Robert Wallace Urie (22 October 1854 – 6 January 1937) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

locomotive engineer who was the last chief mechanical engineer of the London and South Western Railway.

Career

After serving an apprenticeship with and working for various private locomotive manufacturers he joined the Caledonian Railway in 1890, and became chief draughtsman, and later Works Manager at

St. Rollox railway works Glasgow Works, formerly the St Rollox Works, is a railway rolling stock heavy maintenance and repair works established in the 1850s in the Glasgow district of Springburn by the Caledonian Railway Company, and known locally as 'the Caley'. Own ...

under

Dugald Drummond Dugald Drummond (1 January 1840 – 8 November 1912) was a Scottish steam locomotive engineer. He had a career with the North British Railway, LB&SCR, Caledonian Railway and London and South Western Railway. He was the older brother of the eng ...

. In 1897 he moved with Drummond to join the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) as works manager at

Nine Elms Nine Elms is an area of south-west London, England, within the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies on the River Thames, with Battersea to the west, South Lambeth to the south and Vauxhall to the east. The area was formerly mainly industrial bu ...

in London. He transferred to the new works at

Eastleigh Eastleigh is a town in Hampshire, England, between Southampton and Winchester. It is the largest town and the administrative seat of the Borough of Eastleigh, with a population of 24,011 at the 2011 census. The town lies on the River Itchen, o ...

in 1909. Following the death of

in 1912, Urie became chief mechanical engineer until his own retirement at the grouping of 1923.

Locomotive designs

Robert Urie made a significant contribution to the development of more powerful express passenger and goods locomotives for use on the London and South Western Railway main line, with simple yet robust designs. In particular his LSWR H15 class, LSWR N15 class and LSWR S15 class

4-6-0 A 4-6-0 steam locomotive, under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, has four leading wheels on two axles in a leading bogie and six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles with the abse ...

as well LSWR Class G16 4-8-0T and LSWR H16 class 4-6-2T locomotives continued to be built by the Southern Railway under Richard Maunsell's direction.

Patents

* GB191410781, published 13 August 1914, Improvements in means for connecting pipes or conduits * GB191410782, published 3 September 1914, Improvements in steam superheaters

Family

His son David Chalmers Urie was a locomotive engineer with the Highland Railway and later the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally u ...

References

* (incorporating ) p. 18

Career

Locomotive designs

Patents

Family

References

Further reading