Henry Albert Hoy (1855–1910) was a locomotive

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

with the

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways. It was the third-largest railway system based in northern ...

(L&YR). Hoy was born on 13 January 1855 in

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, and educated at King Edward VI's Grammar School in St Albans, and at St John's College,

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

Career

London and North Western Railway

In 1872 he began an

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

ship under Francis William Webb at the London and North Western Railway's Crewe works. In 1878 Hoy transferred to the drawing office, where he designed continuous brakes.

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway

In 1884 Hoy moved to the L&YR, becoming an outdoor assistant in the locomotive department under Barton Wright in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

; he was promoted to works manager a year later. In 1886 Hoy was made works manager at the L&YR's new works at

Horwich Horwich ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. Prior to 1974 in the historic county of Lancashire. It is southeast of Chorley, northwest of Bolton and northwest of Manchester. It l ...

. He worked principally on electrical engineering. When John Aspinall was appointed General Manager in 1899, Hoy 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 ...

. His principal contribution was the design of an electrification system for the Liverpool to Southport line, including motor bogies.

Locomotive designs

:''See:

Locomotives of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Locomotives of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway locomotive works were originally at Miles Platting, Manchester. From 1889 they were at Horwich Works, Horwich. Constituent companies The L&YR came into be ...

'' Hoy's only locomotive design was a twenty-strong

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of troublesome 2-6-2Ts, built 1903–04, which became LMS nos. 11700–11716. He conducted various other experiments. One of these was the use of a new brass alloy for making firebox stays. Its composition was 62% parts copper, 38% parts zinc and 0.37% of iron. This alloy was a failure. Despite being claimed to be more elastic, it suffered problems in service. In the worst of these, a fatal

boiler explosion A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. There are two types of boiler explosions. One type is a failure of the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. There can be many different causes, such as failure of the safety val ...

with a Class 30 0-8-0 near

Knottingley Knottingley is a market town in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England on the River Aire and the old A1 road before it was bypassed as the A1(M). Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it has a population of 13,503, inc ...

in 1901 was caused by the failure of a number of firebox rod stays made from this alloy. These locomotives were an Aspinall design, but had been constructed during Hoy's tenure. On investigation it was found that the alloy was brittle enough to have cracked, even within the thickness of the copper plates of the firebox. Previously the boiler had given trouble with leaks from its stays, probably from early cracking, and where the heads of the stay had been hammered to caulk this, this had caused the heads of the stays to crack. The size of the firebox waterspace was also criticised, although this was due to Aspinall's standard boilers, rather than Hoy's construction. A waterspace of only was narrow, but not unique for contemporary practice. The L&Y did though make it a policy to provide a waterspace of 4 inches after this, even at the cost of a reduction in grate area. Hoy sought to avoid the problems of the stayed firebox altogether and so developed an alternative boiler and firebox for the Class 30. This used a corrugated tubular furnace and cylindrical outer firebox, as for the

Lentz boiler A launch-type, gunboat or horizontal multitubular boiler is a form of small steam boiler. It consists of a cylindrical horizontal shell with a cylindrical furnace and fire-tubes within this. Their name derives from the boiler's popular use at o ...

. The furnace was also of steel, rather than the

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

used for fireboxes at this time. One, no. 396, was rebuilt in 1903 and 20 more were built new with this boiler. The new boiler design did not last long in service and the locomotives were rebuilt with conventional boilers after ten years.The eight to ten-year interval before rebuilding would be a typical service life for such a boiler. It indicates that the boilers were adequate, and were not withdrawn from service merely to replace them, but also that the experiment was not considered a success and so they were not continued with. Hoy's successor, George Hughes, described these boilers unfavourably in papers read to the I. Mech E.

Beyer Peacock

In 1904 Hoy resigned from the L&YR to become general manager of

Beyer, Peacock and Company Beyer, Peacock and Company was an English railway locomotive manufacturer with a factory in Openshaw, Manchester. Founded by Charles Beyer, Richard Peacock and Henry Robertson, it traded from 1854 until 1966. The company exported locomotives, ...

. He was replaced by George Hughes. There he reorganised the works, but died on 24 May 1910.

Patents

* GB190311837, published 31 December 1903, Improvements in bogie trucks for rolling stock * GB190406820, published 17 November 1904, Improvements in safety valves * GB190511874, (with Beyer Peacock), published 8 March 1906, Improvements in boilers * GB190600945, published 12 April 1906, Improvements in means for applying chills for hardening and toughening the interior surfaces of cylinders, tubes and the like

References

External links

Henry Albert Hoy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoy, Henry 1855 births 1910 deaths Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Locomotive builders and designers British mechanical engineers