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Locomotive Superintendents

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by Dunfanaghy Road, Feb 25, 2021.

  1. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Billinton was in Romania as well. Frustratingly his memoirs have been used but are unavailable so we don't have a full account.
     
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  2. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    The Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, in its current form as the Engineer and Logistics Staff Corps, is, to quote Wikipedia, "intended to provide advisers on engineering and logistics to the British Army at a senior level. Following its work creating the NHS Nightingale Hospitals the Corps was described as 'probably the greatest military unit you've never heard of".
    I don't think front line service is the idea. That said some of it's members did spend time in France in the First World War. in the 1919 Army List for instance is; Fowler, Sir H., K.B.E., (temp. Lt-Col. R.F.C., T.F.). Was Sir Henry Fowler a pilot?
    As @Jamessquared has pointed out there was nothing to stop a member serving in a more mainstream formation as well.
    Pat
     
  3. LesterBrown

    LesterBrown Member

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    At the time of the abolition of the broad gauge thre was a proposal to concentrate locomotive building at Wolverhampton with Swindon concentrating on carriage and wagon building and only repairing locos but suffocient additional land couldn't he acquired.

    At the time Churchward took over the old S&B buildings at Wolverhampton could only really deal with six wheeled types and he was concentrating new construction on larger locos. Small standard 2-6-2Ts were built there but could only be moved around on temporary sharp radius tracks with sharp reverse radius curves as they couldn't use the traverser even with buffers removed. After that lot was completed Wolverhampton was enlarged but concentrated on repair work.
     
  4. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Bulleid:

    • 1914 Volunteered for War Service.
    • January 1915 Commissioned as Lieutenant and appointed as Railway Transport Officer, St Omer.
    • September 1915 Promoted to Captain.
    • November 1916 Promoted to Major, Deputy Assistant Director of Railway Traffic.
    • 1918 Works Manager, Royal Engineers, Richborough, Kent. First introduction to welding.

    https://www.bulleidsociety.org/OVS_Bulleid/OVSB_Biography.html

    Peppercorn:

    Peppercorn was commissioned in the Royal Engineers, served in France and became technical assistant to the Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Directorate of Transportation

    https://www.a1steam.com/arthur-peppercorn/

    Ivatt and Riddles were both in France. Riddles was according to wiki badly wounded.
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2021
  5. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    ...who was Lt-Colonel Edward Thompson.
     
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  6. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Fowler

    During World War 1 he was seconded to the Ministry of Munitions, being Director of Production from 1915 to 1917 and then Assistant Director General of Aircraft Production. He was knighted in 1918 for his war work.

    via Steamindex from Radford.
     
  7. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    Well, that generation of loco. Engineers certainly gained experience rather more widely than would normally be expected. Shame about the cause of it.
    Pat
     
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  8. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    While the 19th Century had it's share of takeovers and amalgamations of railways, they were nothing like the 'big bang' of 1922. Coupled with the creation of the Irish Free State the opportunities for advancement must have seemed poor in the 20's. (Many British CME's seem to have had service in Ireland in the past.) What happened to the chiefs from the smaller railways?
    Pat
     
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  9. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    It also caused huge losses of knowledge as well. ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moseley
     
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  10. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Well, on the SR, Maunsell (SECR) got the job. Urie (LSWR) was I believe 68 at the time of grouping and retired.

    Billinton (LBSCR) was only 40 at the grouping, and conceivably could have become a deputy CME with a reasonable expectation of taking on the top job on Maunsell's retirement. Clearly Herbert Walker felt there wasn't the space for such a role, and the retirement terms were generous, so Billinton retired in mid 1923, and had something of a career change, running a fruit farm as a commercial business. He did apparently spend two years consulting for the LMS, but otherwise seems to have had no close connection with his former career; he lived on well into the BR era.

    Tom
     
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  11. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Aside from constructing a rather lovely 9in gauge K class mogul, built, according to legend, from the original drawings. I wonder whether that set of drawings still exist, perhaps along with the unpublished manuscript referred to earlier?
     
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  12. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I think the ones who got squeezed were the Scottish and Welsh CMEs. If we take the LNER, Raven we know about, Hill and Robinson were too old. For example Riches of the Rhymney was:

    'The amalgamation of that railway with the Great Western Railway took place at the close of 1922, and Riches was made divisional locomotive, carriage and wagon superintendent of the Cardiff Valleys Division of the G.W.R., occupying this position until his retirement in 1939. '

    while Heywood of the GNSoR

    'Heywood's post ceased to exist after Grouping (1923), and he became the LNER's Running Superintendent of the Northern Scottish Area.This post was initially based at Gorton, but he returned to Scotland in 1927. Heywood retired in June 1942,'

    I wonder how many also went to India etc as that seems to have been quite a common career path.
     
  13. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    Don't forget John Auld ex of the Barry Railway in South Wales who ended up close to Collett, and when they both retired sort of at the same time.
     
  14. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    I was intrigued by your comment re the NER / S&D. The terms of the amalgamation between the two companies (which was effected by a private Act) are available on line. The Act uses the word amalgamation, and the effect of the Act was to transfer all of the undertaking, assets, liabilities, rights etc of the S&D Railway Company to the NER, in return for which the S&D shareholders became shareholders of the NER. Clause 35 of the Act et seq however provided that until 31 December 1873 (i.e. 10 years after the Act came into effect) the management of the former S&D was to be by a Committee (the Darlington Committee) which had a majority of former S&D directors and shareholders on it. Clause 44 says inter alia that the Committee's functions included inter alia maintenance and renewal of all the Rolling Stock (Rolling Stock is not obviously defined but it is possible that some definitions were imported from general railway acts, and I assume this includes locomotives), and it mentions also an Engineer of the Darlington Committee.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2021
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  15. LesterBrown

    LesterBrown Member

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    That is quite a typical amalgamation Act for that period but in most other cases the locomotives were indeed quickly integrated into the stock of the company taking over.
     
  16. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    Yes, Auld was appointed to take charge of the docks, and was then promoted to Collett's assistant. A peculiar appointment really, since assistant CME was normally being groomed for the full job, and it meant, I think, that his eventual successor Hawksworth hadn't had a post out of the drawing office which must have made the responsibilities of the CME a huge transition.
     
  17. Eightpot

    Eightpot Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    This loco certainly exists, it was at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition a couple of years ago.
     
  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    032DB1E3-0FB7-4A37-A7ED-6FFA2B16D5AD.jpeg

    Tom
     
  19. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    That ten year gap must explain why the S&D locos didn't get renumbered in the NER sequence until 1873 (they had 1000 added to their S&D number). What is interesting though is that a considerable autonomy continued after that, certainly while Edward Fletcher remained the NER Locomotive Superintendent. It was only really have his departure that you get a more consistent overall locomotive policy - hence the contrast with the SECR, which almost immediately on formation started turning out locos in a single livery, single number sequence and with new designs acting as renewals for both constituent fleets and designed to work on either section of the line.

    Tom
     
  20. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    I thought that I had seen it. So I wasn't imagining it. Lovely model.
    Pat
     

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