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Edward Thompson (engineer)
Edward Thompson (25 June 1881 – 15 July 1954) was an English railway engineer, and was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway between 1941 and 1946. Edward Thompson was born at Marlborough, Wiltshire on 25 June 1881. He was the son of an assistant master at Marlborough College. He was educated at Marlborough before taking the Mechanical Science Tripos at Pembroke College, Cambridge, earning a third class degree. Thompson's academic background contrasts with that of his predecessor Nigel Gresley, who had also attended Marlborough, but then gained practical experience as a pupil at Horwich Works. Career NER, GNR, LNER After graduation Thompson worked in both industry and the railways for a while. By 1910 he was assistant divisional locomotive superintendent on the North Eastern Railway (NER), in which capacity he gave evidence at the inquiry into the fatal accident between two goods trains at Darlington on 15 November 1910. In 1912 he was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marlborough, Wiltshire
Marlborough ( , ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the England, English Counties of England, county of Wiltshire on the A4 road (England), Old Bath Road, the old main road from London to Bath, Somerset, Bath. The town is on the River Kennet, 24 miles (39 km) north of Salisbury and 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Swindon. History The earliest sign of human habitation is the Marlborough Mound, a prehistoric tumulus in the grounds of Marlborough College. Recent radiocarbon dating has found it to date from about 2400 BC. It is of similar age to the larger Silbury Hill about west of the town. Legend has it that the Mound is the burial site of Merlin (wizard), Merlin and that the name of the town comes from Merlin's Tumulus, Barrow. More plausibly, the town's name possibly derives from the medieval term for chalky ground "marl"—thus, "town on chalk". However more recent research, from geographer John Everett-Heath, identifies the original O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BR Standard Class 8
The BR Standard Class 8 was a class of a single 4-6-2 ''Pacific'' steam locomotive designed by Robert Riddles for use by British Railways. Only the prototype was constructed, named ''Duke of Gloucester''. Constructed at Crewe Works in 1954, the ''Duke'', as it is popularly known, was a replacement for the destroyed LMS Princess Royal Class locomotive number 46202 ''Princess Anne'', which was involved in the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash of 1952. The ''Duke'' was based on the BR Standard Class 7 ''Britannia'' design. It incorporated three sets of modified Caprotti valve gear, relatively new to British locomotive engineering and more efficient than Walschaerts or Stephenson valve gear. The ''Duke'' was regarded as a failure by locomotive crews due to its poor steaming characteristics and its heavy fuel consumption. Trials undertaken by British Railways also returned negative feedback, reporting problems with the poor draughting of the locomotive which resulted in difficulty a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2-6-4
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a locomotive has two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and four trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called Adriatic. Overview With only a few known exceptions, the Adriatic wheel arrangement was usually used on tank locomotives, for which various suffixes to indicate the type of tank would be added to the wheel arrangement, for example for an engine with side-tanks. Tender locomotives The earliest known example was the South African Class 6Z, designed by Cape Government Railways (CGR) Chief Locomotive Superintendent Hazlitt Beatty in 1901. The first engines of the class were modified 2-6-2 Prairie locomotives which were equipped with two-axle trailing bogies. In 1902, more were placed in service, but built with the wheel arrangement. The latter were the first known tender locomotives in the world to be built with this wheel arrangement.Neilson, Reid works list, compiled by Austrian loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LNER Thompson Class L1
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Thompson Class L1 was a class of 2-6-4T steam locomotives designed by Edward Thompson (engineer), Edward Thompson. The prototype no. 9000 was built in 1945, but the remaining 99 were built under British Railways jurisdiction in the period 1948–1950. Overview The class, at least on paper, should have been very free steaming and powerful engines but, in practice, they were not suited to the work to which they were assigned. The engines had driving wheels, which would give them excellent power at low speed, such as that required for freight work, but these engines were intended for passenger use. The speeds required for suburban passenger work wore the engines out in a remarkably short time. Axleboxes, crosshead slides and crank bearings all suffered due to the high speeds. Accidents and incidents *On 19 November 1958, a freight train overran signals and was in a rear-end collision with another at Hitchin, Hertfordshire. A third frei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slippery Rail
Slippery rail, or low railhead adhesion, is a condition of railways (railroads) where contamination of the railhead reduces the traction between the wheel and the rail. This can lead to wheelslip when the train is taking power, and wheelslide when the train is braking. One common cause of contamination is fallen leaves that adhere to the railhead (top surface) of railway tracks. The condition results in significant reduction in friction between train wheels and rails, and in extreme cases can render the track temporarily unusable. In Britain, the situation is colloquially referred to as "leaves on the line". Low adhesion caused by weather Railhead contamination caused by weather conditions can occur at any time of year. The leaf fall season causes the most disruption to rail operations. In heavily deciduous forested areas like the American Mid-Atlantic states, New England, many parts of Europe including the UK, and Southern Ontario, Canada, the problem can arise. Where the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locomotive Frame
A locomotive frame is the structure that forms the backbone of the railway locomotive, giving it strength and supporting the superstructure elements such as a cab, boiler or bodywork. The vast majority of locomotives have had a frame structure of some kind. The frame may in turn be supported by axles directly attached to it, or it may be mounted on bogies ( UK) / trucks ( US), or a combination of the two. The bogies in turn will have frames of their own. Types of frame 250px, Preserved GWR 9017 showing outside frames Three main types of frame on steam locomotives may be distinguished:, p 255. Plate frames These used steel plates about thick. They were mainly used in Britain and continental Europe. On most locomotives, the frames would be situated within the driving wheels ("inside frames"), but some classes of an early steam locomotive and diesel shunters were constructed with "outside frames". Some early designs were double framed where the frame consisted of plates both in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bogie
A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transport. A bogie may remain normally attached (as on many railroad cars and semi-trailers) or be quickly detachable (as the dolly in a road train or in railway bogie exchange); it may contain a suspension within it (as most rail and trucking bogies do), or be solid and in turn be suspended (as most bogies of tracked vehicles are); it may be mounted on a swivel, as traditionally on a railway carriage or locomotive, additionally jointed and sprung (as in the landing gear of an airliner), or held in place by other means (centreless bogies). In Scotland, the term is used for a child’s (usually home-made) wooden cart. While ''bogie'' is the preferred spelling and first-listed variant in various dictionaries, bogey and bogy are also used. Rai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecting Rod
A connecting rod, also called a 'con rod', is the part of a piston engine which connects the piston to the crankshaft. Together with the crank, the connecting rod converts the reciprocating motion of the piston into the rotation of the crankshaft. The connecting rod is required to transmit the compressive and tensile forces from the piston. In its most common form, in an internal combustion engine, it allows pivoting on the piston end and rotation on the shaft end. The predecessor to the connecting rod is a mechanic linkage used by water mills to convert rotating motion of the water wheel into reciprocating motion. The most common usage of connecting rods is in internal combustion engines or on steam engines. __TOC__ Origins The predecessor to the connecting length is the mechanical linkage used by Roman-era watermills. The earliest known example of this linkage has been found at the late 3rd century Hierapolis sawmill in Roman Asia (modern Turkey) and the 6th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walschaerts Valve Gear
The Walschaerts valve gear is a type of valve gear used to regulate the flow of steam to the pistons in steam locomotives, invented by Belgium, Belgian railway mechanical engineering, engineer Egide Walschaerts in 1844. The gear is sometimes named without the final "s", since it was incorrectly patented under that name. It was extensively used in steam locomotives from the late 19th century until the end of the steam era. History The Walschaerts valve gear was slow to gain popularity. The Stephenson valve gear remained the most commonly used valve gear on 19th-century locomotives. However, the Walschaerts valve gear had the advantage that it could be mounted entirely on the outside of the locomotives, leaving the space between the locomotive frame, frames clear and allowing easy access for service and adjustment, which resulted in it being adopted in some articulated locomotives. The first locomotive fitted with the Walschaerts valve gear was built at the Belgian Tubize worksh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divided Drive (locomotive)
A divided drive locomotive is a steam locomotive that divides the driving force on its wheels by using different cylinders to power different pairs of driving wheels in order to give better weight distribution and reduce "hammer blow" which can be damaging to the track, or else to enable the wider spacing of the driving wheels to accommodate a larger firebox. Origins Anatole Mallet The system of dividing drive was originally developed by Anatole Mallet in the 1870s on a number of rigid-wheelbase compound locomotives, and then during the 1880s, on Mallet articulated locomotives. Francis Webb Mallet's ideas inspired Francis Webb in Britain who introduced 2-(2-2)-0, 2-(2-2)-2, 2-2-2-2T, 2-2-(4-0)T divided drive locomotives between 1882 and 1903. Alfred de Glehn Alfred de Glehn introduced a successful divided drive 2-(2-2)-0 compound based on Webb's ideas,. Use in the UK Dugald Drummond of the London and South Western Railway used divided drive (not very successfully) in his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LNER Class A1/A3
The London and North Eastern Railway LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3 locomotives represented two distinct stages in the history of the British "Pacific" steam locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley. They were designed for main line passenger services and later express passenger services, initially on the Great Northern Railway (GNR), a constituent company of the London and North Eastern Railway after the amalgamation of 1923, for which they became a standard design. The change in class designation to A3 reflected the fitting to the same chassis of a higher pressure boiler with a greater superheating surface and a small reduction in cylinder diameter, leading to an increase in locomotive weight. Eventually all of the A1 locomotives were rebuilt, most to A3 specifications, but no. 4470 was completely rebuilt as Class A1/1. The names for the locomotives came from a variety of sources. The first, ''Great Northern'', was named after its parent company. Others were given the names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LNER Class V2
The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class V2 2-6-2 steam locomotives were designed by Sir Nigel Gresley for express mixed traffic work, and built at the LNER shops at Doncaster and Darlington between 1936 and 1944. The best known is the first of the class, 4771 (later 800 and 60800) ''Green Arrow'', which is the sole survivor of the class. Construction The V2s were the only major class of 2-6-2 tender locomotives used in Britain. Whilst 2-6-2T tank locomotives were common in the UK, the only other 2-6-2 tender locomotives were the unsuccessful experimental Midland Railway Paget locomotive of 1908, and the two examples of Gresley's LNER Class V4 of 1941. The wheel arrangement allowed the fitting of a large firebox uninhibited by the rear driving wheel, and the front pony truck improved stability at high speeds. The V2 was derived from the Class A1/A3 pacifics with smaller driving wheels (of compared to ) and a shortened boiler. It retained Gresley's favoured 3-cylin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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