Langwith

I had heard about Langwith when I was twelve years old and at home on Merseyside. It was listed alongside its 41J shed code in my summer 1962 edition combined volume of British Railways locomotives. I did not have a clue where Langwith was or why somewhere apparently so obscure should have locomotive sheds at all.

I had never seen the shed at Langwith until yesterday. The remaining building is now part of WH Davis, who took it on after the sheds closed in 1966. They have been repairing and making railway wagons next door since 1908. The surviving brick built shed with a corrugated roof has had modern factory units added nearby.

Langwith Junction was always a much more interesting location from a railway point of view than I had given it credit for in my youth. This was where the Great Central Railway, running east from Chesterfield to Lincoln, crossed the Midland Railway, going north from Nottingham to Worksop. The sheds were opened by the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway in 1896. They housed mainly freight locomotives, many of them Class O2 and O4s designed by Robinson for the GCR, followed by Austerity 2-8-0s and Standard 9F 2-10-0s, distributing coal from the North Derbyshire coal field.