Hopetown Carriage Works
| Hopetown Carriage Works | |
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| View of the main entrance | |
Hopetown Carriage Works is the operating workshop of the oldest railway company in the world ( Stockton and Darlington Railway ) and was built in 1853 by Joseph Sparkes in Darlington ( Durham ).
The first floor of the building's tower was probably used as a workshop for casting models and as a drawing office. In the hall were railcars built for the railway company and carried out maintenance work. The building belongs to the first generation of railway age repair shops . It is located on triangular property that lies between the line of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened on September 27, 1825 , and a turnoff to a coal depot, opened on the same day . The age of the building is unusual for a railway company building of this type.
The two-story building was made of sandstone with a veneer of brick built. It has a Welsh slate roof with two bay windows in the middle. There is a main gate in the Venetian style with stepped vaulted stones . This is walled up today. It used to be used as an entrance and exit for railway vehicles . These were rotated inside the building on a turntable for the exit. There is a smaller door on each side of the main gate. The building is currently in need of renovation. Its importance in the development of the construction of railway service buildings and its rarity as a preserved example of a repair shop from this early era make it a monument worth preserving in the opinion of the Darlington (Durham) municipal administration . It is an important part of the ensemble of the world's first modern railway company, the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
The first commercially used locomotive “Locomotion No 1” was exhibited in a repair shop for locomotives of the Alfred Kitching company on the same site from 1857 to the 1880s . The building is known for the office of the last chief designer Arthur Peppercorn of the London and North Eastern Railway , which was there from 1946.
The southern end of the building is now used by the association A1 Steam Locomotive Trust used the there is a steam locomotive of the LNER Class A1 Peppercorn built on historical models, the "60163 Tornado". The "60163 Tornado" was completed in 2008. The vehicle moved on its own for the first time on July 31, 2008. The other half of the building is used by the North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group (NELPG) for general inspections of its inventory of museum locomotives.
See also
Web links
- The building in a publication of endangered buildings of the city administration. ( PDF file; 1.49 MB)
- A1 Steam Locomotive Trust
- North Eastern Locomotive Preservation Group
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Coordinates: 54 ° 32'9 " N , 1 ° 33'24" W.