WHEN the axe fell on Shildon Wagon Works 20 years ago this week it devastated the community.

When the gates closed for the final time grown men wept and it was the end of a town's love affair with the railways that spanned more than 150 years.

Shildon Wagon Works was the Jewel in the Crown of British Rail.

As one of the largest railway wagon building and repair centres in Europe it was a thriving enterprise that had provided work for generations.

At its peak its annual turnover was £24m with the 2,600 strong work force repairing and modifying 510 wagons a week - 25,000 a year. The factory occupied 58 acres and had 20 miles of track. A locomotive could start at one end of the works and travel by track through the different departments and come out at the other end ready for action.

It was with a sense of pride that young boys followed in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers taking on an apprenticeship knowing that one day their sons too would carry on the tradition.

Little did they know privatisation was around the corner and the end of an era was nigh.

Alan Cole, 56, started work there when he was 16 as an apprentice fitter, his father Cecil also worked there and both his grandfathers before that.

He said: "When I first started thousands worked there. It was like a community on its own. Everybody knew each other. Many of the lads I worked with I had been around all my life. We went to school together and then went on to work together.

"We knew that eventually they would close down some of the works but none of us ever thought they would close the lot and at the time everybody was devastated."

So June 29, 1984, saw the end of a dream that started in the early 1800s when rail pioneer Timothy Hackworth came to town.

Hackworth put Shildon on the railway engineering map, building the Royal George in 1827 and the Sans Pareil.

Now the town's links with the industry are about to be revived in the shape of the £10m Locomotion: National Railway Museum. It is hoped that pride will be restored in its history but many will never forget 'Shildon Shops.'