William Paton Reid,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(8 September 1854 – 2 February 1932) was apprenticed to the

Cowlairs railway works Cowlairs Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Works, at Cowlairs in Springburn, an area in the north-east of Glasgow, Scotland, was built in 1841 for the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway and was taken over by the North British Railway (NBR) in 1865. It ...

of the

North British Railway The North British Railway was a British railway company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was established in 1844, with the intention of linking with English railways at Berwick. The line opened in 1846, and from the outset the company followe ...

in 1879 and was

Locomotive Superintendent 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 ...

from 1903 to 1919. He was appointed a

in 1920. He was born, and died, in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Prior to his appointment, he had been Assistant Locomotive Superintendent to his predecessor, Matthew Holmes.

Locomotives

Reid modernised and rebuilt existing engines and introduced

superheating In thermodynamics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, or boiling delay) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. This is a so-called ''metastable state ...

to the North British Railway. New locomotives designed by him include: * NBR Class B, later LNER Class J35,

0-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and no trailing wheels. This was the most common wheel arrangemen ...

* NBR Class S, later LNER Class J37 0-6-0 * NBR Class J, later LNER Class D29, 6' 6"

4-4-0 4-4-0 is a locomotive type with a classification that uses the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement and represents the arrangement: four leading wheels on two axles (usually in a leading bogie), four po ...

, the " Scottclass". * NBR Class J, later

LNER Class D30 The NBR J Class (LNER Classes D29 & D30), commonly known as the Scott class, were a class of 4-4-0 steam tender locomotives designed by William P. Reid for the North British Railway. They passed to the London and North Eastern Railway at the gr ...

, 6' 6" 4-4-0, the " Super Scott Class" or " SuperheatedScottclass". * NBR Class K, later LNER Class D32, 6' 0" 4-4-0 * NBR Class K, later

LNER Class D33 LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

, 6' 0" 4-4-0 * NBR Class K, later

LNER Class D34 LNER may refer to: * London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 * London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a typ ...

, 6' 0" 4-4-0, the "

Glen Class A glen is a valley, typically one that is long and bounded by gently sloped concave sides, unlike a ravine, which is deep and bounded by steep slopes. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower ...

". * NBR Class H, later LNER Class C10,&

C11 C11, C.XI, C-11 or C.11 may refer to: Transport * C-11 Fleetster, a 1920s American light transport aircraft for use of the United States Assistant Secretary of War * Fokker C.XI, a 1935 Dutch reconnaissance seaplane * LET C-11, a license-build var ...

4-4-2, the "North British Atlantic class" (Reid's largest and most powerful design). * NBR Class L, later LNER Class C16,

4-4-2T Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, represents a configuration of a four-wheeled leading bogie, four powered and coupled driving wheels, and two trailing wheels supporting part of the we ...

* NBR Class M, later LNER Class C15, 4-4-2T The Reid C15 (NBR Class M) Atlantic Tank Engines
/ref> Some of the NBR classes had several variants. The NBR did not distinguish between the variants but the LNER did. The figures 6' 6" or 6' 0" indicate the driving wheel diameter.

References

1854 births 1932 deaths Engineers from Glasgow Scottish civil engineers 19th-century British engineers 20th-century British engineers {{Scotland-bio-stub

Locomotives

See also

References