train having departed with the vocalist on the footplate I went to bed in "The Crow's Nest", the stone-built platelayers' hut which my fitters had commandeered and made into exceedingly comfortable quarters which I used whenever I had to spend the night at the shed. The following morning in spite of all the "secrecy" and my efforts in that connection, not only the platform but the station approach and streets as far as one could see were packed tight with sightseers. Just before 10.0 a.m. when the train was due to arrive I took up my position, away from the crowd, near the man with the red flag at which point the engine was supposed to come to a stand. Presently the train came round the corner by No. 3 signal box running, as it seemed to me, rather slowly and with steam shut off and then when the engine was about half-way between Nos. 3 and 1 boxes she was suddenly given steam and after uttering half-a- dozen sonorous puffs came to a dead stand with a sort of dying gasp! The platform, of course, was full of "big-wigs" of one sort or another from the Earl of Dudley down to the Mayor and Mayoress of Coventry together with the local Home Guard and the usual L.M.S. factotums. Everyone's eyes almost came out of their heads and I at once thought to myself-"A vacuum failure!"-I picked up my heels and ran along the platform as fast as I could go, ignoring the questions of "What's the matter?" and down the line to the engine. The vocalist of the previous night was on the footplate and I asked him what was wrong. He didn't know but the vacuum had suddenly gone back ten inches, thus partially applying the brake and he'd told the driver to drag the train into the station. Then they had seen the guard signalling them to stop and they had done so. Having found there was nothing wrong with the engine I walked on at a more leisurely pace along the train until I came to the rear brake van from the window of which a bowler-hatted and blue- mackintoshed individual put out his head and said "It's all right. We're waiting for time. He hasn't finished his breakfast!" At that I said a few things, went back to the engine and rode on it into the station where we arrived ten minutes late. HE had still not finished his breakfast and the train stood for some minutes at the platform before he got out. I suppose it was all part of the Churchillian showmanship and in line with the other instance when, as his train was passing through Nuneaton at a good speed he caused a full application of the brake to be made so that the train stopped dead in almost its own length and he jumped out shouting for a telephone on which, when he was taken to it, he booked two seats for a London theatre! The grimness of the National Emergency was occasionally relieved by comic or semi-comic interludes, an example of which was provided by one Foskett, a man of aristocratic appearance and demeanour, who was station-master at Bedworth. When airraid warnings were received while trains were in Bedworth station he would walk along the platform calling out- "Bedworth-Air Raid-Bed'urth (in the vernacular)-Pull down the blinds-BEDWORTH (in precise English)-Air-Raid- Bed'urth" and so on. Mr. Foskett was fond of travelling over the remote railways in Ireland with ordinary full-fare first-class tickets and leading the local railwaymen to believe that he was a senior officer, if not a director! He did not tell them that he was, in so many words, but behaved and passed remarks in such a manner that such a conclusion was nearly inevitable. He never used free or privilege tickets on these expeditions as they would, of course, have given him away. The 21 st November 1941 saw me appointed Running Shed Foreman at Coventry vice Reynolds who had been promoted in his absence to Sutton Oak. In early June 1942 I was advised that I was going back to Nuneaton with the temporary appointment of "chief" as Mr. Darlington was taking up another temporary post at Rugby. Before leaving Coventry I must mention the excellent work performed by the deputy Running Shed Foreman, Driver E. J. Watkin who night after night, week after week, all through the period of the air-raids, was in charge of Coventry engine shed during the dangerous night hours. He never flinched from the job and when I left for Nuneaton I recommended him as my successor. If ever any man earned an appointment he did and I am pleased to say that soon afterwards he was given the post.
The London & Birmingham Railway's Engine House located at Coventry StationThe L&NWR 1867 'Stafford designed' Locomotive Steam Shed erected at CoventryThe enlarged and modified L&NWR's 1897 Locomotive Steam Shed erected at CoventryAerial Views of the 1867 ShedThe 1956 British Railways rebuilt shedThe carriage sidingsLocomotives seen on shedLocomotives stored at Coventry ShedOrdnance Survey Maps and Schematic Drawings of Coventry shed
The LMS and its successor, British Railways, undertook to film various aspects of operating steam locomotives and other railway operations. We have provided below links to some of the films related to shed operation that we know exist. Films on other aspects of railway operations can be viewed via our Video and Film Clip section.
Recording Locomotive Sightings 1943 - 1968The following information is provided courtesy of Shed Bash UK (http://shedbashuk.blogspot.co.uk/)A generation of enthusiasts recorded the movements of locomotives around the railway system. These records of visits to locomotive depots have been collected and carefully analysed to provide an overall portrait for the period 1943 to 1968. During that period of steam's final years, there was a marked change from the pre-grouping types that still found work at a few depots, to the modern BR designs that worked until the end in 1968. The handling of freight and passenger services was a major undertaking from town and cities, ports, coal mines and factories. All of it traversed the labyrinth of lines that criss-crossed the country. There were numerous 'sheds' spread throughout the length and breadth of the land that provided and serviced the vast army of steam locomotives (20,000 in 1948). Here is just a taste of that history.
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