Thousands of workers once passed through its gates each day, but 20 years ago more than a century of train building was brought to a final close at York Carriageworks. ANDREW HITCHON looks back at how a once thriving industry failed to survive in a changing world.

TWO decades have passed since the last trains rolled out of York Carriageworks and brought the curtain down on a once vital part of the city's manufacturing history.

The ABB site off Holgate Road, previously known as BREL, was closed in the middle of 1996, after a decision early the previous year by British Rail not to place a follow-up order for Networker commuter trains to serve Kent lines.

This dealt a final knockout blow to the works, which had been in existence for more than a century, though many blamed their demise on a longer-term fall in orders due to uncertainty caused by the privatisation of British Rail, which was taking place at the time.

ABB's 750 workers were told by their bosses that the massive site was to close and production would be wound down.

Desperate efforts were made to save the works and the experience of its highly skilled workforce. York Labour MP Hugh Bayley and his Conservative counterpart in Ryedale, John Greenway, sought a meeting with Transport Minister John Watts, while The Press launched a petition against the closure.

But though the MPs, union representatives and the paper's then editor, David Nicholson, did get to meet Mr Watts, their efforts were to no avail.

The Minister had already told The Press that he did not have the power to intervene, as he could not instruct British Rail to change its decision.

The following summer the last trains rolled off the production line, watched by about half a dozen testers and supervisors, all that remained of a workforce that once ran into thousands.

The factory had closed down some weeks before, but completed trains had filled the yards until shortly before the final day, because getting them into service had been delayed by Railtrack's reluctance to grant them safety certificates, and because of problems with gearboxes supplied by another company to ABB.

The final units were transferred by road and rail to a site at Doncaster. Some of the York testers commuted there each day to complete testing work on the trains.

It was a sad end to a rich history of train-building in York, which began under the auspices of the North Eastern Railway in 1884. The site passed to the ownership of the London and North Eastern Railway, British Rail, and then British Rail Engineering Ltd (BREL).

In the 1950s the sprawling works employed more than 3,000 workers, and down the years hundreds of apprentices from all over Yorkshire came to gain skills and expertise at the plant.

But dark clouds were gathering, even as BREL was privatised in 1987 and site was bought by ABB in 1989. British Rail contracts started being put out to public tender in the 1980s. The failure to gain specific orders led to job losses at York, culminating in the final shock BR decision in 1995 and eventual closure in 1996.

That same year The Press reported that the city had lost 2,000 rail jobs since BR's privatisation, saying much of this was down to the demise of the carriageworks, which it said had employed 1,600 people in 1992.

When he visited York during the 1997 General Election campaign, the then Conservative Prime Minister John Major said the area's recent heavy rail and defence job losses had been "inevitable".

He claimed the region could no longer expect its traditional industrial bases to last forever. He said: "Britain is part of a global economy. We can't stand still any longer.

"The days when jobs were passed on from one generation to the next have gone." But Mr Major predicted the beginning of a new era in the region's business enterprise.

A new industrial era appeared to have dawned for the Holgate Road site that same year, as American rail giant Thrall Europa took part of it over to build freight wagons. But it closed its operation down in 2002, with the loss of 260 jobs.

Much of the former carriageworks site has been completely transformed since ABB's closure, with housing at the far western end of the area off Holgate Road and a complex of office buildings to the east of that.

But a vestige of the area's railway heritage remains, with a Network Rail using part of the site as a vehicle servicing centre.

BLOB Did you work at York Carriageworks or have memories or old photographs of the this crucial part of the city's railway heritage? If so, please contact Stephen Lewis on 01904 567263 or email stephen.lewis@thepress.co.uk