Edgar Craven Bredin (16 April 1886 – 5 August 1950) was an Irish mechanical and locomotive engineer and later a railway manager. Bredin was born in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

on 16 April 1886 and educated at Mountjoy School in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. In 1905 he was apprenticed to Fielding & Platt in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

Great Southern and Western Railway

In 1907, he became a pupil at Great Southern and Western Railway's

Inchicore Works Inchicore railway works, also known locally as 'Inchicore' or 'The Works', was founded by the Great Southern and Western Railway in 1846 and emerged to become the major engineering centre for railways in Ireland. Located west of Dublin city ...

. He was appointed Assistant Works Manager at Inchicore in 1916, and was promoted to Works Manager in 1925. The Great Southern and Western Railway was amalgamed into the Great Southern Railways the same year. Bredin became

Chief Mechanical Engineer Chief mechanical engineer and locomotive superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotive ...

of the GSR from 1937 to 1942 when he became General Manager. The GSR became part of Córas Iompair Éireann on 1 January 1945, and in the same year he became General Manager of CIÉ, and retired at the end of 1946. He died in Dublin on 5 August 1950.

Locomotives

Bredin was noteworthy for introducing the largest steam locomotives to ever run on the Irish rail network. These were the

GSR Class 800 The Great Southern Railways Class 800 steam locomotives were built principally for express passenger work on the Dublin to Cork main line of that company. These locomotives were designed under the supervision of Edgar Craven Bredin, E. C. Bredin ...

three-cylinder 4-6-0 locomotives, the design work for which was carried out by Bredin's Chief Draughtsman, H J A Beaumont. Weighing in at over 130 tonnes, they were a full 20 tonnes heavier than the 201 Class, currently the largest diesel loco running on the Iarnród Éireann network.

References

* 1886 births 1950 deaths Locomotive builders and designers Locomotive superintendents People educated at Mount Temple Comprehensive School Irish people in rail transport Irish railway mechanical engineers 20th-century Irish engineers {{Ireland-engineer-stub