York Shed 1964

[John Ashworth]

Whilst searching through my (badly organised) slide collection for a particular slide to show someone I came across the attached image.

This was on one of my first colour films (sadly Agfa rather than Kodachome!) taken in early-1964 when I was still at school! It shows Class A1 pacific No. 60140 'Balmoral' standing on the ashpits at York shed. The new A1 pacific No. 60163 'Tornado' is based on this type of loco although (sadly) at the moment is running in LNER apple green livery. Fortunately it has been announced that it will be repainted in standard BR dark green later this year. The loco to the left is former North Eastern Railway 0-6-0 Class J27 No. 65894 that fortunately survived into preservation and is now based on the NYMR (although currently under overhaul).

York was a huge locomotive depot which had at one time 4 roundhouses although 2 were later demolished and replaced with a 7-track straight repair shed. In the mid-50's it had an allocation of around 170 steam locos and even as late as 1964 when my photo was taken there were still around 100 steam locos based there. The 2 roundhouses and repair shed are now part of the National Railway Museum.