YORKSHIRE COASTAL ENGINE SHEDS AND THEIR LOCOMOTIVES PART TWO WHITBY TOWN

The engine shed put up at Whitby in 1847 by the Whitby & Pickering Railway, for the first use of locomotives, was built of stone, 105 x 35ft with two roads, arched entrances and a hipped roof with central smoke vent; a coaling crane completed the external facilities while an annexe at the rear of the dead-end building housed the depot office and fitters’ workshop. By 1867 increased traffic brought a plan for an extension to double the building in length, at the south end, at a cost of £1,500. However, that was quickly stymied by a legal case brought by a local resident who complained that the extension’s proposed roofline would spoil his view over the River Esk, to the town! Accordingly the roof had to be redesigned and built at a somewhat lower level, this in turn requiring the side walls and windows of the extension to be reduced in size. At some time a shear legs was fitted inside the depot, at the rear of the easternmost road and in 1876 a 42ft turntable was installed south of the depot, on the west side. The table would be enlarged twice, though on a new site on the opposite side of the main line – to 50ft in 1912 and to 60ft in 1936, the latter device coming second-hand, from York.

The 1880s opening of the lines to Saltburn and Scarborough brought extra work to Whitby shed, but further expansion was not possible so in 1900 there came a proposal for a roundhouse to be built near Larpool; however, this never materialised. By 1903 the objecting local resident had apparently