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The text below is taken from the North_Eastern_Railway_(UK) article on Wikipedia, and is used under the terms of their licence.
For the now-defunct train operating company that ran the InterCity East Coast franchise, see Great North Eastern Railway (Also see: National Express East Coast).
The North Eastern Railway (NER), was an English railway company. It was incorporated in 1854, when four existing companies were combined, and was absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the Grouping in 1923.
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Unlike many other pre-Grouping companies the NER had a relatively compact territory, in which it had a near monopoly. That district extended through Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland, with outposts in Westmorland and Cumberland. The only company penetrating its territory was the Hull & Barnsley, which it absorbed shortly before the main grouping. The NER's main line formed the middle link on the Anglo-Scottish "East Coast Mainline" between London and Edinburgh, joining the Great Northern Railway near Doncaster and the North British Railway at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Although primarily an English railway, the NER had a short length of line in Scotland, in Roxburghshire, with stations at Carham and Sprouston. It was also responsible for the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-upon-Tweed.[1]
The total length of line owned was 4,990 miles and the company's share capital was £82 million. The headquarters were at York and the works at Darlington, Gateshead, York and elsewhere.[2]
Befitting the successor to the Stockton & Darlington Railway, the NER had a reputation for innovation. It was a pioneer in architectural and design matters and in electrification. In its final days it also began the collection that became the Railway Museum at York, now the National Railway Museum.
Constituent companies of the NER are listed in chronological order under the year of amalgamation.
Their constituent companies are indented under the parent company with the year of amalgamation in parenthesis.
If a company changed its name (usually after amalgamation or extension), the earlier names and dates are listed after the later name.
The information for this section is largly drawn from Appendix E (pp 778-779) in Tomlinson.[3]
1854
1857
1858
1859
1862
1863
1865
1866
1870
1872
1874
1876
1882
1883
1889'
1893
1898
1900
1914
1922
1853
1857
1893
Other principal stations were located at Sunderland, Darlington and Hull. The station at Leeds was a joint undertaking with the London and North Western Railway.
The NER was the first railway company in the world to appoint a full-time salaried architect to work with its chief engineer in constructing railway facilities. Some of the men appointed were based in, or active in, Darlington.
Professional design was carried through to small fixtures and fittings, such as platform seating, for which the NER adopted distinctive 'coiled snake' bench-ends. Cast-iron footbridges were also produced to a distinctive design. The NER's legacy continued to influence the systematic approach to design adopted by the grouped LNER.
The NER was the first main line rail company in Britain to adopt electric traction (the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway followed about one week later), with the first stretch of track going live on 29 March 1904. The lines converted were known as Tyneside Electrics and totalled about 30 miles[2]:
NB Further extensions were carried out in 1938 by the London and North Eastern Railway
Lines were electrified at 600v DC using 3rd rail system, although overhead line was used for much of the Quayside branch.
The NER carried a larger tonnage of mineral and coal traffic than any other principal railway.
The NER was a partner (with the North British and the Great Northern Railway) in the East Coast Joint Stock operation from 1860.
The company owned the following docks:
The NER also owned coal-shipping staithes at Blyth and Dunston-on-Tyne. Its steamboats ran between Hull and Antwerp and other places on the Continent.[2]
A comprehensive list of NER locomotives: Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway.
The NER originally operated with short four and six wheeled coaches with a fixed wheelbase. From these were developed the standard 32ft six wheeled, low elliptical roofed coaches which were built in their thousands around the 1880s, one variety alone, the diagram 15, five compartment, full 3rd class, numbered around a thousand. The NER started building bogie stock for general service use in 1894, 52ft clerestories for general use with a 45ft variation built for use on the tightly curved line from Malton to Whitby. There were also a series of 49ft low ark roofed bogie coaches (with birdcage brakes) for use on the coast line north of Scarborough. Coach manufacture moved to high arched roof vehicles but with substantially the same body design in the early 1900s.
The NER had limited need for vestibuled coaches but from 1908 built a series of vestibuled, corridor coaches with British Standard gangways, for their longer distance services. At the same time they built (in conjunction with their partners) similar coaches for the East Coast Joint Stock (GNR/NER/NBR) and the Great Northern and North Eastern Joint Stock.
All NER coach building was concentrated at their York Carriage Works, which went on to be the main LNER carriage works after grouping.
With the introduction of the standard 32ft 6w coaches NER carriage livery was standardised as 'deep crimson' (a deeper colour with more blue in it than that used by the Midland Railway), lined with cream edged on both sides with a thin vermillion line. For a time the cream was replaced with gold leaf. Lettering ('N.E.R.' or when there was sufficient space 'North Eastern Railway' in full, together with 'First', 'Third' and 'Luggage Compt.' on the appropriate door) and numbering; was in strongly serifed characters, blocked and shaded to give a 3D effect.
The NER's bogie coach building program was such that, almost unique amongst pre-grouping railways, they had sufficient bogie coaches to cover normal service trains; six wheel coaches were reserved for strengthening and exursion trains.
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