North Eastern Railway (United Kingdom)

The North Eastern Railway (NER ) was a British railway company that existed from 1854 to 1922. Unlike other companies who were active at that time, the NER had a relatively compact catchment area. The routes with a total length of 2828 km were mainly in Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland in North East England, occasionally also in Cumberland and Westmorland.

History

In 1854, the foundation of the NER, as the four companies York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, York and North Midland Railway Leeds Northern Railway and Malton and Driffield Railway merged. 1862 was added at the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway, 1863, the Stockton and Darlington Railway and 1865 the West Hartlepool Railway.

The main railway stations were York (Head Office and site of the largest mechanical interlocking of Britain with 295 levers ) and Newcastle Central. The NER was also in possession of docks in Hull, Hartlepool, South Shields and Middlesbrough. In order to provide direct trains between London and Edinburgh, cooperated NER from 1860 with the North British Railway and the Great Northern Railway; the three companies acquired rolling stock with uniform technical specifications in order to allow a continuous operation on the East Coast Main Line.

With the electrification of the UK rail network, the NER played a pioneering role. In 1904 she was preparing three suburban routes to Newcastle upon Tyne for electric operation from (Newcastle Central - Wallsend - Whitley Bay - Gosforth, Newcastle Central - Benton and Byker - Percy Main). These so-called ' Tyneside Electrics ' lines were busbars with 600 V DC. Today, these routes are part of the Tyne and Wear Metro.

With the entry into force of the Railways Act 1921 on 1 January 1923, the NER went on in the London and North Eastern Railway.