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Brecknell Willis is a British company headquartered in
Image:Brecknell willis low height.jpg, Low height pantograph
Image:20091223 375 Supertram 114.jpg,
Brecknell Willis
Details of different UK railway pantographs
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120515121734/http://www.traintesting.com/BW%20Highreach%20pan.htm Traintesting webpage on Brecknell Willis High Reach pantograph development {{Railway electrification Chard, Somerset Tram technology British companies established in 1854 Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom Electric railways in the United Kingdom Pantographs (rail)
Brecknell Willis is a British company headquartered in Chard
Chard or Swiss chard (; ''Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'', Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf blade; ...
, Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
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, established_date = Ancient
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, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
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, and brand-name of electrification equipment for railways, mostly pantograph
A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...
s and contact shoe
Electric current collectors are used by trolleybuses, trams, electric locomotives or EMUs to carry electrical power from overhead lines, electrical third rails, or ground-level power supplies to the electrical equipment of the vehicles. Those for ...
s.
History
Henry Brecknell and Sons began operating in 1854. In 1894, it moved into electrification. Since 1938 it has been in Chard, when known as Brecknell, Willis & Co. Ltd.Products
For theLondon Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
, it has supplied shoe gear and conductor rail systems, as well as pantographs to the rail industry.
Pantographs
Low height pantograph
The Brecknell Willis Low Height pantograph is one of the four standard devices in use on British railway locomotives and multiple units and is a development of the standard Brecknell Willis High Speed pantograph. The Low Height pantograph is suitable for speeds up to . It has a small aerofoil mounted on the knuckle joint between the upper and lower arms.High reach pantograph
Although it had been used on a few rapid transit systems and on a Blackpool tram, the first use of the high reach pantograph in the UK was the main lines was back in 1974 when a small number were fitted to some Class 309s based atIlford EMU Depot
Ilford EMU Depot is a traction maintenance depot located in Ilford, Greater London, England. The depot is situated on the Great Eastern Main Line and is on the north side of the line to the east of Ilford station, between that station and Sev ...
. These continued to be used until around 1980 when they were all removed.
High speed pantograph
The High speed pantograph was designed during the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of ongoing research into developing a pantograph capable of speeds over the 100 mph (160 km/h) limit of theStone Faiveley AMBR pantograph
Faiveley Transport (), formerly Faiveley, is an international manufacturer and supplier of equipment for the railway industry founded in 1919. It introduced the single-arm pantograph in 1955. The company has subsidiaries in more than 24 countr ...
, which was the standard type in use at the time. The first locomotive to be fitted with the pantograph was Class 86 No 86244, during February 1980. The pantograph is the mainstay within the UK railway system, where it is used on most overhead electric locomotives and EMUs. It has also been exported across the world, being used on the US high speed train Acela
The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermediate stops, includin ...
and the Eurostar
Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service connecting the United Kingdom with France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Most Eurostar trains travel through the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operated sep ...
Class 373
The British Rail Class 373 or TGV TMST, sometimes referred to as Eurostar e300, is a French designed and Anglo-French built electric multiple unit train that is used for Eurostar international high-speed rail services from the United Kingdom t ...
.
Gallery
Sheffield Supertram
The Sheffield Supertram is a tram and tram-train network covering Sheffield and Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. The infrastructure is owned by the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE), with Stagecoach responsible for th ...
Siemens-Duewag Supertram
Image:Metrolink tram in Eccles.jpg, Manchester Metrolink
Manchester Metrolink (branded locally simply as Metrolink) is a tram/ light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has 99 stops along of standard-gauge route, making it the most extensive light rail system in the United Kin ...
AnsaldoBreda T-68
The Firema T-68 was a model of light rail passenger vehicle first operated on the Manchester Metrolink network in England in 1992. Constructed by Firema specifically as a high-floor, articulated bi-directional tram to operate solely on the Ma ...
Image:Kinki Sharyo P3010 1.jpg, Los Angeles Metro Rail
The Los Angeles Metro Rail is an urban rail transit system serving Los Angeles County, California, United States. It consists of seven lines, including five light rail lines (the A Line (Los Angeles Metro), A, C Line (Los Angeles Metro), C, E Li ...
Kinki Sharyo P3010
Image:2 Pantograph.jpg, Siemens Desiro
The Siemens Desiro (, , ) is a family of diesel or electric multiple unit passenger trains developed by Siemens Mobility, a division of the German Siemens AG conglomerate. The main variants are the Desiro Classic, Desiro ML, Desiro UK and the la ...
Class 360/2 pantograph with the characteristic aerofoils clearly visible
Image:Acela overhead view.jpg, Overhead view of the Brecknell Willis High Speed pantograph in action on the US Acela
The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermediate stops, includin ...
vehicle
References
External links
Brecknell Willis
Details of different UK railway pantographs
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120515121734/http://www.traintesting.com/BW%20Highreach%20pan.htm Traintesting webpage on Brecknell Willis High Reach pantograph development {{Railway electrification Chard, Somerset Tram technology British companies established in 1854 Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom Electric railways in the United Kingdom Pantographs (rail)