Locomotive Superintendents

I doubt that David Urie was a fool, but very, very forthright. It was he who had to run the services, and discovered that the new secondary express engines weren't capable of doing the job, and there were a hundred of them built or on their way. He possibly felt he had reasons to be disgruntled.

 

Thanks for your most interesting analysis and diagram, which provides much material for reflection. In some cases where a new loco superintendent took office, it is open to debate whether they provide continuity or discontinuity. Although James Manson dumped the Stirling/Smellie domeless boiler on taking charge at the G&SWR, he had been trained and spent most of his prior career on that railway, and arguably provided continuity in matters other than that of domes.

The railways built up their locomotive departments during the 19th Century, with the largest lines becoming almost wholly self-sufficient in terms of both workshops and personnel, with little need to call upon the private builders or to look outside their own ranks for people to promote to high office. Your diagram illustrates how some seemed to become self-contained silos, notably the GWR. James Holden and John Robinson are names that come to mind as Swindon-trained people who rose to high office elsewhere – but did their GE and GC designs contain any obvious Swindon features?

In the case of LNWR, the mainstream loco tradition started with Ramsbottom around 1860 but alternative Wolverton & Crewe approaches existed before that time. Alexander Allan and others took the “Old Crewe-type” to Scotland, where it survived for some decades after being discarded at Crewe itself. Under the long reign of Benjamin Connor, the Caledonian was dominated by Crewe-type 2-2-2s and 2-4-0s and by outside-cylinder 0-4-2 mineral engines. Through Robert Sinclair, the outside-cylinder approach spread from the Caledonian to the Great Eastern.

Where a new loco superintendent came from outside, the result, as you indicate, could be a mix of bringing in their own ideas and continuing what they found. When Dugald Drummond arrived on the NBR in 1875, he was still in learning mode and absorbed ideas from his predecessor Thomas Wheatley, which he fused with concepts from Stroudley and himself. When Drummond moved to the Caledonian in 1882, his views had firmed-up and he imposed his NBR designs, sweeping aside the Caledonian’s previous traditions. So Caledonian loco history divides very sharply into pre-1882 and post-1882.

The private locomotive builders had an important design role in earlier days, which they continued to fulfil for smaller companies with limited design capability. To complete the full story of British locomotive design, we also need to consider the British Colonial railways, which (excluding Canada) generally stayed within the British design school prior to 1939. In earlier years, their loco departments would have been mainly staffed by people trained back in the UK. Many British Colonial designs had a marked “Scottish look”, possibly the result of contact between the Glasgow locomotive builders and the Scottish railway companies. But I don’t recall seeing a British Colonial engine with a GW-style domeless taper boiler.

 

It's interesting, though, that of the GWR CMEs, only Hawksworth did his apprenticeship at Swindon. Dean came from Wolverhampton, Churchward from the South Devon, and Collett from the marine branch of steam engineering. Stanier was wholly Swindon though, his father having been a Swindon executive.
It's fun to look at the big design features, but I wonder if less obvious things were as vital. Collett seems to have been particularly interested in detail design and reliability. Could we speculate that being trained with engines that had to run days and weeks from the nearest factory gave him a slightly different viewpoint from a railway trained engineer?

 

We should not neglect the fact that some of the colonial railways were buying locos that were in advance of British home railway designs well before 1939. An example is the GL Garratt from 1929 with several advanced features.

Sent from my SM-A105FN using Tapatalk

 

I have a nod to that on the 4-6-0 diagram with the Indian locos, which predated their British equivalents.
There was surprisingly little exchange of personnel between the British and Imperial or other overseas British railways. It seems to have been one track or the other. Apart from Barton Wright, who worked for the Madras Railway, and D Drummond's failed Aussie venture, the British and Irish CMEs mainly stuck in these isles.
Between the different "overseas British" railways there was quite a bit of exchange, e.g. people serving in turns in India, East Africa, Argentina, etc.
Engineers on the colonial railways had of course generally trained "at home". A fascinating example is Frederick Trevithick (son of Francis and grandson of Richard) who was the CME of the Egyptian Government Railways for three decades. Despite his Crewe ancestry he trained at Swindon. For more about him and his locos, and "British" locos in Egypt (often in fact built in Belgium!) see my book "Locomotives of Egypt", hopefully published next month or so .

 

One other British CME-to-be who worked in India was Mr. Maunsell, as Assistant District Loco. Superintendent at Jamalpur. It formed an interlude between the Lanky and Inchicore.
Pat

 

What I personally find fascinating is how near the beginning of railways even the last CMEs were trained, and how few had degree or similar qualifications. Not really surprisng given seniority-based promotion, and the amount of ground a well-rounded CME would have had to have covered before taking post, but when Riddles cut his teeth in pre-grouping days, it's quite something.

It would have been interesting had Jarvis et al had a chance as they may have had a different outlook.

 

That’s an interesting point, but didn’t Ron Jarvis have a hand in the Class 73’s, then there’s Terry Miller and the HST’s? I’d say they had a different outlook, and look what they did.

 

Merely an observation, but Dionysius Lardner certainly held a degree.or two.

 

To be fair, I think given the state of scientific knowledge (or rather comparative lack of) of areas such as chemistry, thermodynamics, material science and so on, a sound practical apprenticeship was one of the loco building firms was of considerably more benefit to a budding locomotive engineer in the era 1830 - 1860 than any formal degree course. Engineering didn't;t really exist at the time as a degree course, and science courses were still a couple of decades away from the radical shake up that came with university reform in the second half of the nineteenth century.

AIUI, the good Dr Lardner tended to be a walking advertisement for the old saw "better to stay quiet and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and confirm it" whenever he pronounced on railway matters.

In that light, I was turning to think of a list of early Locomotive Engineers who passed through the direct influence of the Stephensons. Edward Fletcher (NER - apprenticed to George Stephenson and worked on the construction of "rocket" and was the first driver of "Invicta"); James Cudworth (SER - apprentice at Robert Stephenson & Co.); Daniel Gooch (GWR, worked at Robert Stephenson & Co. as a draughtsman); John Chester Craven (LBSCR - apprentice at Robert Stephenson). Are there others?

William Martley (LCDR) and Archibald Sturrock (GNR) were one-step removed, both working under Gooch at Swindon before going on to more substantive roles.

Tom

 

I couldn't help but cast my mind back to the earlier generation of canal builders, Telford, Brindley, Keppel et.al. The traditional route of apprenticeship to master was near universal, long established and as applicable to the great artists of The Renaissance as to the masters of steam locomotion, right down to the end of it's 150 year reign supreme.

 

If Daniel Gooch is on the list, then surely his brother John Viret Gooch deserves an honourable mention, having been a pupil of both brother Daniel and of Joseph Locke. It's also interesting that the grounding of many of these men was as much Civil as Mechanical Engineering. Joseph Beattie's connection with the South Western seems to stem from his time as a PW manager under Locke.
Pat

 

Ron Jarvis's biography by by J.E. Chacksfield (2004, Oakwood Press, ISBN 0 85361 618 3) is entitled Ron Jarvis - From Midland Compound to the HST, so he was involved in that too.

 

Doesn’t John Viret Gooch deserve a dishonourable mention? It’s funny how Craven seems to be held up as the archetypal big bad ogre of a Loco Superintendent, while JV Gooch was, in his Eastern Counties days, seemingly sacking drivers then re-employing them at a lower salary and pocketing the saving ...

The point about civil engineering is well made. In the early nineteenth century, the term “engineer” generally referred to what today we would call a civil engineer. Some people made the transition between disciplines, some patently couldn’t **cough** Brunel **cough**.

Tom

 

What strikes me as interesting in this is how little overlap there seems to have been between the military engineers and the railways. Considering the importance of the railway inspectorate in terms of shaping railway practice (if not in implementing but getting ideas onto the agenda). And yet, we see very few people moving between the two tracks (no pun intended).

I think the only person who made the move was Col Hall who moved from the Railways Inspectorate to the Southern.

I wonder if very few people made the move abroad and back again was a reflection of attitudes towards 'leaving the system'. Ireland was probably just about acceptable. (In more recent times in my own work - people will leave to go to another country, or people will join, but I am struggling to think of anyone who has left the system, gone elsewhere and then returned after a period of time).

 

How very contemporary. One might expect those of a certain persuasion these days to be singing the praises of yon JVG from the rafters.

 

Isn't that partly a measure of how disproportionally we view the big 4? Ad for that matter the BR steam era?

Railway history of 200 years.
Pre grouping 50%
Big 4 12.5%
BR Steam 10%
BR Diesel 20%
Privatised 12.5%

(round numbers and steam/diesel deliberately overlaps)

 

He did didn’t he? Apologies I’d forgotten about that.

 

Given that the Gooch family had a vested interest due to their coal mining activities, I'd suggest that honourable should be spelled 'Honourable'

 

I was not aware of JV Gooch's activities at the ECR. I know Victorians could be surprisingly relaxed about some behaviours, but that takes the cake!
Pat