The North Eastern Railway in the First World War

The North Eastern Railway in the First World War, like all of the British Railways, underwent a lot of changes, and not just from the inevitable loss of male staff who joined the Army and Navy. Just four months from the outbreak of war, on 16 December 1914, the North Eastern Railway came under attack from the Imperial German Navy during the Bombardment of Whitby, Scarborough and Hartlepool, resulting in damage to North Eastern Railway buildings, track and rolling stock, and resulting in the deaths of two members of staff. 18,339 members of staff, 34% of the workforce, were released for military service - 2,236 of those men died during the war, and 300 received military decorations. There was even a North Eastern Railway Pals Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Changes weren't just to affect the men of the North Eastern Railway - at the outbreak of war the Railway employed 1,470 women and girls, by the end of the war it employed 7,885, not including an additional 1,000 temporarily employed at the Darlington National Projectile Factory built and ran by the NER. This book tells the story of the men, women and machines of the North Eastern Railway during the Great War. See more