NER (1884–1923) After the transfer of wagon building from York Queen Street in 1867, in 1880 the
North Eastern Railway took the decision to move carriage building to a new site, and the first contracts let for its construction in 1880. The works was designed as an integrated carriage building factory, with separate buildings for each process. The main buildings were of brick construction, with stone and coloured brick detailing. The internal construction was of cast iron columns with wrought iron beams. Carriage building started in 1884 which construction of 6-wheel carriages and the works started producing bogie coaches, initially of length, in 1895. By the late 1890s capacity had been reached, exacerbated by the increase in length of carriages, and from 1897 contracts were let for the construction of expansion of the works, primarily west, plus a large lifting shop adjacent south of the main works building. Electric and gas shops were also added and additional stores, plus servicing and washing sheds to the west. The expansion of buildings was mostly complete by 1900, excluding a wagon (rulley) shop built 1904. A large wood drying store allowed a ready supply of seasoned woods for carriage manufacture. In 1903 two ,
Petrol Electric Autocars were built, numbers 3170 and 3171, early examples of electric transmission in rail vehicles; the works produced rolling stock for the North Tyneside electrification in the same period.
LNER period (1923–1948) At the start of this period a survey by the LNER showed that York Works had a construction capacity of 200 coaches per year and to improve capacity the varnishing shop was converted to provide extra build capacity in 1924. The
London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) added traversers () at the west and east end of the main works building on the south side; to accommodate the east traverser the buildings were shortened. By this time York had moved to 'sectionalised assembly' and this methodology, having some similarities to a production line, was expanded in 1931 under
A. H. Peppercorn. During the
Second World War the carriage works produced parts for
Horsa Gliders and in 1944 part of the north building (building shop) which had been manufacturing launches for the
Royal Navy was destroyed by an accidental fire. The building was rebuilt with a new roof with
clerestory lighting, being reopened in 1947. During the war period time many of the workers were women, who worked shifts up to 69 hours in a week.
BR period (1948–1989) At nationalisation (see
Transport Act 1947) the works employed around 5,000 people. During the 1950s there were over 3,000 staff employed by the works and early
Diesel Multiple Units were maintained on the site. Some early
Electric Multiple Unit trains were built at York, such as
British Rail Class 305/1. In the 1960s the BR workshops were re-organised : regional workshops were abolished and control centralised with excess works closing. York, together with Derby was retained and assigned to carriage production, and £976,000 authorised for investment at the site. In 1970 the rolling stock workshops division of British Rail (excluding repair works) became
British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL). From the 1970s to 1989 the works manufactured much of British Rail's
electric multiple unit passenger stock, including:
Class 313 (64 three car trains, 1976/7);
Class 314 (16 three car trains, 1979);
Class 315 (61 four car, 1980/1);
Class 317 (72 four car, 1981-2 & 1985–7);
Class 319 (86 four car, 1987–1990);
Class 318 (21 three car, 1984–1986);,
Class 321 (117 four car, 1988–1991). and
Class 455 (137 four car, 1982–4). The works continued producing vehicles for British Rail after privatisation.
Class 150 DMUs were built, and
Class 165 and
Class 166 DMUs. BREL introduced some modern manufacturing methods at the works, installations included: five sheet metal machining centres, one with an automatic tool change, used to manufacture body shells and bolster parts for EMUs; test facilities for air-conditioning units; and clean rooms for electronics repair. The works also had a short test track electrified at 750 V DC or 25 kV AC. Experiments were carried out into robotic welding machines in the early 1980s, but the technique was not used for production at that time.
Post-privatisation (1989–) BREL was privatised in 1987, as
BREL (1988) Ltd., and acquired by a consortium including management,
Trafalgar House and
ABB acquired the company including the York works in 1989. Procurement contracts on British Rail began being put to public tender in the 1980s; the fate of the works was linked primarily to the number of orders for
Network SouthEast for electric passenger stock – failure to win the contract for electric multiple units for the
Heathrow Express service (awarded to Siemens/CAF, see
Class 332) resulted in the loss of 289 jobs. The works obtained contracts to build:
Class 320 (22 three car, 1990);
Class 322 (5 four car, 1990);
Class 365 (41 four car, 1994/5);
Class 456 (24 two car. 1991–92) and
Class 465 (97 four car, 1991–1994). Additionally
Eurotrams were built for the
Strasbourg tramways at the site, and at ABB's
Derby Litchurch Lane works . In 1995 ABB announced that the factory would close due to lack of orders; the cause was widely recognised as being due to a gap in train orders caused by uncertainties following the
privatisation of British Rail: Union officials, ABB management, and Conservative and Labour members of parliament all expressed similar views on the cause of the closure. Wagon manufacturer
Thrall (USA) reopened the plant as wagon works in 1997, having obtained about a £200 million order from
EWS for 2,500 wagons. Nearly half of the order was for 1145 HTA coal hoppers. Other wagon types produced included 300 MBA 'monster box', 260 BYA (covered steel coil), 100+400+300 FAA; FCA and FKA container flat wagons, and 60 BRA steel wagons. No further orders were received, and in 2002 the factory was closed by Thrall successor
Trinity Industries with 260 redundancies. Network Rail acquired the main building in 2009 for storage and maintenance of Rail Head Treatment Train wagons. ==Legacy==