Locomotive Factories - Great Britain: Illustrated Books

A History of British Rail Engineering Limited

In 1970 the British Railways Board created British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) to design, build, and maintain rolling stock. This marked the beginning of a new phase in railway technology. This book tells the story of BREL from its foundation to its sale in 1992 during the controversial privatisation of Britain's railways.

The history covers the company's design of modern and iconic trains, its cooperation with subcontractors and private manufacturers, and its often difficult relationship with the British Railways Board. It also examines how BREL managed the challenge of outdated stock and infrastructure it inherited.

Less well known, but equally important, was BREL's success in exporting British-built trains abroad.
At its peak, BREL was at the forefront of railway technology. Its work with the British Railways Research Division produced not only famous trains but also technical advances that remain part of Britain's rail network today.

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Hunslet Locomotives Preserved

A 64 page softback illustrated album showcasing a selection of the products of this famous Leeds locomotive builder.

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British Diesel and Electric Locomotives Abroad - A Second Life Overseas

This book was originally envisaged as a purely photographic overview of those British main-line diesel and electric locomotives which managed to find further useful employment across Europe after completion of their careers in the United Kingdom.
However, such was the quantity of information collected regarding these exported locomotives and their operational deployment over the past twenty years that the scope of the book was expanded to incorporate both the factual and the pictorial into a detailed history of these locomotives.
The geographical use of the locomotives is surprisingly extensive including France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Kosovo, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia in the twenty years since 1998.

A significant amount of exclusive factual information and over 200 previously unpublished photographs combine to provide a comprehensive insight into the British locomotives now finding a second life overseas, including coverage of Class 37, 56 and 58 locomotives on high-speed line construction work in France, Class 37 mishaps in Spain, Class 86s on their day of arrival in Bulgaria, and various types of a.c. electric locomotives in their new "natural habitats" across Eastern Europe.

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English Electric Diesel Locomotives

English Electric built their first diesel loco in 1936 and, before the company closed in 1968, built thousands of diesel and electric locos that saw service all over the world. They were among the companies chosen by BR to build prototype diesel locos for the Modernisation Scheme of 1955, which would see the replacement of steam traction by diesels and electrics.
Locos were built to suit a wide variety of duties, some remaining in everyday service fifty years later.

This book of mostly unpublished colour photographs from the collection of George Woods shows them in service all over the BR system from 1966 to 2019 working a wide variety of trains, both passenger and freight, in the great variety of liveries they wore both during their BR service and in later years under private ownership.

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Robinson Eight-coupled Locomotives

Commencing in 1902 with three 0-8-0 locomotives for the Great Central Railway, J G Robinson's robust freight locomotive fleet expanded rapidly, a pivotal component of General Manager Sam Fay's initiative to rectify the company's financial struggles. Upon the Grouping, the GCR transferred 241 well-crafted, potent, and efficient eight-coupled locomotives to the newly established London & North Eastern Railway.
Simultaneously, the Robinson 2-8-0 became the standard type for the Railway Operating Division of the Royal Engineers in 1917. Over 500 were manufactured, with 300 deployed to support British forces in France during World War I.

Post-war, these locomotives experienced diverse destinies, including short-term loans to nine railway companies, sales to UK and international operators, notably in China and Australia. In 1941, 92 were requisitioned for military service in the Middle East, with an additional five sent to Egypt in 1952.

This comprehensive study explores the intricate history of the Robinson locomotive family, which served on four continents from 1902 to the early 1970s. Encompassing notable types such as the 2-8-0s, original 0-8-0s, unique 0-8-4Ts, 2-8-2T derivatives, and the 'might-have-been' Garratt, the work details modifications and rebuildings undertaken by Gresley and Thompson.

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Beyer, Peacock & Company

The world-famous Beyer, Peacock works of Gorton, Manchester, is remembered principally for its remarkable Beyer-Garratt articulated locomotives, which ran in forty-eight countries. The firm would also turn out steam lorries and steam tram engines.
Among the company's iconic domestic designs were the 4-4-0T condensing engines for the pre-electrified Metropolitan Railway in London, the narrow-gauge 2-4-0 tank engine that is synonymous with the Isle of Man and the stylish and powerful diesel-hydraulic Hymeks for British Railways' Western Region.

Beyer, Peacock exported many of its 8,000 steam, diesel and electric locomotives all over the world and this book illustrates a variety of these throughout the company's 112-year existence, beginning in 1854.

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Locomotive Builders of Leeds : E.B. Wilson and Manning Wardle

The history of commercial railway locomotive manufacture in the Leeds is a fascinating story, covering a period of nearly two centuries, which commenced during the Napoleonic period and only came to an end in 1995.
The two companies that most epitomised the formative years and period of consolidation of this this part of Britains industrial history were E.B. Wilson & Co (1846-59) and Manning Wardle & Co (1858-1927).

The former manufacturer was well known for the Jenny Lind locomotives and their derivative designs used on several British main lines during the mid-nineteenth century. They proved to have a profound influence upon the work of other manufacturers for main line needs.
The latter company was a builder of contractors and industrial locomotives, used worldwide, whose mainstream designs were likewise highly influential upon the work of neighbouring manufacturers, constituting a sphere of locomotive production that lasted from before the Crimean War until after the end of the Second World War.

In this new work, Mark Smithers draws upon a variety of sources, both documentary and illustrative, to arrive at an up-to date appraisal of the achievements of these companies during their respective periods of production, and their legacy to the greater sphere of British railway locomotive development.

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The North British Locomotive Company

The North British Locomotive Company came into existence in 1903 as an amalgamation of three established Glasgow locomotive manufacturers: Dubs & Co., Sharp Stewart and Neilson Reid.
Each of these companies enjoyed an excellent reputation for its products both at home and abroad. The amalgamation that formed NBL created the largest locomotive builder in the British Empire, building on the worldwide renown of its predecessors and exporting its products all over the world to places as diverse as Palestine, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada.
Its locomotive output was as varied as its clients, with steam locomotives of every gauge, and ranging from tiny tank engines to massive Beyer-Garratts.
Moving with the times, North British entered the market for diesel and electric traction after the Second World War and its lack of success in this field ultimately brought the company to its knees.

Here, Colin Alexander and Alon Siton present a lavishly illustrated exploration of one of Britain's greatest locomotive companies, including the products of its three Victorian constituents and official works photographs, images of locos in service and some of the many preserved Dubs, Sharp Stewart, Neilson and North British locomotives on heritage railways and in museums around the world.

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The Stephenson Railway Legacy

George Stephenson was born in 1781, the son of a Northumberland colliery engineman. Within a hundred years of his birth his railway legacy had opened up vast tracts of the planet, many of those routes engineered by George himself or his son Robert.
Their locomotive factory at Newcastle upon Tyne soon outgrew its premises and a much larger site was founded at Darlington.

The father and son are well known for their pioneering work on the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester railways, but they engineered more than locomotives. Robert is responsible for some of the world's most innovative and impressive bridges and the company the Stephensons founded continued (as Robert Stephenson Hawthorn) to build locomotives for a burgeoning worldwide market for well over a century.
This book will tell its story and show its global influence.

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The Vulcan Foundry - 150 Years of Engineering

Founded by Charles Tayleur in 1830 as a factory to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows grew rapidly both in reputation and capacity.
From 1832, Tayleur was partnered by the great Robert Stephenson, and over the next 138 years the factory would go on to manufacture steam, diesel, gas-turbine and electric locomotives for railways all over the world. The factory would also turn its hand to producing vital armaments during wartime.

Vulcan's products could be seen all over the British Empire and beyond, in locations as diverse as Argentina, Borneo and Egypt. By the 1950s the company had become English Electric, and manufacture of locomotives ceased in 1970.
Iconic Vulcan Foundry locomotives for Great Britain include the legendary Deltics, Black Fives for the LMSR, and AL6 electrics for the West Coast Main Line.

This book illustrates Vulcan's role in equipping the world's railways, with its astonishingly varied output from narrow gauge to broad gauge, and from humble shunters to express passenger thoroughbreds.

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George and Robert Stephenson - The Railway Revolution

They carried Britain into the modern age with dramatic speed, transforming the pace and style of everyday life. We owe them to two men who, father and son, can lay claim to be the most important engineers of their time, George and Robert Stephenson.

In this excellent biography L. T. C. Rolt, author of Brunel and Thomas Telford, assesses their life and their work.

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Men of Steam - Britain's Locomotive Engineers

In recent years the importance of the personal element in locomotive design and operation has increasingly come to be seen as very important. No author any longer attempts to compile articles which state that: Mr X built a class of 6' 4-4-0s... because, in some cases, Wainwright comes immediately to mind, he had little part in their design. Even the great Stanier relied on a team of engineers and draughtsman who transformed his outline ideas into detailed designs.

This book which was originally conceived as a series of articles for Back Track is intended to be brief but tight profiles of some of Britain's loco engineers, some very well known, some not, examining their work in relation to the points made earlier. Some reassessments, that of Gresley for example will be controversial.

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A Century of Locomotive Building - By Robert Stephenson & Co 1823-1923

This concise look at the locomotive company Robert Stephenson & Co from 1823 to 1923 by J. G. Warren provides a unique history of the locomotive industry as it came to be built.
He includes details such as letters, diagrams, photos, pictures and tables to give a full understanding of that century of progression.

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British Steam Locomotive Builders

From the early 1800s and for nearly 170 years, steam locomotives were built in Great Britain and Ireland, by a variety of firms, large and small.
James Lowe spent many years accumulating a considerable archive of material on the History of the locomotive building industry, from its early beginnings at the dawn of railways, until the end of steam locomotive construction in the 1960s.

"British Steam Locomotive Builders" was first published in 1975 and has not been in print for some years. This useful and well researched book is a must for any serious railway historian or locomotive enthusiast, 704 pages with reference to 350 builders, 541 illustrations and 47 diagrams.

The material in this book has been carefully selected to cover all the leading former steam locomotive manufacturers in the British Isles.

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Stephensons' Rocket and the Rainhill Trials

George and Robert Stephenson's Rocket is arguably the most enduring silhouette in railway history. But why was Rocket that special? And why does the surviving locomotive look so unlike the striking yellow image that we are familiar with from books, postage stamps and the five pound note?

Rocket was built to take part in The Rainhill Trials, the competition to find a locomotive design to pull trains on the world's first passenger line, the Liverpool and Manchester. The trials caught the public's imagination and its victor, Rocket, became a sensation. It quickly became of symbol of technological progress.

The Stephensons' engine set the pattern for future world steam locomotive development for the next 130 years. But would the steam locomotive have developed differently if Rocket had not won the trials?
All these questions while exploring in words and pictures the machine that became the metaphor for what is seen as Britain's greatest gift to the industrial world: the steam locomotive.

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The Yorkshire Engine Co - Sheffield's Locomotive Manufacturer

Drivers leaving the M1 at the Tinsley viaduct can still pass the buildings where the Yorkshire Engine Company constructed and repaired locomotives for a hundred years. Founded in 1865, the company outlived many of its competitors and dispatched its last locomotives in 1965.

Established by a group of local businessmen, technical expertise was provided by Archibald Sturrock, Locomotive Engineer of the Great Northern Railway, and Charles Sacre, Engineer of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway. As the initial orders from UK and Indian railways fell away, the company was forced to take orders from Russia, where payment was not always forthcoming.
The company became a leading manufacturer of Fairlie locomotives and undertook financially disastrous experiments with the building of marine engines and tramway locomotives. By 1880, in spite of new orders from Indian railways, the business was put into liquidation and a new company formed.

This book gives a history of the financial fortunes and experiments of the company and the men who ran it.

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