Haymarket’s history

There has been a depot at Haymarket since the 1840s, when the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway built a maintenance shed 400 metres to the east of the present site for the depot.

This initial site became unsuitable when the Forth Bridge opened in 1890, coupled with the general expansion of the railway which resulted in more rolling stock being built for operations. And so the North British Railway built a new depot at the present site. It opened in 1892.

In 1923, as part of the Grouping, it became part of the London North Eastern Railway (LNER), and was then used for maintaining East Coast Main Line traction (from 1924 the famous ‘A4’ streamlined Pacific steam locomotives were based here, as were ‘A3s’). It was not the only depot in the city - there was also St Margaret’s and Dalry sheds, the former owned by the LNER and the latter by the ‘competing’ London Midland Scottish (LMS) Railway.

A 70ft turntable was installed at Haymarket in 1931, along with a mechanical coaling plant to aid easy loading of the tenders and bunkers of steam locomotives.

The shed code was 64B from 1950, and from May 1973 this was recoded to HA for the TOPS computer purposes.

The first Class 08 shunters arrived in November 1958, and more were based here over the years. The last left in August 1991 (the final allocation of the locomotives at the depot).

In February 1960, the first main line diesel locomotives were allocated to 64B, with a small stud of English Electric Type 4 1Co-Co1 (Class 40s) allocated there (D256-66, arriving in February and March).

In late 1961, a second batch of Class 40s arrived (D357-68) and seven of the original allocation (D260-66) were modified to have the same four-character headcode displays as carried by the new arrivals. D256-59, having only stayed at the depot for a month, did not have this modification. The last of the Class 40s left the shed in October 1981, although members of the class continued to visit the depot thereafter.

Over the next few years, examples of Classes 20, 24, 25, 26, 40 and 47 were allocated to the depot, along with eight English Electric Type 5s - the famous Deltics.

D9000 Royal Scots Grey was joined by D9004 Queen’s Own Highlander, D9006 The Fife & Forfar Yeomanry, D9010 The King’s Own Scottish Borderer, D9013 The Black Watch, D9016 Gordon Highlander, D9019 Royal Highland Fusilier and D9021 Argyll & Sutherland Highlander.

Finsbury Park’s D9001/ 03/ 09/12 spent a brief spell at the depot in late 1967 through to mid-1968, but in May 1979 all eight of Haymarket’s Deltics were transferred to York. By January 1982 all had been withdrawn - 55022 was the last to leave the depot for a passenger train working when it ran light on January 2 1982 to work the ‘Deltic Scotsman’ Farewell charter back to King’s Cross.

Class 46s were based at the depot on three occasions, but only for short periods for crew training, although the class were common visitors to the depot throughout their careers from 1962-84. D153 was the first in FebruaryApril 1962, followed by D170 in July-October 1970 and D176 from October 1970-March 1971.

No Class 31s or ‘45s’ were ever based here, but they were occasional visitors to the depot if Gateshead sent one north from Newcastle. The same applied to Class 50s - occasionally one arrived from Carlisle in the period from 1967-76, when they were based at Crewe for West Coast Main Line workings.