Thomas Edward Hett Heywood (29 November 1877 – 26 November 1953) was a British engineer. During his career, he worked for the Taff Vale Railway, the

Burma Railway Company Rail transport in Myanmar (then Burma) began in 1877. Three private rail companies were nationalised nineteen years later. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, Allied prisoners of war were forced to build the Burma Railway. Myanmar Railways ...

, the Great North of Scotland Railway and the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

(LNER).

Career

He trained at the Taff Vale Railway under

Tom Hurry Riches Tom Hurry Riches (1846–1911) was a British engineer who became the Locomotive Superintendent of the Taff Vale Railway in October 1873, and held the post until his death. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest locomotive superinte ...

and won a Whitworth Exhibition gold medal for engineering in 1899. He then worked as a draughtsman and inspector at Cardiff. In 1902, he became Assistant Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Burma Railway Company. After returning from Burma he again worked for the Taff Vale Railway as Junior Assistant Superintendent at

Penarth Penarth (, ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan ( cy, Bro Morgannwg), Wales, exactly south of Cardiff city centre on the west shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay. Penarth is a weal ...

Dock. In 1914, he became Locomotive Superintendent of the Great North of Scotland Railway. After the 1923

Grouping Grouping may refer to: * Muenchian grouping * Principles of grouping * Railways Act 1921, also known as Grouping Act, a reorganisation of the British railway system * Grouping (firearms), the pattern of multiple shots from a sidearm See also ...

, Heywood's post ceased to exist but he became Running Superintendent of the Northern Scottish Area of the LNER.

Innovations

Heywood expanded the use of

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 ...

on the GNSR, and created a new class of superheated

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 ...

locomotives which became the

LNER Class D40 The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) D40 class is a type of 4-4-0 steam locomotive inherited from the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR). It consisted of GNSR class V (introduced in 1899 by William Pickersgill) and GNSR class F (intro ...

Retirement and death

He retired in June 1942 and died at Aberdeen in November 1953.lner.info

References

External links

* British railway mechanical engineers Locomotive builders and designers 1953 deaths 1877 births British expatriates in British Burma {{UK-engineer-stub