Drivers leaving the M1 at the Tinsley viaduct can still pass the buildings where the Yorkshire Engine Company constructed and repaired locomotives for a hundred years. Founded in 1865, the company outlived many of its competitors and dispatched its last locomotives in 1965. Established by a group of local businessmen, technical expertise was provided by Archibald Sturrock, Locomotive Engineer of the Great Northern Railway, and Charles Sacre, Engineer of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway.

As the initial orders from UK and Indian railways fell away, the company was forced to take orders from Russia, where payment was not always forthcoming. The company became a leading manufacturer of Fairlie locomotives and undertook financially disastrous experiments with the building of marine engines and tramway locomotives. By 1880, in spite of new orders from Indian railways, the business was put into liquidation and a new company formed. This book gives a history of the financial fortunes and experiments of the company and the men who ran it.