Continental engineers
This is an arbitrary division forced by the limitations involved in handling large files.
Abt, Roman
Born in Bunzen, Switzerland on 17 July 1850 and died Lucerne 1 May
1933. Inventor of the Abt rack system. John
Marshall. Widely used including in Britain on the Snowdon Mountain Railway.
. H.M. Le Fleming (Concise
encyclopaedia)..
Amsler-Laffon, Jakob
Amsler was born on the Stalden near the village of Schinznach in the
district of Brugg on 11 November 1823, and died on 3 January 1912 in
Schaffhausen, Switzerland. On leaving school in 1843, he went to the University
of Jena and then to the University of Königsberg to study theology.
At Königsberg he changed courses, deciding to focus on mathematics and
physics after meeting the inspiring Franz Neumann. Amsler gained his doctorate
from Königsberg in 1848 and returned to Switzerland in the same year.
In 1851 he became a Privatdozent at the University of Zürich and later
in that year accepted a position as a mathematics teacher at the Gymnasium
in Schaffhausen. In 1854 Amsler married Elise Laffon (18301899) and
founded the Amsler Company in Schaffhausen. The couple had two daughters
and three sons. Their oldest son Alfred Amsler (18571940) was a
mathematician and engineer in his own right and succeeded to his father as
the owner and director of the factory. From about 1885 until about 1905,
father and son closely cooperated on many projects in their business; many
of their ideas, inventions and constructions of the time are difficult to
attribute to either one of them. Jakob Amsler-Laffon invented the polar
planimeter in 1854 and the firm was associated with the development of the
locomotive dynamometer. Langridge
Under ten CMEs 2 p. 53: remainder Wikipedia 19-01-2001
Angelé, Florian
Inventor of form of valve gear and was patented in France (11071/1842
applied 2 December 1842; published 8 March 1843) which anticipated Walschaerts.
Loco. Carr. Wagon Rev., 1933,
39, 59. Engineer, 1912, 106, 681-2.
Armand, Louis
Armand was born at Cruseilles, Haute-Savoie on 17 January 1905 and
died on 30 August 1971 (biographical information from Wikipedia). He studied
in Annecy and Lyon, at the Lycée du Parc. He graduated second in his
class from the Ecole Polytechnique (class of 1924) then joined the Corps
des Mines and was major from Ecole des Mines He joined the Compagnie
du chemin de fer Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee (PLM) in 1934. In 1938 he joined
the French national railway company, Société Nationale des
Chemins de fer Français (SNCF). In 1940 - 1941 he invented a method
for preventing scale formation in boilers called the TIA (Traitement
Integral Armand) water treatment process for steam locomotives described
in his Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture
(J. Instn Loco. Engrs, 1949, 39, 328). During WW2 he organized
and led the Resistance group named Résistance-Fer from February 1943
onwards. He was arrested by the Gestapo on June 25, 1944. He was liberated
from jail during Paris' liberation; was decorated (Croix de la Liberation)
In 1949 Armand was named General Manager of SNCF and created the
Société du tunnel sous la Manche in 1957. During this time
he pushed for the electrification of the rail system using DC voltage. From
1958 to 1959, he co-managed the European atomic energy commission with Conor
Quilligan (Euratom) having inspired its creation. In 1971 successfully pushed
to have the word creativity included in the French dictionary
Armand died in Villers-sur-Mer, aged 66. Presented Motive power trends on
European railways as part of the
IMechE Centenary celebrations. Cox called
him the arch-priest of water treatment with his TIA system.
Arnoux Republican, Jean-Claude
Born in Le Cateau (Northern France) on 16 December 1792, son of a
postmaster: died in 1866. (French Wikipedia: 2012-11-16). He invented a
rail-based system in which the locomotive drove through flangekess coupled
wheels and lateral guidance was provided by freely rotating pulley wheels
set at 45° to the top of the rails. It was capable of negotiating very
tight curves. The system was demonstrated at the Paris Exposition of 1855.
The locomotive had four cylinders.
Backtrack, 2012, 26,
756.
Asselin, Georges
Locomotive superintendent of the Western Ry. of France and subsequently
of Nord. Designed large compound 2-8-0s which could attain high horsepowers
for long periods..
Baader, Joseph von
See Grahame Boyes Early
Railways [1] 192.Baader (1763-1835) was granted a British Patent
3959/1815 (15 November 1815) An improved plan of constructing railroads and
carriages to be used on such improved railroads. To use one or two cast iron
rails (if two not greater tah 24 inches apart) to peovide horizontal guidance
and reduce friction...
Banderali, David.
Born Paris on 18 January 1836, and entered École Polytechnique
in 1854, and École des Mines, as an outside pupil, in 1856. On finishing
his studies he began active work as a professor, and gave lessons in England
to the younger members of a royal household. In December 1859 he entered
the service of the Northern Railway of France, where he was successively
locomotive inspector at Amiens and assistant carriage superintendent in January
1866, until in 1873 he was placed in charge of the central locomotive and
carriage department, a position with slight changes in title occupied until
his death. In the Exhibitions of 1878, 1881 (electrical), and 1889, he served
as a member of committees and juries, and rendered services at international
conferences, and for the military organisation of the French railways; and
he was commandant of the fifth section of French branch railways. In 1882
he received the Cross of the Legion of Honour. After a short illness he died
on 30 March 1890. Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs, 1890, 41, 171.
Banderall, David Jean Frederic Sosthenus
Born in Paris on 18 January 1836 and died there on 30 March 1890.
Chief assistant engineer, Northern Railway, France. Graduated in engineering
at École Polytechnique and École des Mines. In 1859 joined
the Northern Railway as Inspector of the traction department at Amiens. In
1873 appointed chief assistant engineer at Paris. Advocated introduction
of the vacuum brake which was fitted to all vehicles of the Nord in 1876.
He strongly favoured bogies on locomotives and rolling stock. Also closely
associated with the creation of the Chemins de Fer Economiques, narrow-gauge
feeder lines. Many of the engines and carriages were designed according to
his ideas. His ready command of English and his capacity for making friends
made him well liked in Britain and USA.
Marshall.
Belleville, Julien Francois
Civil engineer: inventor of Belleville washer spring associated with
absorbing the recoil from artillery, but also used in buffers, drawbars and
suspension systems.
Belluzzo, Giuseppe
Giuseppe Belluzzo was born in Verona in 1876 and died in Rome on 21
May 1952.. He taught in Milan and then Rome, and was the author of more than
fifty technical books. He was involved in installing turbines in Italian
cruisers and battleships ass well as equipping the first locomotive for turbine
drive, Later Belluzzo went into politics; He was elected to Parliament and
was Minister of National Economy from 1925 to 1928. Mentioned in Ransome-Wallis's
brief survey of unconventional locomotives (Concise Encylopaedia p.
468). Most of remaining information off another website.
The first turbine locomotive was a small experimental 0-2-2-0T developed
in 1907-8, being a conversion of an old 0-6-0T shunting engine built in 1876,
carried out by the Societa Anonima Officine Meccaniche in Milan. One axle
was removed, and four turbines were fitted, two on each side. Steam passed
through all four in turn before exhausting via the chimney. In 1931 Belluzzo
acted as consultant for a 2-8-2 turbine locomotive built by the Ernesto Breda
company. It had high and low pressure turbines. It is thought to have been
tested in the Breda works at Milan, but apparently the Italian State Railway
would not allow it to be run on the main line; whether this indicates it
was an obvious failure that would only delay traffic when it broke down is
uncertain. The turbines drove via reduction gearing and a jackshaft. A condenser
was fitted. In 1933 the Officine Meccaniche Miani-Silvestri-Grodona-Comi
rebuilt a type 685 2-6-2 at Florence for the Italian State Railways. It was
built for express service, and was a 2-6-2 with the turbine mounted at the
front. No condenser was fitted. It was tested between Florence & Pistoia,
but did not appear to enter service.
Patents: British
13261/1907. Improvements in steam turbines
and other multiple expansion elastic fluid prime movers.
Applied 7 June 1907 (in Italy 7 June 1906). Published 7 August 1908.
18771/1908. Improvements in steam turbines. Applied 7 September
1908 (in Italy 7 September 1907). Published 7 December 1909. Co-applicant:
Gadda & Co.
24628/1908. Improvements in turbines. Applied 16 November 1908
(in Italy 16 November 1907). Published 16 November 1909. Co-applicant: Gadda
& Co.
2215/1909. Improvements in steam turbines. Applied 29 January
1909 (in Italy 30 January 1908). Published 29 April 1920.
8493/1913 Improvements in elastic fluid pressure turbines.
Applied 10 April 1913. Published 9 April 1914.
138,315. Improvements in steam turbines. Applied 11 December
1919 (in Italy 17 January 1919). Published 27 May 1920.
194,705. Steam turbine locomotive. Applied 7 March 1923 (in
Italy 8 March 1922). Published 13 March 1924.
204,661.Improvements relating to steam turbines. Applied 29
April 1922. Published 1 October 1923.
200,269 Improvements relating to steam turbines. Applied 29
April 1922. Published 12 July 1923.
370,751 Improvements in and relating to distributors for steam
turbines. Applied 25 June 1931. Published: 14 April 1932.
379,627 Improvements in surface condensers. Applied 18 February
1932. Published: 1 September 1932.
American:
US 1,638.079 Steam-turbine locomotive. Applied 4 September
1925 (in Italy 28 February 1923?). Published: 9 August 1927. Applicant:
Breda
US 1,865,551. Reversing steam turbine with variable velocity.
Applied 4 September 1928 (in Italy 17 October 1927). Published: 5 July 1932.
US 1,887,178. Turbine locomotive. Applied 11 February 1931
(in Italy 25 February 1930). Published: 8 November 1932. Applicant:
Breda
Belpaire, Alfred
Westwood
notes: Best known for the eponymous Belpaire firebox, whose distinctive square
shape could be seen on railways allover the world. The Belpaire firebox,
usually (but not necessarily) recognizable by its square top, was adopted
at times by most of the world's railways. Some continued with it, while others
claimed that the conventional round-top firebox was as good. Probably, the
Belpaire firebox succeeded in eliminating some of the disadvantages of its
predecessor, but at the same time had other disadvantages which just about
balanced out.
Belpaire was born in Ostend in 26 September 1820
(Marshall) and died in Schaerbeck on
27 January 1893 and hard work plus mechanical talent enabled him to obtain
a place, at the age of seventeen, in the central school of Arts et Metiers,
Paris. He graduated at the age of twenty, second in his class, and was appointed
by the Belgian State Railway to take charge of the Malines workshops. This
was a great responsibility for a young and inexperienced man. Furthermore,
Belpaire was soon incapicated for many months by a railway accident
in which both his legs were broken. After recovery, he was appointed chief
mechanical engineer (that is, Director of Rolling Stock).
It was in this capacity, in 1860, that he introduced a new design
of firebox to enable locomotives to burn local cheap coal: Belgium had plenty
of small coal of indifferent calorific value, but large steam coal was expensive.
Belpaire reasoned that to burn small coal he would need a firebox in which
the coal could be thinly spread; the conventional small but deep fireboxes
were unsuitable. Thus his firebox was characterized by its great width, and
at the same time he replaced the conventional iron grate with a more
sophisticated arrangement of steel plates designed to improve the air flow
through the entire area of the fire. He also found it possible to replace
the old system of stays which held the inner and outer walls firmly at the
set distance apart. His staying consisted only of vertical and horizontal
stays, fixed inregular lines. Trials showed that his firebox could indeed
utilize inferior coals, resulting in a significant reduction of running costs.
Moreover, his staying system simplified the construction of the firebox.
The design was adopted for all new construction, although in 1864 Belpaire
changed the pattern, abandoning the round-top form for a square shape, which
made staying even easier: henceforth, the term 'Belpaire firebox' implied
a square structure. In the 1880s modifications were made to enable the firebox
to be applied to large locomotives, and to extend over the frames and wheels.
The original purpose of the firebox, the burning of small coal, was only
one of the advantages of this design. The simplicity of the staying cheapened
boiler maintenance costs, and the shape ensured a greater steam and waterspace
In the firebox area. But the round-top boiler was somewhat easier to manufacture,
and hence had a lower initial cost.
The firebox was not the only Belpaire achievement. Apart from designing
a highly standardized range of locomotives for the State Railway, he invented
a reversing gear in which the screw system was combined with the lever system.
He was also the originator of a series of steam carriages for light passenger
services. These single-unit vehicles comprised a leading locomotive section
with behind it on the same frame, a luggage van or a permutation of luggage
van and one or more classes of passenger accommodation. Some units carried
a so-called guitar-type boiler. This had a lower main barrel on which was
superimposed a narrower second barrel which served as a steam reservoir,
where additional heat was transferred by smokebox gases moving by a circuitous
route towards the chimney. This type of boiler was removed after it blew
up. The idea of the steam carriage was not entirely new, but Belpaire was
perhaps unique in the variety of types which he built. A main object of these
units was to reduce the train crew to a driver and conductor; the driver
also looked after the fire. A man so energetic, so inventive, and so
well-certificated was obviously destined to go far. He presided over the
second International Railway Congress in Moscow in 1892, and the following
year attained the highest possible position in the Belgian railway world,
that of president of the State Railway administration.
See: The Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, Sept. 1932,
Nov. 1939.
H.M. Le Fleming
(Concise encyclopaedia)..
Betts, Thomas George
Locomotive superintendent of the Stockholm-Vesteras-Bergslagenes Ry.
See Loco. Mag., 1906,
12, 178.
Beugniot, E.
Designer at Koechlin's locomotive works at Mulhouse in France of
counter-pressure braking system.
Carling: Trans Newcomen Soc.,
1983, 55, 1-32.
Bianchi, Giuseppe
Giuseppe Bianchi was born at Imola on 26 August 1888 and died in Milan
on 20 July 1969. Bianchi graduated in electrical mechanical engineering at
the University of Turin in 1912. He joined Ferrovie dello Stato (the Italian
State Railways and was initially assigned to the team for the electrification
of Rome. In 1920 Bianchi was transferred to the office for locomotive research
within the Servizio materiale e trazione (Rolling Stock and Locomotive Service)
at Florence. Although Bianchi distinguished himself through projects involving
steam locomotives for mainline services (like the three variations of the
planned 695, then the unrealised Class 691), his work was central to the
transition from steam to electric power. As the limitations of using alternating
current became evident, and after examining the possibilities offered by
running on the system on direct current of 3 kV, Bianchi concentrated on
this means of power. Already during the first part of his career he had
contributed to improving electric locomotives run on three-phase alternating
current (3.6 kV, 16.7 Hz), and subsequently directed the planning of new
locomotive types, the E432 (FS) and E554. His office also directed the
development of the E326, E626, E428, and E424. (That E424 was not built;
Bianchi's successor built the group of the same name starting in 1943). The
initial failure of his attempts to reach high speeds with his locomotives
and with the electric trains ETR200 allowed his political and industrial
opponents to get him dismissed from the assignment in 1937. He was transferred
to Ferrovie Nord Milano, where he ran the complete electrification of the
network and stayed on until retirement, except for a brief stint working
again with the FS, from 1945 to 1946.
Bianchi fully understood the necessity of a high standard of service and
maintenance for the railcars under his jurisdiction, which were then still
highly prone to mechanical breakdowns due to the newness of the technologies
used. To meet this requirement, in 1928 he introduced the theory of
interoperability: all the technical components of the locomotives should
be simplified in their planning-stages (in favor of reliability) and of a
single standardized design to make finding spare parts easier. These guidelines
represented a philosophy whose concept was very close to that of the 1950s,
spread amongst industry in general under the names "Design for maintenance"
and "Reliable system design".
These design choices were carried over to the characteristic "Bianchi Line"
inspired by the locomotives and systems already used in Switzerland. His
locomotives were composed of a heavy rigid chassis, a central box and two
small projections, one for each side. These projections, though reduced,
they continued to characterize new Italian engines until the introduction
of the E424, in service until the 1990s. They also influenced the development
of the E636, which were built from 1940 to 1962 and were one of the most
numerous Italian locomotive groups, not decommissioned until 2006. From
Wikipedia. See also Loco. Rly Carr.
Wagon Rev., 1932, 38, 71.
Blavier, Aimé-Etienne
With Larpent he designed L'Aigle with 9ft 4in coupled wheels.
This was constructed by Gouin, but suffered from a very small boiler.
See Loco. Mag., 1905,
11, 101 and Internet (good material 7 February 2013)
Bodmer, Johann Georg [John George]
German Swiss engineer who according to
Marshall was born in Zurich on 6 December
1786 of German ancestry and Huguenot stock. He was apprenticed to a mill-wright
named Mesmer at Haupteuil in Thurgau. He became associated with Rothwell
of Bolton who assisted in the financing of Bodmer's inventions, includings
ones for balanced locomotives. He died in Zurich on 29 May 1864. Bodmer spent
several periods in Manchester and lived in London between 1846 and 1848.
His main interest was textile machinery but he became a locomotive builder
in the 1830s. A pioneer in the study of balancing, in 1845 he built at least
two locomotives for British railways having opposed-piston cylinders in which
the reciprocating masses balanced each other (patented in 1834). One Bodmer
type locomotive was supplied by the Sharp Brothers to the Dublin & Drogheda
Railway: see Norman Johnston's
Locomotives of the GNRI (he included a diagram from The
Engineer). Relevant patents below (via
Woodcroft).
He patented a mechanical stoker and a rocking grate in 1844. In 1844 he developed
a rolling mill for steel tyres. Lowe notes
that he appeared before the Gauge Commission in October 1845. Locomotives
incorporating his ideas worked on the South Eastern Railway (No. 123), LBSCR
(No. 20) where Ellis (London, Brighton
and South Coast Railway, p.44 notes) that they were expensive
(£2100 as against £1485 for a comparable Sharp locomotive). Possibly
(according to Sekon
(Evolution...) four locomotives were supplied plus the Sharp
locomotive noted) on the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester
Railway (Sharp 269/1844) No. 9 Bellona (a 2-2-2). Marshall failed
to note that some of the material published in The Locomotive had
come from Diaries. KPJ: it is clear that inspection of the
Locomotive, Railway Carriage & Wagon Review for the years 1909-1911
and for 1930 is required to improve the incomplete citations listed below..
Marshall suggests that J.J. Meyer's expansion valve invented in France in 1842 and A.K. Rider's valve of 1869 may owe much to Bodmer.
Walker, Herbert T. The origin of the balanced
locomotive: as shown by the Diaries of John George Bodmer.
Loco. Mag., 1909, 15,
10-12. illus. (port.), 3 diagrs.;
Loco. Mag., 1909, 15,
56. . Loco.
Mag., 1909, 15, 110:
Loco. Mag., 1910, 16,
58-60.:and
Loco. Mag.,
1910, 16, 246
.
See also Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon
Rev., 1931, 37, 42.
Dickinson, H.W. Diary of John George
Bodmer, 1816-17. Trans. Newcomen
Soc., 1929, 10, 102-14.
Rowatt, T. Railway Brakes.
Trans Newcomen Soc., 1927/8, 8, 19-32.
On early horse wagons, self-acting, continuous, automatic, steam, vacuum,
Clark's chain brake, hydraulic. Bibliography.
Winship, Ian R. Some nineteenth century
brakes. Rly Mag., 1987, 133, 162.
Patents
GB 6616/1834 Steam-engines and boilers applicable to fixed and
locomotive engines. 24 May 1834
GB 6617/1834 Construction of grates, stoves and furnaces applicable
to steam engines, and other purposes. 24 May 1834
GB 9702/1843 Locomotive steam-engines and carriages for railways;
marine engines and vessels... 20 April 1843
GB 9899/1843 Grates, furnaces and boilers... 5 October 1843
GB 10243/1843 Locomotive steam-engines and carriages for
railways; marine engines and vessels... 3 July 1843
Borodin, Aleksandr P.
Born 1848; died 1898 (not to be confused with composer/industrial
chemist with same name). Built world's first stationary locomotive testing
plant on Russia's South Western Railway: see
Backtrack, 2012, 26, 694.
Borries, August von
In 1880, four years after Mallet's successful
demonstration of his compound system, August von Borries and the Schichau
Works introduced their two-cylinder compound system to Germany. The advantage
of the two-cylinder compound was that it did not deman15%1d the extra expense
of third or fourth cylinders,but it had the disadvantage that it was impossible
to ensure that at all cut-offs the work done in the large low-pressure cylinder
would exactly equal that done in the small high-pressure cylinder. However,a
15% difference in thrust was found to be acceptable in practice, so long
as speeds were not too high. Von Borries's contribution was his own design
of starting valve and his conjugated valve gear. His system kept the cut-off
of the low-pressure cylinder always a little behind that of the high-pressure,
thereby alleviating the unequal thrust problem. Von Borries type locomotives
became quite popular in Germany and Russia, and were also tried in other
parts of Europe. But they were unsuited to high speed. The career of von
Borries, born in Minden on 27 January 1852
(Marshall), really began after he had
finished his military service in 1874 (spent with a railway-operating battalion)
when he became chief mechanical engineer of the Hanover division of the Prussian
State Railways. In 1891 he was sent on a study trip to the U.S.A. which was
followed by the publication of his Die nordamerikanischen Eisenbahnen
in technischer Beziehung. From 1902 to his death on 14 February 1906
he was a professor at the Berlin Technical High School. The compounding system
was adopted by the Worsdells on the North Eastern
and by Malcolm Bowman on the NCC in Ireland. See:
Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol. XLIII; Glasers Armalen,
1 May 1906; The Engineer, 8 Feb. 1889. and van
Riemsdijk's Compound locomotives.
H.M. Le Fleming (Concise
encyclopaedia)..
Bousquet, Gaston Du
Born and died in Paris according to
John Marshall: 20 August 1839 to 24
March 1910. Worked with De Glehn on compounding.
See also H.M. Le Fleming
(Concise encyclopaedia)... and
van Riemsdijk.One of is most notable
locomotives was the freight 0-6-2+2-6-0 articulated compound with two driving
bogies. Experimented with water-tube fireboxes.
Brotan, Johann.
Brotan was born near Pilsen in Bohemia on 24 June 1843 and died in
Vienna on 20 November 1923. Locomotive engineer: invented a water-tube firebox
in about 1870 and fitted to locomotives from 1902. British patent: GB 26,244/1898
Improvements in steam generation. applied 112 December 1898,; published
4 August 1899. See Szontagh, Gáspár. Brotan and Brotan-Deffner
type fireboxes and fireboxes applied to steam
locomotives. Trans. Newcomen
Soc., 1990, 62, 21-51.
Brown, Charles
Founder of Swiss Locomotive Works in Winterthur, but was born in Uxbridge,
Middlesex on 30 June 1827. Apprenticed at Maudslay & Field in London,
but started his own workshop before end of apprenticeship. In 1851 invited
to start building steam locomotives at Sulzer in Winterthur, but left in
1871 to form firm which became SLM noted for its rack locomotives. He was
involved in the development of electric locomotives in the 1880s. He died
on 6 October 1905 in Basle. Father of Charles Eugene Lancelot
Brown, born in Winterthur, Switzerland (died Lugano 2 May 1924): major
developer of electricity generating and traction machinery.
Both father and son covered by Marshall.
and by H.M. Le Fleming (Concise
encyclopaedia).
Caillet, F.L.
French engineer who invented spring system for long coupled locomotives:
see Slaughter
Carnot, Nicolas Léonard
Sadi
Carnot was born 1 June 1796; died 24 August 1832). French
physicist and military engineer who gave the first successful theoretical
account of heat engines, now known as the Carnot cycle, thereby laying the
foundations of the second law of thermodynamics. Wikepedia
Kerker, Milton. Sadi Carnot and the steam engine engineers. Isis,
1960, 51, 257-270
Caprotti, Arturo
Marshall
states that Arturo Caprotti was born in Cremona (IME obituary states
Moscazzano), in Italy, on 22 March 1881 and received his education at the
Technical School and the University of Pavia; subsequently he studied mathematics
and mechanical engineering at the Royal Polytechnic School, Turin, and graduated
in 1904. He then entered the Florentia automobile factory in Florence and
took charge of the design office, afterwards being promoted to be works director.
From 1906 to 1908 he collaborated with Musante in Genoa, on designing and
experimenting with a reversible internal combustion engine.. He invented
in 1915 (Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs, 1938, 138, 512) (Marshall
states 1916) a rotating cam valve gear for steam locomotives, which was applied
to an Italian 2-8-0 in 1921. This used vertical poppet valves operated by
rotating cams with a scroll form, giving the possibility of varying the angular
position of the cams, thus varying exhaust and admission patterns. The gear
was applied to some of the LNWR Claughton class, and to some of the
former GCR 4-6-0s. Theoretically, much superior to normal valve gear, this
margin narrowed after long-lap valves were introduced in conventional steam
locomotives. However, research in Britain led to an improved application
of the Caprotti gear in the 1950s. This was applied to some of the last class
5 4-6-0s built for the LMS under Ivatt, and to British Railway's last passenger
design, the lone Pacific No.71000 Duke of Gloucester and to some of
the Standard Class 5 locomotives. The Duke of Gloucester was
fitted with this new gear and achieved the extremely good steam consumption
per indicated horsepower hour of 12.2 lbs, probably the best result from
any simple locomotive ever (the locomotive is extant and when restored was
improved). However, this came too late, and the Caprotti gear never really
achieved the hopes of its inventor. He died in Milan on 9 February
1938.
Patents
170,855. Valve gear for reversing steam
engines. Published: 20 July 1922. Application number: 28344/1921 Applied:
25 October 1921
170,877 Improvements in valve gears for elastic-fluid engines.
Published: 4 November 1921. Application number: 12341/1920. Applied: 4
May 1920
205,829. Automatic compensating device for elastic fluid engines
while drifting. Published: 9 October 1924. Application number: 26370/1923
Applied: 22 October 1923
232,676. Improvements in the reversing device for reciprocating
engines fitted with cam-controlled poppet valve gears. Published: 22
April 1925. Application number: 1776/1924. Applied: 22 January 1924
246,175. Improved apparatus for heating and supplying boiler feed
water. Published: 25 November 1926. Application number: 1437/1926. Applied:
18 January 1926
345,775. Improvements in poppet valve gear for fluid pressure
engines. Published: 2 April 1931. Application number: 5582/1930. Applied:19
February 1930.
444,010. Improvements in valves for engines operating with a fluid
under pressure. Published: 4 March 1936. Application number: 16652/1934.
Applied: 4 June 1934
447,479 Improved valve arrangement for three cylinder engines.
Published: 15 May 1936. Application number: 32948/1934. Applied: 15
November 1934
448,086. Braking valve-gear for reversible engines. Published:
2 June 1936. Application number: 30567/1935. Applied: 5 November 1935
455,323 Improvements in valve gears for fluid pressure engines.
Published: 19 October 1936. Application number: 25506/1935. Applied: 13 September
1935.
US patents
1549712 Valve gear for reversing steam
engines. Published: 11 August 1925. Application number: 509605/1921 Applied:
22 October 1921
1869463 Poppet valve for steam distributing gears. Published:
2 August 1932. Application number: 214912/1927. Applied: 23 August 1927
1976325 Poppet valve gear. Published: 9 October 1934. Application
number: 431262/1930 Applied: 25 February 1930
2119904 Variable valve lift for oscillating valve gears. Published:
7 June 1938. Application number: 39988/1935 Applied: 10 September 1935
See: Railway and Locomotive Engineering, Feb. 1925; Locomotive
Carriage and Wagon Review, Oct. 1923.
H.M. Le Fleming (Concise
encyclopaedia)...
Chatelier, Louis Le
Born 20 February 1815 in Paris, died 10 November 1873. Educated
École Polytechnique. Entered government service as an inspector in
the Corps des Mines and rose to become Ingenieur en Chef. One of the pioneers
of counter-pressure braking and of locomotive balancing, the Frenchman Louis
le Chatelier showed in the late 1840s that balancing of the moving parts
of a locomotive not only improved riding and durability, but also affected
coal consumption and speed. Known to Alexander
McDonnell..
See: L. le Chatelier, Etudes sur la stabilite des machines locomotives
en mouvement (1845).
Winship, Ian R. Some nineteenth
century brakes. Rly Mag., 1987, 133, 162.
Cherepanov, Yefim Alekseyevich
Yefim Alekseyevich Cherepanov (1774-1842). Visited Britain to inspect
early railways and locomotives: led to construction of first Russian steam
locomotive in 1833/4 and a second in 1835. Worked with
Miron Yefmovich. See Wikepedia.
Cossart, Léon
Works manager and subsequently engineer-in-chief of the Nord Railway
in France, Leon Cossart is remembered best for the Cossart rotary valve gear.
This was an advanced form of poppet valve in which two factors were variable
(admission and expansion) and the others fixed. This enabled cut-offs of
as little as five or ten per cent to be obtained without the inefficient
side-effects that such cut-offs would produce with conventional valves. Moreover,
these poppet valves made possible the use of very high superheat without
temperature distortion and lubrication failure. Such high superheat produced
the advantages of compounding for a. lower price and with less complication.
These principles were embodied in the 2-8-2 tank locomotives (SNCF class
141TC) that Cossart designed for the Paris commuter service. These were
two-cylinder simple locomotives, and were very successful, remaining in service
until 1970.
See: Loco.
Carr. Wagon Rev., 1933, 39, 109..
Crosti, Piero
Developing the ideas of his fellow-Italian
Franco, Dr Ing. Piero Crosti designed the Franco-Crosti
and Crosti boilers. The latter, used on Italian railways and also experimentally
in Germany and Britain, used exhaust steam passing through a single drum
to heat the feedwater (the Franco-Crosti later had two drums; but the principle
was the same). Substantial economies were realized, but in countries where
coal was cheap these were outweighed by extra maintenance expenses. See:
Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, June 1953, June 1955.
Cugnot, Nicolas-Joseph
Born 26 February 1785; died 2 October 1804. French inventor of steam
carriage: experimental sream vehicle pre-dated experiments by Murdoch and
Trevithick. See Wikepedia.
Copper, Edward A. Description of Cugnot's original invention of the
locomotive steam engine for common roads.
Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs.,
1853, 4, 33-7.
Czeczott (Czezcott), Albert
Born 13 April 1873 in St. Petersburg; died 3 November 1955 in Warsaw
Polish engineer, professor of Warsaw University of Technology, a specialist
in research on steam locomotives. He was the son of a doctor residing in
St. Petersburg. Educated in Russia, specializing in the construction of steam
engines and research on them. In 1914 he was professor of Locomotive Engineers
Institute of Road Transport in St. Petersburg, also taught at other local
universities. In 1922 he moved to Poland and from 1927 he lectured at the
Warsaw Polytechnic. From 1928 began work at the Ministry of Communications
in Warsaw, dealing with locomotive research. His initiative was created by
an independent report experimental mechanical department of the Ministry
of Communications. Czeczott designed measuring wagons, and even an experimental
train. Developed test methods for use of steam engines and auxiliary engine
thrust. In 1933 he directed the construction of a vehicle for testing Romanian
locomotives and organized a survey of steam locomotives. Shortly after the
liberation of Warsaw, Czeczott returned to work at the Department of Mechanical
Engineering of the Ministry of Communications and conditions of the major
difficulties in materials began to organize independent experimental paper.
Developed a new method of testing locomotives, on the basis of which has
been studied among others locomotives Tr202 , Ty45 , Ty2 , Ty43 , Ty246 ,
drawing up their operating characteristics. According to the project was
built in 1949 Czeczott wagon measuring torque, followed by 3 locomotives
resistance, marked CZ1, CZ2, CZ3, adapted for the manufacture of artificial
resistance movement. In 1951, he moved to the newly established Research
Institute of Railway, where he organized the establishment of traction steam
and smoke. He participated in the study of newly constructed locomotives
TKt48 , Ol49 and Ty51 . He was also an analysis of carbon species in terms
of its use for sunbathing locomotives. He was the author of many publications
in Poland and abroad. Introduced a system for flexibility in ten coupled
narrow gauge locomotives for railways in Upper Silesia and a system of locomotive
testing cited by H.I. Andrews. Author of book on testing. Mainly Polish Wikipedia
and machine translation.
Patents
GB 356869. Methods of removing deposits from boilers and of preventing
the formation of scale and apparatus therefor. Applied 14 July 1930 (priority
13 July 1929). Published 17 September 1931.
Debac, Pierre Barthelemy Guinibert
Patents via Woodcroft
GB 7100/1836. Railways. 18 May 1836.
GB 7373/1837. Railroads. 13 May 1837.
De Cambis, Louis Joseph Marie (Marquis)
Patent via Woodcroft
GB 5372/1826 Rotary steam engine; apparatus connected therewith. 23
May 1826
Décauville, Paul
Born in Petit Boury in Frnace on 7 June 1846. Died 1922 according
to Marshall. Developed portable, narrow
gauge railway systems for use in agriculture and later for military
applications. Ransom, P.J.G.
Narrow gauge steam. 1996 noted that system developed
to harvest sugar beet and a 60cm layout was installed at the Paris Exhibition
of 1889. Decauville had visited the
Festiniog Railway in
1879. See also W.J.K. Davies'
Light railways..
Papers
On portable railways. Proc.
Instn Mech. Engrs., 1884, 35, 126-49.
Dechen, Heinrich von
One of two Prussian mining engineers who visited the United Kingdom
to study the railways: see Report on railways in England in
1826-27 by Carl von Oeynhausen and Heinrich von Dechen; translated
and reviewed E.A. Forward. Trans
Newcomen Soc., 1954, 29, 1-10. Disc.: 11-12.
See also Warren
Deffner, Ernst
Mechanical engineer with Schweizerische Bundenshahnen (SBB), the Swiss
Federal Railways, who became technical adviser to Mannesmann Steel Tubes
A.G., to whom Johann Brotan later sold the patent rights to his water
tube firebox boiler. Deffner developed the Brotan boiler to a form which
was much more readily applicable to larger locomotives. Brotan-Deffner boilered
locomotives were first built in 1907, with a total of over 1000 in Hungary.
British Patent GB 6582/1906 Improvements in fire bridges for steam
generators. Applied 19 March 1906; published 10 January 1907. See
Szontagh, Gáspár. Brotan and Brotan-Deffner type fireboxes
and fireboxes applied to steam
locomotives. Trans. Newcomen
Soc., 1990, 62, 21-51. .
De Nanteuil, Pierre Antoine Auguste De La Barre.
Patent via Woodcroft
GB 13,809/1850. Propelling carriages. 2 November 1850
De Pons, Henry Francois Marie.
Patent via Woodcroft
GB 13514/1851. Constructing roads and ways, and pavements
of streets; ballast of railways. 17 February 1851.
De Rigel, Antonin Pieux
Patent via Woodcroft
GB 7445/1837. Steam-engines. 14 October 1837.
De Rosen, Adolphe Eugene, Count
Patent via
Woodcroft
GB 3938/1826. Engine for communicating power,
to answer the purposes of a steam-engine. 1 August 1826
Dery, Victor Auguste Ernest Dwelshauvers-
Born in 1836; died in 1913. Normally cited as Dery as
in Riemsdijk. Cited by Chapelon.
Professor at the University of Liège. Not in Wikipedia (2012-08-31),
but some material on Internet. Thermodynamics of steam.. Paper (one of presumably
a great many):. Experiments on the compression of steam in the clearance
space. J. Am. Soc. Naval Engrs., 1898, 10, 64159.
De Strubing, James Ulric Vaucher, Baron
Patent via
Woodcroft
GB 12876/1849. Axletree-boxes for carriages;
bearinga of the axles of railways; making an alloy of metal suitable for
such purposes. 3 December 1849
De Wydroff, Baron Victor
Patent via Woodcroft
GB 3580/1842. Construction of railways; wheels to run on railways;
apparatus for cleaning the rails. 29 December 1842.
Eifel, Alexandre Gustav
Born Dijon on 15 December 1832; died Paris 28 December 1923. French
civil engr, best remembered for his great tower in Paris, built 1887-9, and
designer of many outstanding bridges still in use on French railways. Educated
at Dijon and the Lycee Ste Barbe, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts,
Paris, where he studied civil engineering until 1855. Became Member of the
the Société des lngenleurs Civils de France in 1857. After
experience in designing the great iron bridge over the Garonne in Bordeaux
in 1858, and bridges on the Poitiers-Limoges Railway in 1867-8, he developed
his prindple of construction in wrought iron and cast iron which he employed
in the great viaducts at Sioule and Neuvial on the Orleans Railway in 1868-9.
Other important iron viaducts were the Tagus bridge on the Caceres Railway
in Spain (1880),312m long; the Vianna bridge on the Minho Railway Portugal,
736m long, on 9 masonry piers; and the Tardes viaduct in central France on
the Montlucon-Eygurande line (1883), 250m long and 73m high. His iron-arched
railway bridges included the Douro bridge at Porto, Portugal (1875), 160m
long and 61m high; the Garabit viaduct, Sud Railway, France (1882), 564m
long with a main span of 165m, 122m high. By 1887 his railway bridges alone
accounted for 38,000 tons of iron and steel work. He received many honours
John Marshall:
Engerth, Wilhelm Frieherr von
Born Pless in Germany and died Leesdorf, near Baden, on 4 September
1884. Designed locomotive Engerth for Semmering Railway. Frame was
in two portions: the rear enclosing the firebox. The cylinders drove the
coupled wheels of the front unit which were geared to those of the rear unit.
This was patented in 1852. He served on the Panel of Judges at the Great
Exhibition in London of 1851. John
Marshall: Le Fleming Concise
encyclopaedia gives a somewhat better description of the locomotive:
none of the contestants at the Semmering trials of 1851 was considered wholly
satisfactory and Engerth was instructed to produce a design. Patented
in 1852 the Engerth had the frames in two parts, of which the rear
enclosed the firebox and was pivoted just in front of it. The cylinders drove
the coupled wheels of the front unit which were connected to those of the
rear unit by gearing and thus the "tender" weight was used for adhesion.
However, the gears of those days and alternative forms of transmission proved
unsatisfactory and were later abandoned. Use of part of the tender weight
for adhesion was later revived in the Continental "Stutz-tender" locomotives.
Carling,
D.R.. Engerth and similar locomotives. Trans Newcomen
Soc., 1985, 57, 31-56. Disc. 57-8.
Fialovits, Bela
Born 1885; died 1968. Chief mechanical engineer of Magyar Allanvasutak
(MAV), Hungarian State Railways. From early 1920s, made great efforts to
redesign and to rebuild older steam locomotives of MAV. He knew from his
experience as chief running and maintenance engineer of MAV's northern main
workshops that there were problems of structural strength and lack of rigidity
in the Brotan-Deffner boiler, which he redesigned with successful results
and applied to several locomotives. Extended applications were halted by
MAV's abandonment of further steam locomotive development in the mid-1950s.
See Szontagh, Gáspár. Brotan and Brotan-Deffner type
fireboxes and fireboxes applied to steam
locomotives. Trans. Newcomen
Soc., 1990, 62, 21-51.
Flamme, Jean Baptiste
Marshall states that Flamme
was born in Mons on 19 October 1847 and died in Brussells on 25 May 1920.
A Belgian of great originality, Flamme was the first, in 1901, to fit Schmidt's
firetube superheater to a locomotive, and did so successfully. He produced
his unusual 4-6-2 and 2-10-0 for the Belgian State Railways in 1910. The
Pacific had a very large boiler with a correspondingly sharp taper, and was
conspicuous because its smokebox was set well behind the leading truck. The
2-10-0 was distinguished by a similar boiler and widely-spread coupled wheels
and, but for the 1914 war, would probably have been adopted by the Lancashire
& Yorkshire Railway. [see Barnes]
Some of the 2-10-0 machines were sent to Russia during the First World War
to work on captured standard gauge lines, and remained working in the Crimea
until the mid-1940s.
See: E. S. Cox, World Steam in the Twentieth Century (1969); Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, Jan., July 1927.
Franco, Attilio
Westwood alleged
that Italian contributions to locomotive design were small, but Franco made
his mark (in Belgium) with a novel three-unit articulated 0-6-2 + 2-4-2-4-2
+ 2-6-0 that carried two subsidiary and two main boilers. In 1937 he designed
for the Italian State Railways a 4-6-0 with reversed boiler and cab in front,
His ideas on improved boiler efficiency were developed by
Crosti . See: Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review,
Aug, 1933, June 1953. Not in Marshall
Gakkel, Yakov Modestovich
Born 30 April 1874, in Irkutsk; died 12 December 1945, in Leningrad.
Russian scientist and designer in the field of aircraft and diesel locomotive
building; Gakkel graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Electrical
Engineering in 1897. For participation in revolutionary student organizations
he was exiled for five years to Siberia, where he directed the construction
and later the operation of one of Russias first hydroelectric power
plants (near the city of Bodaibo). On return to St. Petersburg, Gakkel worked
on the design, construction, and operation of the St. Petersburg streetcar,
at the same time teaching a course on electric traction at the Institute
of Electrical Engineering (he became a professor there in 1921). He was
associated with the Leningrad Institute of Railroad Engineering beginning
in 1936. Between 1909 and 1912, Gakkel designed and built a number of original
aircraft. Between 1920 and 1921 Gakkel designed one of the worlds first
powerful and efficient diesel locomotives (about 1,000 hp; built in 1924).
Many of Gakkels design ideas (in particular the interlinked design
of the diesel locomotive) have been further developed in the modern diesel
locomotive. Gakkel was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and medals.
Online sources. See also Hennessey,
Backtrack, 2004, 18, 206.
Garbe, Robert
Le Fleming (Concise encyclopaedia
p. 498) noted that born in 1847 and died on 23 May 1932.
Carried out extensive tests on Prussian State Railways from 1895 to 1917.
Advocate of superheating and standardisation: huge numbers of 4-6-0s, 0-8-0s
and 0-10-0s built to his designs. "one of the greatest authorities on the
locomotive". Marshall adds citations
to several German publications, See also
Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1993,
65, 165 for paper by J. Quellmalz, Thermodynamic aspects
of the design of German Standard steam locomotives: compound vs. simple
expansion.
Gerstner, Franz Anton Von
Born Prague on 11 May 1793; died Philadelphia, USA on 12 April 1840.
Son of Franz Josef von Gerstner, founder of the Prague Polytechnic Institute,
where son was educated and promoter of the railway from the Danube to the
Moldau (Vltava). In 1818 was appointed professor of practical geometry at
Vienna Polytechnic Institute. In 1822 he decided to study railway construction
and visited England. Returning to Vienna he built a 2km long railway, a third
of it with wooden rails, a third with cast iron rails and a third with wrought
iron rails. He surveyed the Danube-Moldau Railway and on 7 September 1824
obtained a concession for the railway from Budweis on the Moldau to the Danube
near Linz, using wooden and iron rails. In 1826 he again visited England
to examine locomotive haulage on railways. On 7 September 1827 the
Budweis-Trojern section was opened. This had steeper gradients and sharper
curves. Still not convinced of the merits of steam power, he visited England
again in 1829. The Budweis-Linz Railway opened throughout on 1 August 1832.
In 1834 he visited Russia intending to layout a railway network and in 1835
presented a memorandum to Tsar Nicholas I suggesting that he should be allowed
to build a railway between Moscow and St Petersburg, Nizhnii Novgorod and
Kazan. He asked for a 20-year monopoly of railway construction in Russia
At the end of October 1837 only the 23km section from St Petersburg to Tsarskoye
Selo had opened, extended to Pavlovsk the following summer. In 1838 he went
to America to study railways there but died in Philadelphia.
John Marshall:
Gerwig, Robert
Born Karlsruhe, Germany, on 2 May 1820; died Karlsruhe 6 December
1885. Engineer on St Gotthard Railway. Educated Technical High School, Karlsruhe.
In 1840 engineer of water and street works in Baden. 1868-71 supervised
construction of the Black Forest Railway. 1871 appointed engineer on St Gotthard
Railway, being placed in charge of the Ticino section with its four great
spiral tunnels, which opened 1 June 1882.
John Marshall:
Ghega, Karl Kitter von
Born Venice on 10 January 1802; died Vienna 14 March 1860. Engineer
of the Semmering Railway, Studied at Padua University and graduated as Doctor
of Mathematics in 1819. For seventeen years he was engaged on street tramways
and water supply works in Venice. In 1836 appointed engineer on Kaiser
Ferdinand's Nordbahn, the first steam railway in Austria. In 1836-7 he visited
Belgium and England to study railways. He then planned the
Rabensburg-Brünen, and Lundenburg-Olmütz Railways. In 1842 he visited
USA on a study tour. His greatest work was the laying out and construction
of the Semmering Railway, Wiener Neustadt-Murzuschlag, Europe's first mountain
railway, begun after much delay on 8 August 1848 and opened to freight on
15 May1854 and passengers on 17 July 1854. A large memorial to Ghega was
erected at Semmering station. John
Marshall:
Giesl-Gieslingen, Adolph
Born in Trient, Tirol, on 7 September 1903 died in Vienna
on 11 February 1992). Studied at the Technical College in Vienna. In 1924
he published a technical article on smokebox design and chimneys.[1] In 1925
he received his diploma as an engineer, and began working as a design engineer
at the Floridsdorf locomotive works,[1] where he was involved in the construction
of the Class 214 2-8-4s. While at Floridorf he continued his studies, being
interested in developing the rectangular chimney design developed by Golsdorf
in Austria, and finished his doctoral thesis on locomotive front-end design
in 1929. In 1929 the director, Arno Demmer, sent him to the USA, where he
stayed until 1938, working on the New York Central Railroad testing a Kylala
blastpipe. There he got to know his wife, whom he married in 1933 in New
York. After his return to Austria he became Demmer's assistant and,
after the Second World War, chief engineer of the Floridsdorf company. In
1946 he took up his post as honorary professor at the Technical College in
Vienna as the successor to Johann Rihosek. (Wikipedia 2012-10-11)
Inventor of the Giesl Ejector, a carefully proportioned rectangular multi-jet
exhaust arrangement, Giesl spent decades trying to interest railways in his
device. About thirty years after he began his studies, the Austrian Federal
Railways adopted it and found that it increased the power output of its
locomotives by up to one-third, whilst reducing coal consumption. Some other
railways followed the Austrian example, but in most parts of the world it
came too late, dieselization and electrification being already the accepted
policy.
Cox (Locomotive panorama. Part
2 p. 99) considered that he was "a delightfully fair minded
man, devoted to steam traction, and a first rate engineer". Nevertheless,
Cox doubted whether the device was worth the cost and effort although did
concede that it reduced spark throwing by the West Country Pacific
so-fitted,
See: Trains Magazine, Jan. 1958; European Railways No.2, 1963.
John Sagar. Just what the doctor ordered; experience with the Giesl
Ejector on City of Wells. Rly
Wld., 1992, 53 (629),
46-9.
Includes photograph taken on 14 September 1986 at Haworth of No. 34092
with John Click and Adolph Giesl-Gieslingen when latter was aged
84.
Giffard, Henri
Marshall notes
born in Paris on 8 February 1825 and died there on 14 April 1882. Inventor
of the injector in 1859 which he had hoped to apply to steam engines for
ballooning. Often mis-cited as "Gifford". Engineer, 1923, 31 August,
p. 231. See I.Loco.E. Paper No. 498 by
T.H. Shields which includes extracts from Giffard patent,.
Gölsdorf, Karl
Born in Vienna on 8 June 1861; died Semmering on 18 March 1916. Son
of Adolf Golsdorf, CME of Austrian Southern Railway from 1885 to 1907. In
charge of locomotive design on Austrian Stae Railways from 1891.
(Marshall).
H.M. Le Fleming (Concise
encyclopaedia) noted that "few men have left such an unmistakable
stamp on the locomotives of a country. Noted for the elegance and ingenuity
of his designs. 2-cylinder compound introduced in 1893 with simple automatic
system which permitted semi-compound working at long cut-offs. 4-cylinder
compound introduced in 1901. A ten coupled locomotive was introduced in 1900
with adequate side play. He exploited the Brotan boiler. He introduced the
2-6-2 to Europe. He designed an 0-12-0T for Abt rack system. He developed
a valve gear which dispensed with expansion links and introduced a numbering
system for locomotives. Phil Atkins has found the following quotation attributed
to Gölsdorf: 'You can't save a ton weight on a locomotive, but you can
save a kilo in a thousand places' (it certainly sounds plausible KPJ).
Kalla-Bishop Locomotives at War pp.
145-6 presented a highly contrary view "they [Golsdorf locomotives] were
all pretty dreadful, worse than the Italian designs of the same
age...".
Hall, Joseph
An Englishman who went to Munich in 1839 and two years later built
the first locomotive for J.A. Maffei. In 1856 he patented his arrangement
of cranks with outside framing, which was widely adopted. In 1858 he moved
to Austria and was engaged in various branches of railway engineering.
Le Fleming. The Hall crank
used on outside frame locomotives: see
Ahrons British steam
locomotive pp. 240-1 and Wikipedia (2012-10-10). Mentioned by
Hamilton Ellis in his chapter on
the development of railway engineering in Singer and by
Ahrons British steam railway
locomotive (p. 240) who invented the crank system which bears his
name whilst working for J.A. Maffei in Bavaria.
May have influenced John Haswell.
Hammel, Anton
Born 26 May 1857 in Munich; died 27 March 1925. Entered the drawing
office of the Maffei locomotive works in 1875, later becoming chief of the
design department until his death. He re-introduced bar frames into Europe
in 1905 and was responsible for many types on the Bavarian and Baden State
Rlys. Most of these were four-cylinder compounds with bar frames, the Bavarian
Pacifics and 0-8-8-0 tanks being amongst the very few non-standard designs
built after formation of the Reichsbahn. His engines were always distinctive
with their elegant design and beautiful finish.
Based mainly on Le Fleming,
but this contains very obvious errors and has been corrected by German Wikipedia
(2012-11-06)
Heberlein
Locomotive superintendent of the Bavarian Railways and inventor of
modified Clark's brake used in Germany for many years.
Rowatt, T. Railway brakes.Trans
Newcomen Soc.,1927, 8, 19-32. According to A.M. Bushell
(discussion on paper p. 29) Heberlein brake used on Maenclochog Railway in
Wales, on the Highgate Hill Cable Tramway and on the Colne Valley & Halstead
Railway.
Helmholtz, Richard von
According to John Marshall:
was born in Königsberg on 28 September 1852 and died in Munich on 10
September 1934. Apprenticed at Borsig Locomotive Works in Berlin and completed
his studies at high schools in Stuttgart and Munich. In 1881 he entered Krauss
works (later Krauss-Maffei) in Munich and in 1884 he was made of the firm's
drawing office, a position he occupied until retirement in 1917. His best
known innovation was the Krauss-Helmholtz truck which combined the pony truck
with the leading coupled axle. He was responsible for a modified form of
Walschaerts valve gear and in 1930 he published with Staby a major history
of the German steam locomotive. Le
Fleming summarised: Chief designer of the Krauss Locomotive Works in
Munich from 1884 to 1917. In 1884 he brought out a form of Walschaerts valve
gear with straight expansion link, and in 1888 the Krauss-Helmholz truck
combining one carrying and one coupled axle as a bogie. The latter's influence
on Continental design had been enormous. Engines he designed for the Palatinate
Rly. in 1894, and the Bavarian State Rly. in 1900, incorporated "boosters"
in an early form. He was a great authority on the steam locomotive and its
history.
Book
Die historischen Lokomotiven der Badischen
Staats-Eisenbahnen. Karlsruhe, Dtsch. Gesellschaft
füür Eisenbahngeschichte, 1982.
Paper
The cause of wear of wheel-flanges and rails in curves: mechanical
contrivances to diminish the same. Zeit. Vereines Deutsch. Ing., 1888,
32. English trans. by A. Bewley. Madras: Laurence Asylum Press, 1896.
BLPC
Rutherford,
Michael. The 'Prairie' - a survey of the 2-6-2 type -
Part 1. (Railway Reflections No. 35). Backtrack, 1997, 11,
622-8.
Includes notes on the development of the Wootten firebox and the
Krauss-Helmholtz bogie.
Henry, Adolphe
Born at Barisey-au-Plain (Meurthe) on 27 February 1846, died 23 January
1892. Following an academic career he joined the Compagnie des chemins de
fer Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée [Railway]in 1878 under Marié
whom he succeeded in 1882. Le
Fleming noted that in 1888 he introduced four-cylinder compounds on the
PLM and was the first to use considerably higher boiler pressure (213 lb.)
on them. His 1889 compounds had the inside high-pressure cylinders behind
the outside low-pressure cylinders, an arrangement which remained peculiar
to the PLM.
Heusinger von Waldegg, Edmund
Edmund Heusinger was born in Langenschwalbach (present day Bad Schwalbach)
in the state of Hesse in central Germany on 12 May 1817. In 1841 he became
a master-workman with the Taunus Railway (Taunusbahn). In 1854 he was awarded
a contract to build the Homburg Railway. He invented a new type of valve
gear for steam locomotives that was to become the most widely-used valve
gear in the world. Because the Belgian, Egide Walschaerts, invented the same
system independently, it is usually called the Walschaerts valve gear outside
the German-speaking world. Edmund Heusinger von Waldegg died on 2 February
1886 in Hanover. Wikipedia. Loco. Carr.
Wagon Rev., 1933, 39, 59.
Hirn, Gustave-Adolphe
Born on 21 August 1815 in Logelbach, near Colmar into the prosperous
textile-manufacturing family Haussmann; died in in Logelbach. on 14 January
1890. At 19, he entered his grandfather's cotton factory as a chemist. Later
he worked as an engineer, and began research on mechanics, especially on
calorics. He was made a member of the French Academy of Science in 1867;
in 1880 founded a meteorological observatory near Colmar; and later devoted
himself to astronomy. Hirn was educated in the shop, and his works are marked
by much practical criticism of mere academic theory. In 1855 Hirn demonstrated
the value of steam-jacketing. Early user of superheated steam (1850). Adrian
Tester Introduction to steam locomotive testing.
Backtrack, 2012, 26,
694.
Klose, Adolf
Born in Pirna, Saxony on 7 July 1844; died in Munich on 2 September1923.
Went to Switzerland in 1870, after varied railway experience, he took up
position of machine inspector in the then Vereinigten Schweizer Bahnen
(Associated Swiss Rs) in St Gallen. In 1884 he was appointed to Royal
Württeernburg State Railways in Stuttgart. In the same year, with Bissinger,
he brought out the rack-rail system known as Bissinger-Klose, introduced
on the Höllental Railway In 1888-9 Klose returned to Switzerland where
he supervised construction of the rack railway from St Gallen to Gais, the
later Appenzeller street Railway. There he established the Klose system rack.
In this connection he supervised construction of the section from Honau to
Lichtenstein and Freudenstadt to Klosterreichenbach. Le Fleming
(H.M. Le Fleming in
Illustrated encyclopedia of world railway locomotives.) noted
that he introduced compound locomotives on rack railways
Kylala, Kyosti
Kyösti Kylälä was a Finnish engine driver who designed
a cowl that split the exhaust cone into four streams. Some Kylala exhausts
included two of these splitters in series before the chimney was reached.
The system was originally devised to reduce spark-throwing and later it was
claimed that there was a more even draught over the tubeplate and that the
need for tube-cleaning was reduced. A major step forward occurred when Andre
Chapelon of the Paris-Orleans Railway developed his own draughting system:
the 'Kylchap' incorporating Kylala cowels.
Rutherford included the Kylala and Kylchap systems in a survey of blast pipe systems.
Lambert, Henri Louis
French locomotive engineer who invented wet sanding apparatus. Worked
for C.d,F. l'Ouest.. Described in The Lambert sanding apparatus in Loco
Rly Carr. Wagon Rev., 1911, 17, 4. 7 diagrs.
Patents
2811/1913 Improvements in apparatus for sanding
railway and tramway rails. Applied 3 February 1913. Published 24 July
1913.
1420/1912 Improvements in apparatus for sanding rails. Applied
18 January 1912. Published 20 June 1912.
19475/1908 Improvements in apparatus for sanding railway, tramway
and like rails. Applied 16 September 1908. Published 29 July 1909
Larpent
Associated with Blavier in construction of
L'Aigle
Léguille, Robert
CME of the East Region of the SNFC. Member of the Pacific Locomotive
Committee (India) chaired by [Sir] Alan Mount. Cox:
Locomotive panorama, V.2. "Now one of the members of our Committee
came from a background and experience far removed from the British school
of thought. Robert Leguille, a son of Alsace, and quite the opposite of the
typical Frenchman in his bluff square appearance and more phlegmatic approach,
had had to live all his professional life with big 4-6-2s and 4-8-2s working
over what was none too good track in those days before World War II. French
theorists such as Marie and Blondel, had peered into the fundamentals of
exactly the same problem, and had established the relation between moment
of inertia of the mass of the locomotive and its side control. More recently
Mauzin had developed test equipment and procedure in verification. Leguille,.
therefore, knew enough to suspect that there was more in the problem than
damping values only, and had been gradually influencing the Committee's thoughts.
So it came about that he and I shut ourselves up in our car on the special
train we travelled in, and spent eight hours one steaming hot Saturday in
a siding outside the East Indian station in Calcutta, examining every inch
of every flange force record which had been presented to us. At the end of
this travail we had the evidence of the Railway Board's own charts that they
had not solved the problem, for these showed that while the increased friction
reduced flange forces on straight track, it did nothing to reduce them on
curves, and that only a combination of stronger side control springs plus
appropriate damping could give the desired result".
I Loco E obituary (1951, 41, 481): In 1914 Robert Léguille
was a 19-years old French student in Germany. Upon repatriation after four
years internment, he entered the service of the Chemin de Fer de
lEst, which railway he continued to serve throughout his distinguished
career finally obtaining the rank of Regional Chief Engineer. His special
interest was always in locomotive design and research work which led to his
taking part with ever increasing responsibility in many commissions of enquiry,
including several of international importance. He was the French Engineer
chosen to collaborate with three leading British Engineers, Col. Sir Alan
Mount, Sir Wm. Stanier and Mr. Carpmael, in the investigations for the Government
of India leading to the Pacific Locomotive Committee Report
in 1938. In the 1939 War Leguille was appointed Liaison Officer with the
British Staff in London, being aided in his work by his mastery of
languages-English, German and some Russian, besides his native French . During
the difficult years of the invasion of France, he became Liaison Officer
for the French Railways with the German Army of Occupation, until the landing
in 1944 of the British and American forces of liberation. In the meantime
the French Provisional Government in Algiers had set on foot negotiations
for the purchase of materials for rehabilitation. Steam locomotives, wagons,
diesel engines and stores were wanted in immense quantities. For the leadership
of a national purchasing mission in America the choice fell upon Robert
Léguille who later, on his return to France, took a leading part in
organizing the reconditioning of war-damaged rolling stock required for the
restoration of the Eastern Region. In 1950-51, once again he was called in
by the Government of India for a further enquiry on the design of new locomotives
of Pacific type. But this was to be the last occasion on which
he could exercise his professional ability in the service of his country.
On 15 July 1951, he collapsed while attending Mass and died during the night.
He will be long remembered by his many friends in the Institution as a Locomotive
Engineer of outstanding ability and personality. He had been a Member since
1947.
Lemaître, Maurice
Engineer of the Nord Belge Railway, Lemaître is known
for his eponymous exhaust system. This was adopted in 1935 for all modern
Nord locomotives and on some other railways (notably by
Bulleid on the Southern Railway). The chimney is of
wide diameter, and steam is passed through it by an exhaust ejector consisting
of a variable wide nozzle surrounded by five smaller nozzles. In use, a saving
of about ten per cent of fuel (or a power increase of ten per cent) was claimed
for the good vacuum and low back pressure of this system. See: Locomotive
Carriage and Wagon Review, June 1937.
Rutherford included the Lemaître
system in a survey of blast pipe systems.
Patents
Several issued to Lemaitre, including some American, but only the
solitary British one is listed:
452,636. Improvements in or relating to blast pipes of locomotives.
Applied 10 February 1936. Published 26 August 1936.
Lentz [Lenz], Hugo
An Austrian, Hugo Lenz, but born in South Africa on 21 July 1859 according
to Marshall (who gives a detailed account
of his work), originated one of the most successful poppet valves for
locomotives. His vertical type and oscillating cam type, introduced in 1905
and 1907, were worked by normal valve gears, and his rotary cam type (1921)
by worm drive. French and Austrian railways made a success of Lentz valves,
and they were also applied elsewhere (e.g. on Malayan Railways and on the
LNER). Died in Austria on 21 March 1944. See : P.
Ransome-Wallis, Encyclopedia
of World Railway Locomotives (1959). Also innovator in boiler design:
Rutherford (Backtrack, 1998,
12, 333 stated that Heilmann steam-electric locomotive Fusée
was fitted with "Lentz-type boiler". Dr Hugo Lenz was born in South Africa
in 1859. When he was six years old his father died and the family returned
to their native Germany. Lenz trained and worked in Prussia as a naval engineer
before setting up his own engine business in Vienna when he was aged 28.
Later in life, during the 1920s, he is believed to have had an experimental
workshop in or near Paxman's Standard Ironworks on Hythe Hill [Colchester].
Although there was no 't' in Lenz's surname, his engines and patents were
always called 'Lentz' as this was thought easier for English-speaking people
to pronounce. (Website on Paxman history).
Lestrade
Designer of six-coupled locomotive with 8ft 3in wheels called La
Prisienne, built in 1886. See
Loco. Mag., 1905, 11, 101 .
Ljungstrom, Fredrik and Birger
Of all the inter-war experiments with steam turbine propulsion, those
of the brothers Fredrik and Birger Ljungstrom in Sweden were the most successful.
Several of their turbomotives worked satisfactorily on the Swedish State
Railway, their relative reliability resulting from the absence of condensing
equipment.
See: Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Review, March 1923 and
Robert Tufnell's Prototype
locomotives.
Locher-Freuler, Eduard
Born and died in Zurich: 15 January 1840; 2 June 1910.Builder of the
Pilatus Railway and inventor of the horizontal double rack rail. After leaving
school in 1857 he spent a year at Yverdon, Switzerland, then entered the
works of J J Richter & Co in Toss to learn mechanical engineering. The
sudden death of his f ather in 1861 gave him the opportunity to leave the
manufacture of textile machinery and to follow his father's career in
architecture. A plan to emigrate to the USA was thwarted by the Civil War
there. In 1863 he supervised building of a factory for an established weaving
firm at Azmoos, later becoming a director. In 1871, with his brother, he
formed the firm of Locher & Cie in Zurich. In 1873 he studied the theory
of bridges and railway building with Prof Calmann and his assistant, later
Prof W. Ritter, at the Federal Polytechnic. By diligent application the two
brothers built up the firm and were engaged on the construction of the St
Gotthard Railway, Fluelen to Coschenen including the Pfaffensprung spiral
tunnel. Faced in 1888-9 with the const of a railway to the summit of Pilatus
near Lucerne with gradients of 48%, almost 1 in 2, the steepest in the world,
Locher-Freuler designed a special rack with horizontal teeth on each side.
The pairs of rack wheels engaging these teeth could not climb out, and also
prevented derailment. After being engaged on various water projects,
Locher-Freuler worked on the first Simplon tunnel in collaboration with Brandt,
Brandon & Co. and Sulzer Bros, Winterthur. Soon after the tunnel was
started Brandt died and Locher-Freuler took on responsibility for the whole
work, working in temperatures of 55°C at a depth of 7000ft which ruined
his health. In 1905 the two brothers handed over the business to their sons.
Locher-Freuler became a director of SLM, Winterthur, and of the Pilatus Railway.
His advice was often sought and freely given almost up to his death from
a heart attack. He was noted for his modesty, kindness and outstanding courage
Marshall .
Lott, Julius
Born and died in Vienna (25 May 1836, 24 March 1883). Engineer of
Arlberg Railway including the long Arlberg Tunnel and Trisanna Bridge. Died
before line was completed.
Marshall
Lomonossoff, Dr George Vladimir (Lomonosov, Iu.
V.)
Iurii Vladimirovich Lomonosov was born in Russia on 24 April 1876
(into an impecunios rural gentry family) and died in Montreal on 19 November
1952 (Marshall). Graduated from Institute
of Transport in St Petersburg in 1898. Russian academic and Chief Mechanical
Engineer of Tashkent Railway. From 1911-21 he was Prof of Railway Engineering
and Economics at St Petersburg Institute of Transport, whilst he was also
president of the Locomotive Research Bureau; CME of the Nicolas Railway;
and Assistant Director General of Russian Railways. He was president of the
Russian War Railway Mission to the USA. In this position, in the latter part
of WW1, he was responsible for designing and ordering about 2,000 locomotives.
Later, as High Commissioner for Diesel Locomotives, Lomonossoff was authorized
to build three. In 1925 he visited England and placed an order with Sir W
G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd for a 1,200 bhp diesel loco designed by
Schliebest, but it was sent to Russia in 1926 before completion:
Duffy accepts this as the first diesel mainline
locomotive. Author of
Introduction to railway
mechanics. OUP, 1933. Heywood
(Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2000, 72, 1) describes his work
on locomotive testing between 1895 and 1901 and also notes his close association
with Lenin. Paper on diesel traction (which castigates steam locomotive
inefficiency and makes some questionable claims against electric traction)
Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs,
1933, 125, 537. Le
Fleming in Ransome-Wallis Concise
encyclopedia.
Mallet, Jules T. Anatole
Westwood claims that Jules Anatole
Mallet was remarkable amongst late nineteenth century innovators in that
he achieved a influential success both in compounding and in a method for
articulating the driving wheelbase. The resulting Mallet articulated locomotive
became especially popular in the USA, where it attained great size. Mallet's
ideas on compounding inspired many subsequent designers to develop their
own compound locomotives, some successfully, some very
unsuccessfully.
Mallet was born at Carouge, near Geneva, in 1837, and studied and
later taught engineering at the Paris Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures.
He first attracted attention in 1877, when the Bayonne-Biarritz Railway put
two tank locomotives into service, designed according to Mallet's two-cylinder
compound system with a single high-pressure cylinder passing its exhaust
steam into a second, larger, low-pressure cylinder. The Biarritz locomotives
worked well, but like subsequent two-cylinder compounds they tended to be
unsteady at high speed, because one cylinder exerted more thrust than the
other. Mallet was unable to interest any of the mainline railways in his
idea. This lack of enthusiasm is not surprising when it is remembered that
even after compounding had been adopted by many railways, it was never adopted
by a majority. Those who rejected the idea almost always did so on the grounds
that any fuel economies obtained from so-called double expansion were lost
by the extra complication of compound machines. This criticism of compounding
would be reinforced after superheated steam had shown another way of overcoming
the basic problem that compounding attacked: that is the condensation of
steam inside the cylinders which resulted from the fall in temperature as
the steam expanded. Compounding broke the steam expansion into two parts,
divided between two cylinders and thereby made it easier to cope with cylinder
wall condensation. Superheating raised the steam temperature so that even
after cooling it would remain higher than condensation temperature. Ideally,
from the point of view of thermal efficiency, the most efficient machine
would be one embodying both superheating and compounding, and many such machines
were built in the twentieth century. In the 1870s, however, compounding seemed
the only solution. Mallet believed he had a workable compound system, but
could not persuade French engineers to try it.
However, the proliferation at that time of narrow-gauge light railways
gave Mallet another avenue of approach. These lines required more powerful
locomotives than their winding tracks could tolerate, and the only solution
seemed to be some form of articulated locomotive. Two articulation systems
were already fairly widely adopted. These were the
Fairlie and the Meyer concepts, both of which embodied
two pivoting engine units, supplied by steam through pipes with flexible
joints. These flexible joints, so difficult to keep steamtight, were a weakness
of these systems, and Mallet believed he had a solution in his own system
of articulation, which he patented in 1884. Instead of two pivoting engine
units, he had just one, placed beneath the smokebox. A second engine unit
was at the rear, but this was non-pivoting. It was on this rigid rear unit
that the boiler was fixed. For Mallet, the important feature of this layout
was that it was a perfect setting for a compound system. Steam was taken
first to the high-pressure cylinders of the rigid rear unit, and then piped
to the cylinders of the leading pivoting unit for re-use at a lower pressure.
In this way it was only the low- pressure steam which passed through the
flexible steampipe joints, thereby easing the problem of steam leaks. The
first such Mallet locomotive appeared in 1888, being built in Belgium for
Paul Decauville. In 1889 Decauville's 60cm gauge line at the Paris Exhibition
carried more than six million visitors and assured the continuing success
of his enterprise. It also assured the future success of Mallet's compound
articulated locomotive, for it was on this line that the first Mallet units
made their debut.
The obvious success of these machines was followed by orders for similar
narrow-gauge units from many railways, at first with the same 0-4-4-0T wheel
arrangement but later in other versions. In the nineties the Mallet tank
locomotive was joined by the Mallet tender locomotive in Switzerland and
Germany.
In 1904 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad introduced the Mallet concept
to America, ordering an 0-6-6-0 from the American Locomotive Company for
use on its Sand Patch incline over the Alleghenies. By 1911 more than five
hundred Mallets had been built for US railroads. During the First World War
the Virginian Railway brought the original Mallet concept to a peak so far
as size was concerned, ordering 2-10-10-2 units whose low-pressure cylinders
were 48in. in diameter. This Virginian design represented the virtual limit
of size for the conventional Mallet locomotive. The overhang of the boiler
at the front end on curves was excessive, and the low pressure cylinders
were so large that it was impossible to design adequate valves for them,
which meant that they worked efficiently only at low speeds and long cut-offs..
Moreover, the 4ft diameter cylinders were the biggest that could be accommodated
on American railroads. For this reason most subsequent American Mallet
locomotives were simples, not compounds. Later, American designers eliminated
another fault which inhibited high-speed running with Mallet locomotives.
This was the rough riding of the forward engine unit, which was only loosely
attached to the main bulk of the locomotive.
Eventually Jabelmann of the Union
Pacific modified the articulation and applied a four-wheel leading truck
to produce the Challenger 4-6-6-4, which could run up to 80 mile/h.
This type was developed into the 4-8-8-4 Big Boys, which are regarded
as the most powerful locomotives ever built. Although, at its peak of popularity,
the Mallet locomotive was ordered by railways in many parts of the world,
it was only in America that it retained its market up to the end of the age
of steam.
The Garratt form of articulation, developed
later, was technically superior, while many central European lines found
that they did not really need articulated types. As for Anatole Mallet, it
is said that he did not approve of the concept of the simple Mallet locomotive,
as he had evolved his system of articulation as a means of promoting his
compound system. In the twentieth century he was something of a grand old
man of French engineering, regularly contributing comments on locomotive
matters to the Memoires of the French society of civil engineers. He also
designed the original locomotives for the Lartigue monorail system. Relatively
little information has survived about Mallet the man, even though he was
probably one of the three most important post-Stephenson locomotive engineers.
Marshall noted that he died in October
1919. Le Fleming in Ransome-Wallis
Concise encyclopedia..
See: I. Vilain, Les Locomotives Articulees
du Systeme Mallet dans le Monde (1969)
A. E. Durrant, The Mallet Locomotive (1974)
Journal de Geneve, 16 Nov. 1919.
Papers
On mechanical traction upon tramways.
Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1878,
29, 395-439
On the compounding of locomotive engines. Proc. Instn Mech.
Engrs, 1879, 30, 328-63.
Marcotty, Franz
Patented devices relating to boilers including an improved firebox
door fitted to Gresley Yarrow locomotive.
(William Brown. Hush-Hush,
2010)
GB 9068/1910 Improvements to fire doors to furnaces. Priority 14 April
1910. Published 6 April 1911
Meyer, Jean Jacques
According to Marshall Meyer
was born in 1804 was educated in Paris and died in Vienna in 1877. Elsewhere
he was stated to be an Alsatian engineer, Meyer in 1831 established a locomotive
works at Mulhouse (later taken over by Koechlin). He registered several patents
for improving the steam locomotive, but is best known for the Meyer articulated
locomotive. This had two engine units beneath a single boiler, with the cylinders
at the inner end of each unit (that is, in the centre of the locomotive).
The engine units were attached to the draw gear and buffing gear. Some units
were compounds and known as Saxon-Meyer or Mallet-Meyer. The patent was
registered in 1861 and the first unit l' Avenir built in 1868 for a short
line which later became part of the Etat system. In 1890 the Hartmann works
in Germany Degan to build Meyer 0-4-4-0 tank locomotives for the Saxon railways,
the type being especially favoured for steep narrow-gauge lines. Some units
were still at work in the mid-seventies in the German Democratic Republic.
A British variant, was developed by Kitsons: the
Kitson-Meyer, which had a limited success
and was used on the Trans-Andean Railway which linked Argentina with Chile.
This had a girder frame, sometimes with a tender, and the cylinders were
positioned differently. See: L. M. Vilain, Les Locomotives Articulées
du Systeme Mallet dans le Monde(1969).
Morandière, Jules
Worked for French Nord Railway and in 1866 proposed a three-cylinder
compound with a single high-pressure cylinder inside and two outside low
pressure cylinders in phase with each other and at 90° to the inside
cylinder. J.T. van
Riemsdijk
Oeynhausen, Carl von
One of two Prussian mining engineers who visited the United Kingdom
to study the railways: see Report on railways in England in
1826-27 by Carl von Oeynhausen and Heinrich von Dechen; translated
and reviewed E.A. Forward. Trans
Newcomen Soc., 1954, 29, 1-10. Disc.: 11-12.
See also Warren
Pambour, Guyonneau de
Francois Marie Guyonneau de Pambour, a French Count, and author of
A new theory of the stesam engine and the mode of calculation by means
of it of the effective power. London, 1838 Ottley 10409, and of
seminal Practical treatise on locomotive engines upon railways, 1836:
Ottley 2930. When Pambour visited Britain in 1834,
and again in 1836, Woods assisted him with his
experiments into fuel consumption and locomotive performance. Pambour's work
was widely reported, and translated into English (A Practical Treatise
on Locomotive Engines, 2nd edn, 1840). Woods clearly profited from this
experience, and was soon conducting his own experiments.
Parmantier, Ange
Assistant to Vallantin on the PLM Railway. Associated with streamlined
4-4-2 which reduced Paris to Lyons time to five hours and compound 2-10-2
with all four cylinders outside, but with inside coupling rods to connect
front and rear sets of coupled wheels.
J.T. van Riemsdijk claims
was a successful design. From 1947 to 1956 Parmantier was in chief engineer
of the Est section.
Place, Pierre
Head of the Testing Plant at Vitry. Author of:.
Locomotive testing plants (with special reference to the Testing Plant at
Vitry). J. Instn Loco. Engrs,
1935, 25, 380-406. Disc.: 406-15. (Paper No. 338)
Renaud, Edouard
Inventor of poppet valve gear: patented. Fitted to Mountain type
three-clinder locomotives see Loco.
Rly Carr. Wagon Rev., 1933, 39, 32.
GB 5339/1914 Improvements in valve mechanism for locomotive and other
engines. Applied 4 March 1913; published 2 March 1914.
See Loco Rly Carr. Wagon Rev.,
1932, 38, 428.
Ricour, Théophile
Born 1831, Died 1916. Igenieur des Ponts et Chaussées and Chief
of Rolling Stock and Traction of the Northern Railway of Spain from 1861
to 1867, during which time counter-pressure brake was developed. From 1878
to 1886 he was Chief of Rolling Stock and Traction of the État, the
French State railway where he introduced the brick arch (with arch tubes)
in 1880 and what Carling termed the first practical piston valves.
Carling and
Loco. Mag., 1913, 19,
206. Le Fleming in
Ransome-Wallis Concise encyclopedia..
Ridder, Gustav Joseph de
Gustav Joseph de Ridder constructed a metre gauge (approx.) line from
Antwerp to Ghent which reached Saint-Nicholas on 3 November 1844. He also
designed the locomotives: outside-frame 2-2-2STs. One was exhibited at the
Great Exhibition and Payes de Waes (built by Postula at the Renaud
Works in Brussels in 1842 is preserved in the Belgian national railway musuem.
Rutherford. Backtrack, 2007,
21, 358..
Riggenbach, Niklaus
Born at Gebweiler in Alsace on 21 May 1817
(Marshall states place of birth as
Basel in Switzerland) and died on 25 July 1899 at Olten. From 1840 to 1842
and from 1844 to 1853 he worked for Emil Kessler at Karlsruhe. He then moved
to the Swiss Central Railway, initially at Basle, and from 1855 at Olten.
With the support of Koechlin of the Mulhouse he patented his rack system
used on the Rigi Railway opened 21 May 1871.
Carling.
Le Fleming in Ransome-Wallis
Concise encyclopedia. who states that a form of
counter-pressure braking was fitted to the locomotives working on his rack
system.
Rihosek, Johann
Born in Maków Podhalanski, Galicia, now Poland on 5 June
1869. He died 21 November 1956 in Vienna. Studied at Technical University,
Vienna, and trained at Floridsdorf Locomotive Works. In1897 he joined the
Austrian State Railways and worked in the design office under
Karl Gölsdorf, finally as his assistant. In
1916, following the death of the d of Gölsdorf, Rihosek succeeded him
as CME and continued to design locomotives for the different lines of central
Europe. He played an important part in developing the vacuum brake and later
the air brake. Among his best-known locomotive designs was the '81' class
2-10-0 (1920) for heavy goods and passenger work on the Semmering, Tauern
and Arlberg lines. One of these is preserved at the Vienna Railway Museum.
When he retired in 1924 he was appointed lecturer (later professor) of locomotive
engineering at Vienna University, and when he retired from the chair in 1939
he continued to write on locomotive subjects.
Marshall and Wikipedia (vital
statistics).
Rinecker, Franz
Born in Würzburg, Germany, on 16 December 1843 and died there
on 10 April 1899. Studied mathematics and engineering at Polytechnic School,
Karlsruhe, and at Zurich. Began practical work in November 1864 as asst engr
on Bavarian State Rs, laying out and building part of the Munich-Ingolstadt
Railway until November 1867. From May 1869 to June 1873 he was employed
on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad and then on the Pennsylvania
Railroad, laying out and building new lines. Returned to Europe and from
January 1874 until May 1876 was divisional engineer on the Swiss Central
Railway for surveys and construction of the Liestal-Waldenburg (750mm gauge)
and Liestal-Oensingen lines. Between 1876-83 he was involved in technical
studies on the Abt rack system (see Abt). In August 1883
he established the fum of Rinecker, Abt & Co in Würzburg and was
engaged on many Abt rack railways including Harzbahn, Germany; Usui Toge
Railway, Japan; Transandine Railway; Nilgiri Railway, India; Snowdon Railway,
Wales; Mount Lyell Railway, Tasmania; and Mount Morgan Railway, Queensland.
Marshall.
Saluz, Peter Otto
Born in Lavin, Graubünden, Switzerland, on 6 April 1847; died
Chur 8 September 1914. Civil engineer, Rhaetian Railways. Educated at Chur
and Technical High School, Zurich, where he gained a diploma in civil engineerin
in 1870. After two years on road and water schemes, in 1873, he was appointed
engineer on the Swiss North Eastern Railway. In 1879 he worked on the St
Gotthard Railway. 1885-8 he was municipal engineer at Chur. Early in 1889
he went to the Government Railway Dept in Bern. His work on the Rhaetian
Railway (RhB) began in 1898 when he was appointed engineer on the Reichenau-Ilanz
section. From 1905 he was chief engineer on the difficult Davos-Filisur,
Bever-Schuls and Ilanz-Disentis sections.
Marshall.
Sauvage, Edouard
Sauvage was one of the nineteenth-century designers who made a success
of compounding, even though he himself did not follow up his success very
enthusiastically. As engineer-in-chief on the Nord Railway he built the first
French three-cylinder compound. This was a 2-6-0 with its single high-pressure
cylinder inside and its two low-pressure cylinders outside the frames. The
arrangement was later developed by W.M. Smith
of the North Eastern Railway in England. and passed from there to the
Midland Railway. Sauvage's 2-6-0, like its successors in Britain, could be
operated as a compound, a simple, or as semi-compound (by admitting some
steam direct from the boiler to supplement that entering the low-pressure
cylinders). Chapelon's 4-8-4 prototype 242A1 reverted to this arrangement.
Later, Sauvage transferred to the Est, and then the Ouest Railways, and taught
at the Academie des Arts Metiers. In 1910
he gave a series of lectures in London which were subsequently published
in book form.
Papers
Recent locomotive practice in France.
Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1900,
59, 375-433.
Compound locomotives in France. Proc.
Instn mech. Engrs, 1904, 66, 327-80. Disc.: 380-467.
Participants to the Discussion included John F. Robinson (pp. 398-400)
and Churchward (400-04).
Schleyder, Karl (or Charles)
Austrian.
Patents
17511. Applied 1 August 1911. Published 11 January 1912. Improved apparatus
for consuming smoke, ashes and other returned products of combustion in the
furnace of locomotive and other steam boilers, and other furnaces. Applicant:
Schleyder Ash and Smoke Consum
11456. Applied 16 May 1906. Published 9 May 1907. Improvements in means
for consuming smoke and soot in locomotive and other furnaces.
9207. Applied 21 April 1904. Published 9 February 1905. Improvements
in or relating to locomotive and other furnaces
8732. Applied 14 April 1898. Published 18 February 1899. Improvements
in or relating to deflectors or baffles for the furnaces of locomotive and
other steam generators
8731. Applied 14 April 1898. Published 14 April 1899. Improvements
in or relating to blast apparatus for locomotive and other steam
generators.
Schmidt, Wilhelm
According to Marshall Wilhelm
Schmidt was born in Wegeleben, near Halberstadt in Saxony on 18 February
1858 and died at Bethel near Bielfeld on 16 February 1924. As the first engineer
to make a practical success of the superheater, Wilhelm Schmidt established
himself as the most influential locomotive engineer of the twentieth century.
His firetube superheater of 1901, rapidly fitted to thousands of locomotives
throughout the world, raised thermal efficiency by up to 30% without creating
(as did so many innovations) new problems that outweighed the advantages.
His later experiments with novel high-pressure boilers in his native Germany
and elsewhere were not successful. See
extract from seminal Fowler paper on Schmidt's contribution.
Patents
23171/1893. Tubular boiler combined with
superheater. Applied 2 December 1893. Published 6 January 1894.
15296/1894. An improved tubulous boiler with superheater. Applied
10 August 1894. Published 24 May 1895.
9026/1895. Improvements in steam-boilers with superheater.
Applied 7 May 1895. Published 7 March 1896.
5908/1897 New or improved means or devices for superheating steam
in steam boilers. Applied 5 March 1897. Published 15 January 1898.
11952/1898. Improvements in and connected with self-acting
temperature-regulating devices for superheaters. Applied 26 May 1898.
Published 26 May 1899.
19173/1899. Improvements in and connected with superheating
arrangements with separate firings. Applied 23 September 1899. Published
1 September 1900.
22538/1899. Improvements in and connected with boilers for locomotives
or similar tube-boilers. Applied 11 November 1899. Published 10 November
1900 (with Elsner Hermann)
10019/1905. A new and useful joint for the fire tubes of boilers.
Applied 12 May 1905. Published 12 May 1906.
17485/1905. A new and improved arrangement of steam-superheater.
Applied 29 August 1905. Published 26 July 1906.
5734/1907. Improvements in and relating to superheater arrangements
for flue-tube boilers. Applied 9 March 1907. Published 27 June 1907.
24655/1907. Improvements in and relating to steam superheaters.
Applied 7 November 1907. Published 13 February 1908.
8519/1908 Improvements in and relating to steam superheating.
Applied 16 April 1908 (14 September 1907 in Germany). Published 16 July
1908.
10325/1908 Improvements in and relating to superheaters suitable
for boilers of the locomotive type. Applied 12 May 1908 (18 October 1907
in Germany). Published 1 October 1908.
12432/1908 Improvements in and relating to steam superheating.
Applied 9 June 1908. Published 3 September 1908.
12751/1908. Improvements in and relating to superheaters suitable
for tubular boilers. Applied 13 June 1908 (13 June 1907in Germany). Published
13 Auigust 1908.
5175/1909. Improvements in and relating to steam superheating
devices. Applied 3 March 1909 (4 March 1908 in Germany). Published 10
June 1909.
10792/1909. Improvements in and relating to U-bends suitable for
superheater tubes. Applied 6 May 1909 (12 February in Germany). Published
2 September 1909.
276/1910. Improvements in steam superheaters for locomotives.
Applied 5 January 1910. Published 22 September 1910 (with Peter
Thomsen).
2098/1910. Improvements in and relating to combined water tube
boiler and superheater arrangements. Applied 27 January 1910 (18 February
in Germany). Published 6 October 1910.
17959/1911. Improvements in and relating to superheaters.
with Peter Thomsen. Applied 8 August 1911 (10 August 1910 in Germany).
Published 30 December 1911.
1287/1915 Improvements in and relating to water-tube boilers.
Applied 26 January 1915 (27 January 1914 in Germany). Published 12 August
1915.
Hugh M. Le Fleming in P. Ransome-Wallis, Concise encylopedia of world railway locomotives (1959) neatly summarised Schmidt's superheaters into three types: (1) large central flue with horizontal elements first applied on Prussian State Railways in 1898; (2) smokebox apparatus with annular tubing to which the firebox gases were conducted by a large central flue at the bottom of the barrel. As the large flue only resulted in 10% heat loss, high temperature superheat was obtained, first used in Prussia in 1899; (3) the fire tube type with elements housed in larger diameter flue tubes, first applied in Belgium in 1901 and within a decade was being fitted to nearly all large locomotives worldwide.
See: R. Garbe, Application of Highly superheated Steam (1908) ; Glasers Annalen, April 1924; E. O. Jochmann, Die Entwicklung des Hochdruckdampfes in Deutschland (1958); Journal of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers, Nos. 5, 211.
Schonerer, Matthias Ritter von
Born Vienna 10 January1807; died Vienna 31 October 1881. Austrian
civil engineer. Studied in Prague and Vienna and in 1824 worked on the early
Linz-Budweis Railway. Between 1829 and 1832 assisted with construction of
the horse-worked Unz-Gmunden Railway. He then travelled extensively in Britain
and the USA. From 1839 he was employed on the locomotive-worked Vienna-Gloggnitz
Railway, becoming superintendent in 1842, director of construction 1846-53,
in 1850 working on several sections of the Semmering Railway. 1854-6 he built
the Bruck an der Leitha to Raab and Neu Szöny line. From 1856 until
his death he was technical consultant of the Kaiserin Bisabeth Bahn.
Marshall
Schubert, Johanm Andreas
Bom on 19 March 1808 in Wernesgrün, Sachsen, to poor parents.
He was "adopted" by a wealthy couple and brought up by them in Leipzig and
then Konigstein, studying at the Dresden Building College. It was here that
he developed his mathematical skills for problem solving. In 1828 he was
appointed a teacher in Book-keeping at the Technical College, later Technical
University, and, due to his skill, also assisted the Professor of Mathematics
until in 1832 he succeeded him. For the rest of his life he remained a teacher
and "polytechnic lecturer". As a teacher he received from the Kingdom of
Saxony permission and a scholarship to undertake a study-tour of England
(the same tour as Beyer's second) The Liverpool &
Manchester Railway was one of many surprises that Schubert encountered, since
modern railway operation was already being practiced here. However, the main
purpose of his study mission was to visit English textile factories, for
the benefit of Saxon industry. The Leipzig-Dresden Railway imported locomotives
from England, and Schubert at once noticed their technical weaknesses. He
wanted to demonstrate that it was also possible for Saxony to construct
locomotives and so managed to construct, within nine months, a machine which
he named Saxonia. The Saxonia was able to be present at the
opening of the Leipzig-Dresden railway on 8 April 1839, but was not permitted
to haul one of the special trains; she had to follow on behind and at
Priesterwitz, through a deliberate mislaying of the points, was involved
in an accident (although receiving only slight damage.) She did not therefore
manage to reach Dresden on the opening day. In 1836 Schubert was elected
as Chairman of the Board of the "Aktienmaschinenbauverein" in Obigau, near
Dresden. Saxonia was built in this works and here more of Schubert's
ideas, regarding construction of steam ships for use on the Elbe, were to
be brought to reality. However, no contracts were awarded for these, nor
were any locomotives ordered, so that Saxonia remained a unique item,
even though she had more economical running characteristics than the locomotives
brought from England. Schubert lacked the necessary business sense, and a
lobby. Although he had clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of his locomotive
there was no demand for them, and eventually the Ubigau works went bankrupt.
In 1843 Oberingenieur Wilke got the contract to develop plans for the Leipzig-Hof
line (via Reichenbach and Plauen), and thereby to cross the Goltzsch and
Elster valleys with viaducts. Schubert published his own theory for arched
viaducts and took over the detailed design work. When the line opened Schubert
was not among the honoured guests he had not been invited, since in
the 1848/9 revolutions he had sympathised with those who had wanted to bring
down the government. Nevertheless in 1859 he received the Ritterkreuz of
the Saxon Order and in 1860 the Citizenship of Dresden. In 1865 he received
the title 'Regierungsrat' (Counsellor), and died five years later, on 6 October
1879, in Dresden. It appears that although the Saxon Government was indeed
very progressive when it came to investment and sponsoring study trips, and
although one could become a Professor at 24, it still helped (as always)
to have the right friends and contacts in Government. This might also help
to explain why Beyer chose to turn down the job of textile mill manager in
1834 and make a second trip to Manchester, this time taking his teacher
(a 21-year-old student and a 26-year-old teacher!); the teacher's efforts
to build up locomotive manufacturing capacity in his home country foundered
upon official opposition, whereas the student's efforts in England met with
greater success. One is tempted to wonder whether these two matters were
linked in some way. Walter Rothschild,
Backtrack, 1999, 13, 53
from an article by Reiner Preuss on Johann Andreas Schubert in Lok Magazin
No. 212, 5/98, p.109.
Schucan, Achilles
Born Avignon, France on 1 March 1844; died in Chur, Switzerland
on 18 July 1927. Engineer and managing director of Rhaetian R (RhB), Switzerland.
Whilst he was still a child his family moved to their native Engadin. He
was educated at the canton school and the Federal Polytechnic, Zurich, where
he gained a diploma in engineering in 1844. He began his engineering career
on roads, later turning to railways and eventually becoming leading
engineer in the Swiss Railway Dept at Bern. In 1879 he transferred to the
Federal Railway Inspectorate. To gain experience in railway management in
1885 he took over the poverty-stricken Seetal Railway which he brought to
a position of security within three years. In 1888 he was appointed chief
engineer of the metre-gauge Landquart-Davos Railway, the nudeus of the Rhaetian
system. On its completion in 1889 he continued the line through Chur to Thusis,
transferred his headquarters to Chur and as managing director of what, in
1896, became the Rhaetian Railways (RhB), he guided the affairs of the company
to the completion of the 172 mile network, supervising also the preliminary
electrification work on the Engadin section. He retired in 1918. See also
son Paul (below). Marshall
Schucan, Paul
Born in ? Bern on 10 December 1879; died of acute dysentery in Salta,
Argentina, 5 September 1930. Swiss civil engineer. Son of Achilles Schucan
(above). Educated at Davos and Chur, and Federal Polytechnic, Zurich, qualifying
as engineer in 1902. After a year on the RhB he worked on the Bodensee-Toggenburg
Railway 1904-6. 1906 assistant engineer on the RhB Davos-Filisur section.
1909-12 resident engineer on Engadin section at Zernez. 1913 section engineer
on the Furka Railway Anderrnatt-Disentis. 1919 became chief engineer of the
RhB but in 1923 he went out to Argentina as chief engineer on a survey for
a railway across the Andes. Marshall
Séguin, Marc
A contemporary of Stephenson, Marc Séguin was one of the pioneers
of French railways. He visited the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825
and subsequently, and was associated with the St Etienne-Andrezieux Railway
and, more intimately, with the line to Lyon. In 1827 he began experimenting
with the multi-tubular boiler, and he constructed a model of a locomotive
with such a boiler somewhat earlier than Robert Stephenson's construction
of the Rocket, which was the first full-sized locomotive with multiple
tubes. It would appear, for lack of contrary evidence, that the English and
French inventions of this locomotive boiler were independent of each other.
According to C.F. Dendy Marshall
was born in Annonay on 20 April 1776 and his mother was a sister of the
Montgolfiers. Marshall notes that Seguin
died in his place of birth on 24 February 1875, also notes that he trained
under Joseph Montgolfier. See
also Skeat's George Stephenson..
Hugh M. Le Fleming in
P. Ransome-Wallis, Concise encylopedia of world railway locomotives
(1959) .
Book
De l'influence des chemins de fer. Paris. 1839. reprinted Lyons
in 1887..
See: Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol. VII pp. 63 et seq (on his observations on the British scene in 1825) and 97 et seq on his multi-tubular boiler
Séjourné, Paul
Born Orleans, France on 21 December 1851; died Paris 15 January 1939.
French civil engineer. In 1871 he began training at the Polytechnic School,
Mende, and qualified as bridge and road engineer in 1877. His first railway
work was on the Montauban-Castres line on which he built the bridges at Castalet,
Lavaur and Antoinette. 1899-1902 he built the great bridge on the Petrusse
in Luxembourg with a span of 279ft. In 1900 he entered the PLM as chief of
const ruction and remained on that railway until 1928. He built some of the
most difficult mountain lines in France: the Tarentaise line; Moutiers Bourg
St Maurice, opened 1913; Frasne-Vallorbe inclining Mont d'or tunnel, 3 miles
1,388 yds long; and, with Andre Martinet (1878-1947), the Nice-Breil sur
Roya line, opened 1914. He also began the Le Puy Lalevade and
Chorges-Barcelonette lines. Between 1901-22 he was professor at the National
School of Bridges and Roads. In 1913-16 he published his book Grandes
Voûtes (Large arches) in 6 volumes. From 1910 he served on the
editorial panel of Le Génie Civil In 1924 he was made Member
of the Academie des Sciences and in 1918 was awarded the Prix
Caméré.Marshall
Serpollet, Leon
Died in Paris on 5 January 1907 at age of 48. Inventor of flash-type
boiler used in steam cars: Gardner-Serpollet and the Darracq-Serpolet steam
omnibus. See: C.E. Lee Rise and
fall of the steam-driven omnibus. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1949,
27, 181.
Sigl, Georg
Born Breitenfurth, Lower Austria, 13 January 1811; died Vienna 9 May
1887. Austrian locomotive engineer and industrialist. In 1840 he founded
a works in Berlin to manufacture power printing presses. In 1846 he moved
to Vienna where he combined manufacture of presses with other machinery.
In 1851-2 he built the first power lithograph press in Europe and installed
the first pneumatic post installations in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. In 1857
he established workshops at Vienna and Wiener Neustadt where many types of
locomotives were built for Austria and other countries, One of his locomotives,
0-6-0 No 106 Fusch, built for the Vienna-Linz Railway in 1868, is
preserved outside Linz station.
Marshall
Strub, Emil Viktor
Born Trimbach; near Otten in Switzerland, on 13 July 1858; died from
heart failure in Zurich on 12 December1909. On leaving school he went to
Aarau to study mechanical engineering, where, as was Abt,
he was influenced by Riggenbach who interested
him in mountain railways. After further technical studies at Mitweida, and
at the engineering works of Hohenzollern and Esslingen, in 1888 he was appointed
to the Federal Railway Department as a leading engineer in a new office concerned
with mountain railways. In 1891 he was appoinnted inspector on the newly
opened Bernese Oberland Railway. During 1897-8 he directed the Jungfrau Railway,
then under construction, having come to this through the prize competition
organized by the erectors Guyer-Zeller to celebrate their 90th year. He won
the first prize for the formation work. On the Jungfrau Railway his rack
system was used far the first time. (It was replaced by the Lamelle system
rack in 1955.) The teeth of the Strub rack are machined out of the head of
a flat-bottomed type of rail, similar to an ordinary running rail. The
manufacturer of the Strub rack was undertaken from the start by L von Rollschen
Ironworks, Gerlafingen, with which Strub worked for the rest of his life.
By 1909 it was in use in Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. From 1898
Strub established his own engineering office, in Montreaux until 1901 and
then in Zurich, where from l905 he worked with H.H. Peter. His work led to
a succession of Swiss mountain raiways in 1889-1909. In 1902 his book Die
Bergbahnen der Schweiz bis 1800 was published.
Marshall
Stumpf, Johannes
Born in Mülheim, Germany on 4 April 1862; died in Berlin on 18
November 1936. Developer of the Stumpf 'Uniflow' steam engine. Studied under
Riedler at the Technical High School in Aachen. In 1888 when Riedler moved
to the Technical High School at Charlottenburg he chose Stumpf as his assistant.
With Riedler Stumpf greatly improved pumping machinery. In 1893 he went to
Chicago with Riedler and became chief engineer of Allis Chalmers where he
supervised building of pumps, compressors and Corliss steam engines. In 1896
he was appointed professor of steam engines at the Technical High School
at Charlottenburg where he designed his Uniflow steam engine. The principle
had been first applied in England in 1845 on a 2-2-2 engine built under
J.I. Cudworth for the SER and was further developed
by L.J. Todd in 1885. In this system the steam
is exhausted through ports in the middle of the cylinder. To achieve this
the piston has to be nearly half the length of the cylinder. The idea is
to maintain a uniform direction of steam flow, avoiding reversal at each
piston stroke. The Stumpf system was applied in England by
Vincent Raven on the NER, first on S2 class 2-cylinder
4-6-0 No 825 in 1913, and on Zl class 4-4-2 No 2212 in 1918. Both showed
coal economy, but the use of the Stumpf arrangement was not extended. In
1920 Stumpf was awarded a Doctorate in Engineering at Aachen Technical High
School . The system tried on the North Eastern Railway was described by
Tuplin North Eastern
Steam. Briefly, the system worked well and obtained a small economy
in fuel consumption, but at the price structure prevailing at that time the
extra constructional and maintenance costs were greater than the coal economy.
H.W. Dickinson's A short history of the
steam engine makes it clear that the concept of the uniflow engine
reached back to Montgolfier and Jacob Perkins (who patented the idea) and
Leonard Jennett Todd (Patent No. 7801): Dickinson then gives Stumpf of
Charlottenburg University his due citing a paper by T.B. Perry
Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng.,
1920, 99, 731. Marshall
and Throp Trans. Newcomen Soc.,
43, 19. Le Fleming
noted that there were three types of Uniflow system: (i) with vertical
poppet admission valves in 1908; (ii) with piston valves in 1912; (iii) with
the exhaust passage designed as a Venturi tube in 1920. Developments were
cut short by the prior adoption of superheating and WW1.
Publication
The Unaflow steam engine. 1912 (translated Stumpf Uniflow Engine Co.,
Syracuse (NY))
Patents
5429/1908 Application (original: 7 March 1908), UK 6 March 1909, Accepted
15 July 1909. Improvements in four-cylinder locomotive engines
25,531/1910 Application 3 November 1910, Accepted 2 March 1911.
Improvements relating to manoeuvring and like gear for uni-directional
flow steam engines
16,442 /1910 Application (original: 5 March 1910) 9 July 1910, Accepted
23 March 1911. Improvements relating to valves
16,383/1910 Application (original: 18 June 1910) 8 July 1910, Accepted
20 October 1910. Improvements relating to uni-directional flow steam
engines
Thuile
Engineer to the Port of Alexandria Authority in Egypt, set up a company
titled La Societe Des Trains Internationaux, in which unlike the Orient Express,
the same locomotive would haul his luxury train the breadth of Europe. He
did indeed die during the trials but sad to relate it was his brainchild
that killed him. In June l900, running between Chartres and Orleans his
locomotive, Trains Internationaux No.1 derailed and, according to
the French National Railway Museum at Mulhouse, in English translation, "hurled
its unfortunate designer fatally against a lineside pole". Internet source
(2013-01-25) states Robin Barnes as
source. See also Loco. Mag,
1900, 5, 155.
Vallantin, René
Chief Mechanical Engineer of the PLM Railway in France.
Presented Paper 274 on compounding to
Institution of Locomotive Engineers in 1931.
J.T. van Riemsdijk notes
that Vallantin locomotives suffered serious crank axle failures. Considered
by Carpenter Vallantin prevented Chapelon from achieving full success.
Verpilleux
Fitted cylinders to a tender of a locomotive on the Lyon - St Etieene
Railway in 1843. See Ahrons and
Bulleid paper of the booster, J. Instn
Loco. Engrs, 1928, 18, 239. (Paper 228)
Wagner, Richard Paul
Born in Berlin on 25 August 1882 and died in Wellberg on 14 February
1953. (Marshall). Forenames
off Wikipedia on 2012-11-09. Studied mechanical engineering at Charlottenburg
Technical College. While studying he spent a year on the railway and passed
the engine driver's test on 17 November 1905. During training as government
construction superintendent with the railway administration of Berlin &
Magdeburg he made several educational visits to England. He passed the
constructional administration exam with distinction and was awarded an
educational tour to the USA. His civil service began with the
Maschineninspektion, Wittenberge. Worked in the Dortmund locomotive department
and in inspection. In 1920 he was commissioned to establish a new locomotive
research department, In 1922 called to railway central office and for 20
years was head of locomotive construction section. The establishment of the
German Reichsbahn on 11 November 1924 made necessitated a reduction in the
number of locomotive types taken over from the various state railways. Wagner
established a standard locomotive design in co-operation with German locomotive
builders. He was responsible for numerous developments in locomotive design
including the use of high and super pressure, turbine drive, coal-dust fuel,
and light shunting locos. In 1924 he was nominated Oberregierungsbaurat (chief
of const ruction department). In 1929 he became honourary Member Institution
of Locomotive Engineers. In 1931 awarded hon doctorate by Aachen Tech College.
1938 nominated departmental president. Retired 1942. Wagner was the only
German to be made a Member of the Royal Soc of Arts. After WW2 he gave further
service to aid the restoration of the German Railways. 1946--8 acted as
administrative director for supply, planning and buying section, first at
the General Reichsbahn admin at Bielefeld, Prussia, and lastly at the head
admin of the German Bundesbahn (DB) in Offenbach. Following his final retirement
Wagner remained active as presiding Member of the German Standards Inst,
as president of the tech standards comm steam locos and as collaborator in
the tech comm on locos in the DB.
Papers
Some new developments of the Stephenson boiler. J. Instn Loco.
Engrs, 1930, 20, 5-21. Disc.: 21-47.
(Paper No.
253)
High speed and the steam locomotive.
J. Instn Loco. Engrs, 1935,
25, 254-69. Disc.: 269-85. 5 illus., 6 diagrs. (Paper No.
336).
Walschaerts, Egide
According to Marshall the name
is Walschaerts, not Walschaert. He was was born in Mechlin (Malines)
on 21 January 1820 and died in Sint Gilles Brussels on 18 February 1901
Walschaerts, a foreman of the Belgian State Railway, made several inventions of which one, his valve gear, was very successful and was widely used throughout the world, especially for outside cylinder locomotives in the twentieth century. The modern version of this gear was patented in 1848 by his nominee, Edmund Fischer. He does not appear to have greatly benefited from this success, and remained without promotion for four decades.
For a small country, Belgium has contributed a surprising number of men who have influenced the design of the steam locomotive. The Belpaire boiler and Walschaerts valve gear were both Belgian products, and both belonged to that group of innovations which seemed to their inventors not to create a revolution, but simply to promise a better way of doing things. Both were widely, but never totally, accepted by locomotive builders and operators. The valve gear may be regarded as the nervous system of the steam locomotive. Its function is to open and close the admission and exhaust ports of the cylinder at the appropriate points in each cycle; steam must enter behind the piston and be free to exhaust in front of it. In the early days this was all the valve gear was expected to do, apart from providing some means of break- ing the cycle in order to initiate reverse movement. However, it was soon realized that the ability to change the 'cut-off', that is, to cut off the admission of steam before the piston had completed its stroke, would be a great advantage. Steam admission through the whole length of the stroke was only needed when pulling a heavy load at low speed; at other times it was more economical to cut off the steam prematurely, thereby utilizing the expansive potential of the steam already in the cylinder to maintain pressure on the piston face. In the nineteenth century the most popular form of valve gear was the Stephenson link motion, which enabled the point of cut-off to be finely adjusted from the footplate while the locomotive was in motion. Its widespread adoption enabled the locomotive to be driven in accordance with the task facing it; that is, how its steam could be utilized at any given moment was in the control of the locomotive crew.
During the steam era well over a hundred different designs of valve gear were devised, but perfection was never attained and only a handful were adopted on a large scale. Apart from the obvious aim of providing a good steam distribution, a valve gear had to be reliable, economical in space and weight, and easy to maintain. The Walschaert gear, which to a large extent re- placed the Stephenson motion in the twentieth century, offered reliability, light weight, moderate space requirements, and (unlike the Stephenson gear) a constant lead at all points of cut-off. Apart from being lighter than the Stephenson gear, it also dis. pensed with the need for two eccentrics for each cylinder ( which entailed four eccentrics on one driving axle, undesirable because of stress and because of space restriction). The working of these gears can hardly be explained without the use of models, the various movements of the different rods, levers, and links being very complex. However, the first of the reference sources given on presents a helpful diagram of the gear. Egide Walschaert was born in Malines in 1820 and died near Brussels in 1901. Apart from his contribution to the steam locomotive, his life casts a not-too-favourable light on Belgian society in the nineteenth century .
The Belgian government took the Industrial Revolution very seriously, more seriously and earlier even than Germany Railways were carefully planned, and a heavy engineering industry fostered. Moreover, a technical meritocracy seemed to be the ultimate aim of the govern- ment's sponsorship of technical education with its accompanying emphasis on diplomas and certificates. But Walschaerts, no doubt to his lasting sorrow, did not have a diploma, and for forty-one years, from 1844 to the day he retired, got no pro- motion. He began his working life as a mechanic in the Malines locomotive repair works, and his mechanical aptitude led to his appointment in 1844 as foreman at the Brussels-Midi locomotive shops. It was in this same year that his valve gear arrangement was patented.
Working as a mere foreman for the highly bureaucratized Belgian State Railways, Walschaerts was not allowed to apply for patents in his own name. But he soon found a nominee, one F. Fischer, who consented to file the patent in his own name (which is why in some parts of the world the Walschaerts valve gear was long known as the Fischer valve gear). The design as patented in 1844 is rather different from the later Walschaerts' gear, although the principle is the same. By 1848 Walschaert had devised the improved gear, which is similar to the modern Walschaert gear. This he was allowed to fit to a locomotive attached to his Brussels-Midi locomotive depot, an inside-cylinder 2-2-2. Apparently the trial was suc- cessful, although it was the private Belgian companies, not the State Railway, that adopted it for all their outside-cylinder locomotives. As elsewhere, the Stephenson gear remained the favourite for inside-cylinder machines.
In 1848 a Prussian engineer, Heusinger invented, and in 1849 patented, a valve gear almost identical to Walschaert's 1848 version. This was tried out on a tank locomotive in 1850. At the time there was some acrimonious dispute about whether Walschaert or Heusinger was the true inventor of the 'Walschaert' gear. However, it was always accepted that this was no case of plagiarism, but of independent and almost simultaneous invention. After thirty years Heusinger acknowledged that Walschaerts had priority, but in central Europe the valve gear continued to be known as the Heusinger gear, as indeed was only right. Walschaerts did not make his fortune with this invention. He was only a foreman, and he remained a foreman. In a meritocracy, it is not merit, but certificates of merit, that bring advancement.
References to
See: P. Ransome-Wallis, Concise
Encyclopedia of World Railway Locomotives (1959) Le Fleming used incorrect
form of Walschaert(s); Loco. Carr.
Wagon Rev., 1932, 38, 313;
Loco. Carr. Wagon Rev., 1933,
39, 59.
Willoteaux. Marcel
Invented an improved form of piston valve used by Chapelon:
GB Patent 337,621. Improvements in or relating to piston valves.
Applied 21 November 1928. Published 6 November 1930.
Wöhler, August
Born 22 June 1819; died 21 March 1914. German engineer, remembered
for his systematic investigations of metal fatigue. Born in Soltau, the son
of local teacher Wöhler showed early mathematical ability and won a
scholarship to study at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, under the
direction of Karl Karmarsch. In 1840, he was recruited to the Borsig works
in Berlin where he worked on the manufacture of railway track. In 1843, after
a brief stay in Hannover, he started to receive instruction in locomotive
driving in Belgium, returning as an engineer on the Hannover to Lehrte line.
By 1847, Wöhler was chief superintendent of rolling stock on the Lower
Silesia-Brandenberg Railroad. His growing reputation led to his appointment
in 1852 by the Prussian minister of commerce to investigate the causes of
fracture in rolling stock axles, work that was to occupy Wöhler over
the next two decades. The railway was nationalised in 1854 and the recognition
of his keen administration and technical leadership resulted in his appointment
as director of the newly formed Imperial Railways, based at the board's
headquarters in Strasbourg, a post he held until his retirement in 1889.
Wöhler started his axle investigations by research into the theory of
elasticity and was led, in 1855, to a method for predicting the deflection
of lattice beams that anticipated the work of Émile Clapeyron. He
also introduced the practice of supporting one end of a bridge on roller
bearings to allow for thermal expansion. Wikipedia Anglicized (19 January
2011)
Wurmb, Carl
Born Neumarkt, near Wels, Austria, on 8 September 1850; died Vienna
31 January 1907. Studied at Zurich Polytechnic. After experience on the
Südbahn, Salzkammergutlokalbahn, and Arlberg Railway he was appointed
general inspector of light railways to the Ministry of Trade in 1894. 1901
appointed section head and Imperial and Royal Director for construction of
railways in the Railway Ministry, and was responsible for construction on
many Austrian Alpine lines including the Tauern, Phyrn, and Karawanken. Following
criticism of the high cost of the Tauern Railway in 1905 he resigned. After
his death a statue of him was erected in Salzburg.
Marshall.
Yefmovich,. Miron
Miron Yefmovich (1803-1849). Yefim Alekseyevich
Cherepanov had visited Britain to inspect early railways and locomotives:
this led to construction of first Russian steam locomotive by Cherepanov
and Yefmovich in 1833/4 and a second in 1835. See Wikepedia.
Zara, Guiseppe
Italian innovator. Patents included:
11825/1904 Equilibrium valve for admitting steam to the valve chests of locomotives. Published 31 December 1904. Application number: 11825/1904 Applied 24 May 1904.
Zeh, Johann
Had been a designer at Gunther's, later Sigl's, locomotive works at
Weiner Neustadt, about thirty miles south of Vienna, since 1842, devised
a closely similar shut-off valve in the blastpipe, known as the Zehsche Klappe
and this was applied to some of the locomotives of the then Kaiserin Elisabeth
Westbahn, the main line to the west of Vienna, to which Zeh had moved in
1858, such as the Class 12 2-4-0s built from 1853 to 1863 and a class of
2-4-0s of 1859, in or before 1860. It was possible, with the engine in forward
gear to bring trains of 300 tons down long 1 in 100 gradients and, on the
Südbahn, trains of 100 tons down the 1 in 40 grades of the Semmering,
the locomotives being 0-8-0s dating from 1860 rebuilt from Engerth 0-6-4Ts.
No information is available as to how many locomotives were fitted with Zeh's
device before it was overtaken by later developments. He put his valves nearer
the cylinders than Allan, using a separate valve for each outside cylinder.
Carling: Trans Newcomen Soc.
1983, 55, 1-32.
Zeuner, Gustav Anton
Born 30 November 1828 in Chemnitz; died 17 October 1907 in Dresden.
His first training in the subject of engineering was at the Chemnitz
Königliche Gewerbeschule (Royal Vocational School), today Chemnitz
University of Technology, where he studied from 1843-1848; then onto the
Bergakademie (Mining Academy) in Freiberg, where he studied mining and
metallurgy. working with the mineralogist Albin Julius Weisbach. The university
course was disrupted by revolutions which took place in Germany. Zeuner joined
the revolutionaries on the barricades in Dresden during the May Uprising
in 1849, but was pardoned. He was able to complete his course, and completed
his PhD at the University of Leipzig in 1853, but was banned from teaching
at any Saxon university. In 1853, Zeuner took over as the editorship of Der
Civilenginieur Zeitschrift für das Ingenieurwesen, the first German
periodical specialising in mechanics, which ran until 1896. He continued
in this position until 1857, even after moving to Zürich in 1855 to
work as a professor for technical mechanics at the ETH Zürich, the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich where Zeuner made his model
of a locomotive front end in 1858; he recognised its potential for creating
momentum but was only interested in the theory and did not develop the design
any further. Also in Zürich (in 1869) Zeuner invented the three-dimensional
population graph now sometimes known as a Zeuner diagram. In 1871 Zeuner
returned to Germany and was once again able to work with Weisbach when he
succeeded his old friend as director of the Freiberg Mining Academy. He also
taught there until 1875 as a professor of mechanics and the study of mining
machinery. This was possible because of an amnesty granted to revolutionaries
in 1862. In 1873, while still director of Freiberg Mining Academy, Zeuner
also took on the post of director at the Royal Saxon Polytechnicum in Dresden
(now Technische Universität Dresden). Zeuner's efforts there led to
the introduction of the humanities; the extension of the range of subjects
taught resulted in the polytechnic's rise to a full-scale polytechnic university
in 1890. In 1889, aged 61, Zeuner gave up his position as director of the
polytechnic to work as a lecturer until his retirement in 1897. On retiring
he was made an emeritus professor. Publications Die Schiebersteuerungen
mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lokomotivsteuerungen (Slide-valve
controls with particular emphasis on locomotive controls) Freiberg 1858
Grundzüge der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (Basics of mechanical
heat theory) 1860 Technische Thermodynamik (Technical Thermodynamics)
1887 Wikipedia 2012
2013-02-09