Ipswich engine shed

Ipswich engine shed was an engine shed located in Ipswich in Suffolk in the UK on the Great Eastern Main Line located just south of Stoke tunnel and the current Ipswich railway station. Locomotives accessed the site from Halifax Junction which was also the junction for the Griffin Wharf branch of Ipswich docks. The depot opened in 1846 and closed in 1968 although the site remained in railway use for a further thirty years.

In British Railways days it was allocated the code 32B.

Locomotive activity started on the depot site with the opening of the original Ipswich station located at Croft Street and (presumably the newly named) Station St in June 1846 by the Eastern Union Railway. Locomotives belonging to sister company the Ipswich and Bury Railway would also have used the facilities when their line opened in November 1846 although the two railway companies were worked as one from January the following year.

In June 1851 the EUR had 31 locomotives breaking down thus:

All locomotives carried a green livery.

In 1854 the EUR was taken over by the Eastern Counties Railway and in 1860 the new Ipswich railway station opened after the tunnel was completed. It was at this time a carriage and wagon works was established on the site of the old station.

The initial engine shed was a two road shed with associated sidings and a small (befitting the size of engine of the time) turntable. The history of the shed for the next 90 or so years was a case of poor facilities being provided for what was a busy engine shed, and head of a significantly sized organisational district including major sub-sheds at Colchester and Parkeston as well as a host of smaller sheds.

The site was always cramped and poorly equipped with every day servicing of engines taking place in the open.

The Great Eastern Railway was formed in 1862 by the amalgamation of several East Anglian Railways.

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