Robert Sinclair (1 July 1817 – 20 October 1898) was born in London but came from a

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...

family. He 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 several British railways and also worked in France. He retired to Italy, where he died.

Career

Early years

He was apprenticed to a shipbuilder and later worked for

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...

, the

Grand Junction Railway The Grand Junction Railway (GJR) was an early railway company in the United Kingdom, which existed between 1833 and 1846 when it was amalgamated with other railways to form the London and North Western Railway. The line built by the company w ...

and the Paris and Rouen Railway.

Chief mechanical engineer

He was

of the

Caledonian Railway The Caledonian Railway (CR) was a major Scottish railway company. It was formed in the early 19th century with the objective of forming a link between English railways and Glasgow. It progressively extended its network and reached Edinburgh an ...

(CR) from 1847–1856, the

Eastern Counties Railway The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in 1837 on the first nine miles at the Lond ...

(ECR) from 1856–1862 and, following a merger of railways, of the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

(GER) from 1862–1865.

Consulting engineer

Sinclair resigned from the GER 1865, and became a consulting engineer. In this capacity, he designed a fast 2-4-2 locomotive for the Great Luxemburg Railway, and an outside cylinder 2-4-0 for the

East Indian Railway The East Indian Railway Company, operating as the East Indian Railway (reporting mark EIR), introduced railways to East India and North India, while the Companies such as the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, South Indian Railway, Bombay, Barod ...

. The Luxembourg 2-4-2 design was later adapted into a 2-4-2T for commuter services on the GER.

Locomotive designs

* Caledonian, see

Locomotives of the Caledonian Railway Locomotives of the Caledonian Railway. The Caledonian Railway Locomotive Works were originally at Greenock but moved to St. Rollox, Glasgow, in 1856. The locomotive classes are listed under the names of the railway's Chief Mechanical Engineers. ...

* ECR/GER, see

Locomotives of the Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway was formed on 1 August 1862, when the Eastern Counties Railway changed its name. The ECR had originally been built to gauge, was converted to in September and October 1844. Robert Sinclair (locomotive engineer), Robert ...

Innovations

Sinclair was an early user of:steamindex.com * the Giffard

injector An injector is a system of ducting and nozzles used to direct the flow of a high-pressure fluid in such a way that a lower pressure fluid is entrained in the jet and carried through a duct to a region of higher pressure. It is a fluid-dynamic ...

* the use of

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

for railway axles and wheel tyres *

roller bearings In mechanical engineering, a rolling-element bearing, also known as a rolling bearing, is a bearing which carries a load by placing rolling elements (such as balls or rollers) between two concentric, grooved rings called races. The relative m ...

for carriages

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Robert Locomotive builders and designers British railway pioneers British railway mechanical engineers 1817 births 1898 deaths Great Eastern Railway people Caledonian Railway people People educated at Charterhouse School 19th-century British businesspeople