The Internalisation of Locomotive Building by Britain’s Railway Companies during the Nineteenth Century

The Internalisation of Locomotive Building by Britain’s Railway Companies during the Nineteenth Century

By David Boughey

Business and Economic History, Vol.28, no. 1 (Fall 1999)

Introduction: By the early 1870s the majority of Britain’s larger railway companies were building locomotives in their own workshops, only occasionally turning to external suppliers. Such a policy stands in stark contrast to that followed by foreign lines, with the exception of the Pennsylvania Railroad which met much of its own locomotive requirements internally from 1875. The internalisation policies of Britain’s railway companies attracted considerable debate, and private builders, aside from the loss of business, failed to believe that the reasons behind the decision to self-build were legitimate. This proved to be a source of discontent well into the twentieth-century.

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