Fabbriche di locomotive - Gran Bretagna: libri illustrati (1/3)

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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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 It also examines how BREL managed the challenge of outdated stock and infrastructure it inherited.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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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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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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