William Pickersgill (1861 – 2 May 1928) was an English railway engineer, and was

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 locomotiv ...

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 ...

from 1914 until Grouping in 1923. He was appointed locomotive superintendent of the Northern Division of 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 ...

but retired in 1925. He died in

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

Career

Great Eastern Railway

Pickersgill was born in

Nantwich Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture. ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's coun ...

. He started work on 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 ...

at Stratford in 1876, where he was a Whitworth Exhibitioner, and after several posts in the running department he was appointed district locomotive superintendent in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

in 1891.

Great North of Scotland Railway

In 1894, he succeeded James Johnson as the locomotive superintendent of the

Great North of Scotland Railway The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) was one of the two smallest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping, operating in the north-east of the country. Formed in 1845, it carried its first passengers the fr ...

, where he continued to develop the

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 pow ...

type for that railway and was responsible for the new locomotive works at

Inverurie Inverurie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Inbhir Uraidh'' or ''Inbhir Uaraidh'', 'mouth of the River Ury') is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland at the confluence of the rivers Ury and Don, about north-west of Aberdeen. Geography Inverurie is in the va ...

which replaced the unsatisfactory premises at Kittybrewster. He was chairman of the Association of Railway Locomotive Engineers in 1912 and was interested in flange and check rail dimensions.

Caledonian Railway

In March 1914 succeeded John F. McIntosh as locomotive, carriage & wagon superintendent of the

. He further developed the McIntosh 4-4-0 type, introduced the class 60

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 absenc ...

for freight service, and an extraordinary 4-6-0 with derived motion which was highly unsuccessful.

London Midland and Scottish Railway

Following the Grouping, he was appointed mechanical engineer of the Northern Division of the

but retired in 1925.

Locomotive designs

William Pickersgill's locomotive designs for the Great North of Scotland Railway included: * GNoSR class T 4-4-0: 26 built 1895–98 – became part of LNER class D41 * GNoSR class V 4-4-0: 18 built 1899–1915 – 5 sold new to South Eastern and Chatham Railway, becoming SECR G class; remainder became part of LNER class D40 * GNoSR class W 0-2-2 Railmotor: 2 built 1905 William Pickersgill's locomotive designs for the Caledonian Railway included: * Caledonian Railway 191 Class 4-6-0 (3P) * Caledonian Railway 60 Class 4-6-0 (4P) * Caledonian Railway 956 Class 4-6-0 (5P) * Caledonian Railway 113 class 4-4-0 Dunalastair V (3P) * Caledonian Railway 72 Class 4-4-0 Dunalastair V (3P) * Caledonian Railway 300 Class 0-6-0 (3F) * Caledonian Railway 159 Class 0-4-4T (2P) * Caledonian Railway 431 Class 0-4-4T (2P) * Caledonian Railway 944 Class 4-6-2T (4P)

References

External links

William Pickersgill
at www.steamindex.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Pickersgill, William Locomotive builders and designers 1861 births 1928 deaths English railway mechanical engineers People from Crewe People from Nantwich Caledonian Railway people