Carnforth MPD (Motive Power Depot) is a former London Midland and Scottish Railway railway depot located in the town of Carnforth, Lancashire, England.
Completed in 1944 on the site of the former Furness Railway depot, its late construction in the steam locomotive age resulted in its long-term use and conservation by British Railways. Targeted as part of a preservation scheme, when this failed it was developed as major visitor attraction Steamtown Carnforth. Today, closed as a museum, it acts as the major national operational base of West Coast Railways.
Importance of Carnforth
Carnforth was not an important or well developed village before the Victorian era railway age, but was geographically strategically located to make it so. While supplies of limestone made it interesting, access into Westmorland, the Lake District and the coast of Cumberland beyond made it an ideal transport hub point.
Carnforth railway station opened as a single platform wooden structure for access to the then village, but was made into a permanent stone structure by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (L&CR) in 1846. In 1857 it became a junction station when the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway used it, as did the Furness Railway soon afterwards after taking control of the ULR. The Furness Railway built their own Engine Shed west of the Station; and it is this Shed which was later developed into the present facility. In the 1870s architect William Tite redesigned the station and layout, allowing Midland Railway trains access. The regionally competing London and North Western Railway (LNWR) took over the L&CR, and created a jointly - This growth continued from the late-Victorian era to post World War II and into the early 1950s. At its height Carnforth handled up to 100 trains a day of holidaymakers, commuters, freight and fuel bound for the seaside, cities, ports and industrial centres.
History
When the Midland Railway reached Carnforth in 1857, it developed a small roundhouse depot and maintenance shed to service its locomotive stock. In Midland days, the Shed was coded "31". The building is still in use as a light industrial facility. In the 1880s the LNWR had rebuilt the small 2-road L&CR facility south of the station into a standard-pattern LNWR 6-road facility.
At the railway grouping in 1923, the London Midland and Scottish Railway was created by amalgamation of the MR and the LNWR, together with other railway companies. About 1925, the Furness Shed at Carnforth was closed - the LNWR [Code, Sub of Preston No 27] and Midland Sheds continuing in use for the time being. It was only the largest three constituents of the LMS [LNWR, L&YR and Mid] which used Shed Codes. In 1935, the LMS reorganised the Operating Department; and introduced one composite list of Codes to cover the entire system. And Carnforth became 11A - even though the Depot was spread over two different sites. Resolution of that deficiency had to wait until after the advent of War.
From 1936 onwards under instruction from the Air Ministry's Sir Kingsley Wood, in a programme headed by Herbert Austin many key industries in London and the industrialised Midlands, had created a shadow factory to enable production should war break out. Many of these shadow factories, plus a number of Royal Ordnance Factories, were located in Cumbria and the Northwest coast, out of range of the bombers of the Nazi Luftwaffe. Consequently, when World War 2 did break out, staff moved and additionals were recruited to these facilities. The raw materials going in and requirement of distribution of output, the transport result was a relative boom in both freight and passenger traffic.
With the United States involved in the war from 1941, planning for Operation Overlord the invasion of Europe began. The Port of Liverpool and the west coast ports of Scotland were key to importing war machinery and supplies from North America, as well as distributing US Army and Canadian Army troops across England for training, initially in the northwest and northeast. The combination of these factors put a huge strain on local locomotive servicing facilities at Carnforth. Therefore, in late 1942, the Government agreed to fund the construction of a new shed at Carnforth, to allow for the new and planned level of locomotive servicing requirement. Built on the site of the former Furness facility and opened in 1944, it allowed for the servicing of many more locomotives, and together with highly mechanised supporting infrastructure greatly reduced the need for operational manpower. Both the LNWR and the Midland Sheds were closed at this juncture. The new facilities included a 70-foot turntable, which could turn LMS Pacifics.