Bow railway works was at Bow, an area of London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was built in 1853 by the North London Railway.
Bow railway works was built by the North London Railway in 1853 on a 10-acre (40,000 m2) site which also included a sizeable wagon repair shop, under the direction of William Adams the locomotive superintendent. At first it was used for the repair of locomotives purchased from outside contractors, but from 1860 it was enlarged to enable it to undertake locomotive construction. The first locomotive completed was 4-4-0T No. 43 which incorporated the Adams bogie, to improve high-speed stability. The last steam locomotive to be built at Bow was 4-4-0T No. 4 in 1906.[1]
A new erecting shop was built in 1882 under Adams' successor J.C. Park, who continued producing 4-4-0 and 0-6-0 tank engines for the railway. At its height the workshops were employing 750 men. Between 1879 and 1901, thirty 0-6-0 tanks designed by J.C.Park were built, of which fourteen lasted until British Railways ownership, the last being taken out of service in 1958 some seventy years old.[2]