Shildon railway works opened in 1833 in the town of Shildon in County Durham, England. Originally built to serve the Stockton and Darlington Railway the works grew to cover ( roofed), employing 2750 staff.
History
Shildon was the terminus of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR), when it opened in 1825. Its first locomotive superintendent was Timothy Hackworth, who maintained their locomotives at the Soho Works. Thomas Hackworth (Timothy's brother) was works manager at the Soho Works.
The beginnings of the works were small -
In 1827, Timothy Hackworth built the locomotive Royal George at the Soho Works. It was also in this period that the works received an order from the Tsar of Russia for a locomotive. Shildon produced the engine and Hackworth's son John Wesley Hackworth was dispatched with drivers and mechanics to deliver it to Russia.
These works were to be purchased by the S&DR company in 1855 and closed in 1883. Hackworth was the first of 22 managers of the works in their 151-year history, a post he held between 1833 and 1840.
A trade union was formed in 1899 after growing discontent amongst the workers. One of the grievances was a requirement to work overtime. An average working day was 11 hours, 06.00 to 17.00, with overtime taking the working day to 21.00. The men were told that their 'boards' would not be issued for the Saturday shift if they refused the overtime. The boards were where the men recorded their work, without their board they could not work.
In 1962 the Shildon Works underwent a £800,000 modernisation following the creation of the British Rail Workshops Division. This saw the works equipped to repair BR wagons and from 1970, wagons from abroad. A notable wagon which came out of the works on this period was the 'Presflo' air-discharge cement wagon along with high capacity coal and Freightliner wagons. The forge at Shildon also produced a large proportion of drop stampings for other railway works.
The works repair shop had the capacity to overhaul and repair 800 wagons a week. Production figures show that between 1965 and 1982 the works build 11,083 'Merry-go-round' 32.5 tonne capacity coal hoppers.
Campaign to Save the Works and Closure
1982
The closure of the works was announced on 23 April 1982 by British Rail Engineering Ltd (BREL).
At the time of the announcement the works employed 2,600 people and amounted to 86% of the male workforce's manufacturing jobs in the town.
Eight days before the announcement of the closure there were rumours that it may come.
With negotiations under way local journalists reported being hung up on when trying to call union officials at the works. These negotiations received a blow on 17 April, when works National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) chair Roy Jones collapsed on his way to work from a suspected stroke. He was in London for negotiations on 13 and 14 April and the strain is believed to have caused the stroke.
Interviewed in 1990, Sidney Weighell (General Sec. NUR) recalled first hearing of the closure plan -
A trade union march was organised for 29 April, which was to assemble at 10am on the playing field of Sunnydale School. Members of the Sedgefield District Council closure working party were authorised to attend as 'approved duty' with pay. The march worked its way through the town, led by figures including Derek Foster MP and Roland Boyes MEP, to the local football ground. BREL set out its case for closure in a special edition of Railtalk Magazine using a question and answer format.
On 5 May a joint report by Durham and Sedgefield Councils' planning departments was issued. It stated that closure would result in the loss of 2,180 jobs and leave one in four of the "insured population in the Bishop Auckland Employment Exchange area" unemployed. A further 450 jobs with suppliers to the works would also be lost.
At 19.30 on the evening of 7 May a trades union meeting was held in the works canteen to discuss progress in the campaign to save the facility. A strike was discussed but "Derby were lukewarm, but Glasgow suggested an immediate strike because of fears that there would be a dwindling of workshops". A protest to London was thought to be a better idea and a train chartered to take people to the capital. Ultimately it was decided that travellers would pay £5 each with the remaining amount coming from the fighting fund.
In his 1990 interview Weighell recalled the Shildon branch of the NUR -
Dennis Lees arrived as acting manager of the works on 10 May, replacing Derek Clarke who had been made acting manager at the Doncaster facility.