page_title: Swindon Works
section_title: Nationalisation
hierarchical_section_title: Swindon Works / History / Nationalisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Locomotives outside Swindon Works in the snow - in November. View SW of the locomotive sidings outside the main workshops. A London Midland 2-6-0 (Ivatt 4MT 2-6-0 No. 43001) is a stranger among various ex-Great Western engines. The occasion was an organised visit.
context_page_description: Swindon railway works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986.
context_section_description: At the start of the formation of the nationalised British Rail (BR) in 1947, the works were still producing 60 new locomotives in the year, falling to 42 in 1954. From 1948 to 1956 the works made 452 steam engines to GWR designs, partly in parallel with producing 200 BR standard classes from 1951 until 1960.
  The decision in 1960 to move BR's main motive power from steam to diesel bought the works both new lines of employment and an end to an old one. The works became the southern UK's regional hub for the storage and scrapping of steam locomotives and rolling stock, a role which later expanded to all scrap railwayana in light of the Beeching axe. However, it also brought about an end to steam locomotive production, with the works producing BR's last steam locomotive 92220 Evening Star, by which time the works only employed 5,000.
  Much of the original design and specification for the first Mark 2 carriages and bogies was carried out by the Engineering drawing office at Swindon in the early 1960s. The B4 bogie used on this carriage provided more reliable high speed running than that under the previous generation  Mark 1 carriage and heralded the higher running speeds brought in with the start of InterCity services and the West Coast Main Line electrification.
caption: Locomotives outside Swindon Works in the snow in November 1964
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