Richard Francis Trevithick

Richard Francis Trevithick (* 1845 in Crewe , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , † 1913 ) was a British engineer who played a key role in building an independent industry for steam locomotives in Japan .

Richard F. Trevithick was hired in March 1888 as a "foreign contractor" by the Japanese government. He took over the position of "railway inspector " ( 汽車 監察 方 , kisha-kansatsukata ; English locomotive superintendent ) at the Kobe Railway Authority ( Kobe tetsudōkyoku ), a regional office of the Railway Authority of the Ministry of Communications. As such, he was responsible for the design, manufacture and maintenance of locomotives.

In 1893, the Kobe Works of the Railway Authority built the prototype of the JNR series 860 , the first domestically produced locomotive in Japan, according to Trevithick's designs and under his leadership . He also trained many Japanese who would later play leading roles as railway designers.

family

Trevithick was the eldest son of the railway engineer Francis Trevithick , locomotive superintendent with the London and North Western Railway , and the grandson of the inventor and engineer Richard Trevithick , developer of the first steam locomotive. His younger brother Francis Henry was also an engineer and had been employed in Japan since 1876, where he was "Railway Inspector" at the Shimbashi Railway Authority.

Richard and Francis both married Japanese. Francis had two sons who became Japanese citizens and whose descendants still live in Japan under the surname Okuno.

Web links

• Japanese Railway and Transport Review: Japanese Railway History, chap. 3, Eiichi Aoki: Growth of Independent Railway Technology (PDF; 1.6 MB), p. 57