Many of our locomotives and other items of rolling stock, including all of our cranes, were built in Leeds.  This is true of many industrial locomotives across the world, since Leeds was one of the biggest producers of industrial locomotives.

The displays in our Engine House museum will give you much more information about our local engine making heritage.  In particular, you will find information here about each of the different firms in the Leeds area that built railway rolling stock, and about the kinds of processes that were involved in this industry.

More can also be read online at the Leeds Engine Builders web site.  Details of this site are given in our Links page.

Return to the page for our museum collection.

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More Information

Pages about other categories of museum exhibits:

• Steam Locomotives;
• Diesel and Electric Locomotives;
• Coaches (and other passenger vehicles);
• Goods wagons;
• Cranes;

Other pages provide more information about:

• Our museum collection;
• Our portfolio of development projects;
• How you could get involved;
• What we offer for visitors;
• Our train services;
• How to find us.

Steam locomotives, which are powered by burning coal to produce steam in the boiler, are the oldest form of locomotive technology.  They provided the main power sources for railways up until the 1960s, and the collection here illustrates many of the key features of steam locomotives that were used on industrial railways.

Each steam locomotive in our collection has what we call a 'Middleton number', which isn't shown on the locomotive, but it is used in fleet lists and on the display panels in the Engine House to identify the locomotives.  In the list below this number is shown in square brackets.

The locomotives themselves are identified by the name of the builder and the 'works number' which the builder allocated to it when they built it.  In addition, many of these locomotives carry what are usually called 'running numbers', and these are given here in single quotes, while others carry names, and these are given here in double quotes.  Unlike main line locomotives, however, very few industrial locomotives carried both running numbers and names, although often the running numbers did also include the name of the company that owned the locomotive.

Most of the information given on the pages for each locomotive should be self-explanatory, but you may wonder about the meaning of a description such as "0-6-0ST".  The first part of this is the arrangement of the wheels, where the first digit is the number of carrying wheels at the front (usually 0 for our locomotives), the second digit is the number of driving wheels, and the third digit is the number of carrying wheels at the back (again, usually 0 for our locomotives).

Then, the letters after these digits mainly indicate how the locomotive's water is carried:  ST stands for Saddle Tank (ie over the top of the boiler);  T stands for side Tank (ie alongside the boiler);  and WT for Well Tank (ie underneath the boiler, between the frames).  The other letters that may appear are VB, which stands for Vertical Boiler, or G, which stands for Geared (meaning that the pistons drive the wheels through gears rather than directly).

The following steam locomotives are in our collection.

• [S1] Sentinel 8837 '68153';
• [S3] North Eastern Railway '1310';
• [S5] Hudswell-Clarke 1309 "Henry De Lacy II";
• [S6] Hawthorn Leslie 3860 'No. 6';
• [S7] Hartmann 2110 'Hs 385';
• [S8] Peckett 2003 "John Blenkinsop";
• [S9] Manning Wardle 1601 "Matthew Murray";
• [S10] Hudswell-Clarke 1882 "Mirvale";
• [S11] Peckett 2103;
• [S13] Hunslet 2387 'Brookes No. 1';
• [S14] Manning Wardle 1210 "Sir Berkeley";
• [S15] Kitson 5469 '44', "Conway";
• [S16] Hunslet 1540 "Picton";
• [S17] Hunslet 1684 "Mendip Collier";
• [S19] Hunslet 1493 'No. 11';
• [S20] Hudswell-Clarke 1369 'M. S. C. No. 67';
• [S21] Hudswell-Clarke 1544 'Slough Estates No. 3'

The pages for these locomotives give a brief overview of our collection, but for more information about each one our stock book is available in the shop.  Click here for more details of this.

Return to the page for our museum collection.

Safeguarding the Future Appeal - Click for more details

More Information

Pages about other categories of museum exhibits:

• Diesel and Electric Locomotives;
• Coaches (and other passenger vehicles);
• Goods wagons;
• Cranes;

Other pages provide more information about:

• Our museum collection;
• Our portfolio of development projects;
• How you could get involved;
• What we offer for visitors;
• Our train services;
• How to find us.

Diesel locomotives, which are powered by diesel engines, began to be developed as an alternative to steam locomotives in the 1930s.  The earliest ones were not very powerful, and it was not until 1932 that the Hunslet Engine Company produced the first one that was suitable for any kind of main line operation - and this is now in our collection.  In the same year Hudswell-Clarke also produced some comparable locomotives, and one of those is in our collection, too.  Thus, our collection here illustrates many of the key features of the development of diesel locomotives for use on industrial railways.

By contrast, industrial railways made comparatively little use of electric locomotives, because of the safety concerns over having either live rails or overhead wiring in typical industrial sites.  One of the few situations where they were used successfully was in coking plants, where the locomotive simply had to shunt the coking car backwards and forwards under the retorts, and so it was possible to feed the power via a cable which could be wound in and out to match the movement of the locomotive.  We have an example of one of these in our collection, too, although it is still waiting for restoration, and so is not on display.

The following diesel and electric locomotives are in our collection. For each one the number in square brackets is the locomotive's 'Middleton number', which (as for the steam locomotives) isn't displayed on the locomotive, but it is used in fleet lists and on the display panels in the Engine House to identify the locomotives.  Then the locomotives themselves are identified by the name of the builder and the 'works number' which they allocated to it when they built it.  Some builders just used the same series of numbers for both steam and diesel locomotives, while others used a separate series of numbers for diesel locomotives.

Also, as with the steam locomotives, many of them carry what are usually called 'running numbers', and these are given here in single quotes, while others carry names, and these are given here in double quotes.  Unlike main line locomotives, however, very few industrial locomotives carried both running numbers and names, although often the running numbers did also include the name of the company that owned the locomotive.

• [D1] Hunslet 1697 '7051', "John Alcock";
• [D2] Fowler 3900002;
• [D3] Hunslet 1786 "Courage";
• [D4] Hudswell-Clarke D631 "Carroll";
• [D5] Hudswell-Clarke D577 "Mary";
• [D6] Brush/Beyer Peacock 91;
• [D8] Drewry RDB998901;
• [D9] Greenwood & Batley 420452;
• [D10] Peckett 5003 'Austins No. 1';
• [D11] Fowler 4220033 "Harry";
• [D13] Hunslet 6981 'Phillips 66';
• [D14] Hudswell-Clarke D1373 'Mersey Docks and Harbour Board No. 45'.

The pages for these locomotives give a brief overview of our collection, but for more information about each one our stock book is available in the shop.  Click here for more details of this.

Return to the page for our museum collection.

Safeguarding the Future Appeal - Click for more details

More Information

Pages about other categories of museum exhibits:

• Steam Locomotives;
• Coaches (and other passenger vehicles);
• Goods wagons;
• Cranes;

Other pages provide more information about:

• Our museum collection;
• Our portfolio of development projects;
• How you could get involved;
• What we offer for visitors;
• Our train services;
• How to find us.

0-4-0 electric coke oven locomotive

[Made In Leeds]

More details of this locomotive are given in our stockbook.

Go on to diesel locomotive D10: Peckett 5003.

Go back to diesel railcar D8: Drewry RDB998901.

Return to the list of diesel and electric locomotives.

Safeguarding the Future Appeal - Click for more details

More Information

Other pages provide more information about:

• Our museum collection;
• Our portfolio of development projects;
• How you could get involved;
• What we offer for visitors;
• Our train services;
• How to find us.