William Stanier

Sir William Arthur Stanier FRS (born May 27, 1876 in Swindon , † September 27, 1965 in Rickmansworth ) was a British engineer and steam locomotive builder . From 1932 to 1944 he was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the then largest British railway company, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway .

Life

Training and first activities at the Great Western Railway

William Arthur Stanier was born in 1876 in Swindon, the seat of the main workshop of the Great Western Railway (GWR), the son of a railroad worker. His father was most recently a magazine administrator at GWR. After finishing school, he began a five-year apprenticeship at GWR in 1892 as a mechanical engineer and draftsman . He quickly proved to be technically well-versed, so that in 1906, at the age of just 30, he was given the management of the Swindon GWR depot. Stanier was also involved in the testing and introduction of electromechanical train control at the GWR. In 1906 Stanier also married his wife Ella Elizabeth Morse, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

In 1912 Stanier took over the position of deputy works director of the GWR main workshop and locomotive factory in Swindon. After the end of the First World War , he became plant director in 1920. Two years later he became chief assistant to Charles Collett , the Great Western chief mechanical engineer responsible for all locomotive development at GWR.

Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway

According to the Grouping Act of 1921, four major railway companies operated the British railway network, apart from the GWR, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS), the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the Southern Railway (SR). All railways had considerable problems in standardizing the vehicle fleet taken over from their 120 predecessor companies and making it economical. The LMS locomotive fleet as the largest of the four companies in 1932 consisted of almost 8,500 machines in over 250 series. Between the chief engineers of the most important predecessor railways that were taken over, such as the Midland Railway , the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway or the London and North Western Railway , there were considerable differences regarding the future development. In this situation, Josiah Stamp , the chairman of LMS, decided to appoint an independent professional to the vacated post of Chief Mechanical Engineer. He offered the post to Stanier, who after much deliberation accepted it.

Stanier's first draft for the LMS, the 5MT (Stanier Mogul)

The “Princess Elizabeth” 6201 of the LMS Princess Royal Class named after the then Princess Elisabeth

On January 1, 1932, Stanier therefore moved from Swindon to Crewe , the headquarters of the LMS main workshop. His main task was the rapid modernization and standardization of the LMS locomotive park. First of all, he introduced a standardized drawing office at LMS, since all plants, as is common with British railways, had developed and built their own locomotive series. Its developments began with a 1'Ch2 based on an existing design, the LMS Class 5 2-6-0 ("Stanier Mogul") built from 1933 onwards . At the same time, Stanier developed the LMS class 8P "Princess Royal", his first express locomotive for the LMS. The Pacific showed many construction features that had not been used by the LMS until then and that Stanier had brought with them from the GWR, such as the Belpaire standing boiler and the four-wheel drive acting on two axles. The relatively small superheater also came from GWR, which initially caused considerable problems and excessive steam consumption in view of the poorer coal and other fire technology used by the LMS. Ultimately, the Princess Royal locomotives received new boilers with twice the number of superheater elements and a combustion chamber . The locomotives converted in this way proved their worth and LMS was able to run express trains between London Euston and Glasgow Central with them for the first time without changing locomotives and without a leader. In 1935 Stanier developed a steam turbine-powered Pacific, which, however, remained a one-off. It was converted into a conventional locomotive in 1952 and named " Princess Anne ", but was irreparably damaged in the same year in the railway accident at Harrow and Wealdstone station .

Challenged by the of Nigel Gresley developed in competing LNER LNER Class A4 , which includes the world record locomotive "Mallard" was one, designed Stanier a corresponding locomotive for the best train of the West Coast Main Line provided streamlined train Coronation Scot . The LMS class 8P "Coronation" was procured in several series from 1937, but after the first ten units without streamlining. For the 1939 World's Fair , No. 6229 "Duchess of Hamilton" of this series was shipped to New York together with the train set . Due to the outbreak of World War II , the locomotive and wagon train did not return until after the end of the war. No. 6256, which was delivered in 1947 as one of the last locomotives in the series, was given Stanier's name.

Stanier's most famous locomotive, the streamlined LMS 8P "Coronation Class", No. 6229 "Duchess of Hamilton" in the National Railway Museum in York

Ultimately, more important than individual high-performance trains for LMS was the modernization of the vehicle fleet for the extensive freight and passenger traffic. The LMS owned many inefficient 2'B and C locomotives, and in the 1920s, the LMS had continued this "small engine policy" adopted by the Midland Railway. Stanier ended this procurement policy. As a replacement, he and his team designed several new, significantly larger, standard series. The LMS class 5 "Black Five" proved to be particularly successful . The series could be used universally in passenger and freight transport and was still procured by British Rail (BR) after the Transport Act 1947 . 842 units were built by 1951, the last remained in use until the cessation of steam operation at BR 1968 and hauled the last scheduled steam trains. The 1'D locomotives of the LMS class 8F were also successful , from which two simplified series with the axle sequences 1'D and 1'E for use as war locomotives were derived during the war .

During the war in 1942 Stanier was appointed as a consultant to the Ministry of Supply . In 1944, at the age of 67, he resigned from his post as LMS CME. But his influence remained noticeable even after retirement. The standard series developed by British Rail from 1948 onwards was essentially based on many of its developments.

Sir William Stanier died at the age of 89 on September 27, 1965, exactly 140 years after the first public steam train, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened.

Honors and memberships

In 1941 Stanier became president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers founded by George Stephenson , which also awarded him its gold medal in 1957. On February 9, 1943, King George VI. him a Knight Bachelor . As the second and so far last railway engineer after Robert Stephenson , Sir William Stanier was accepted on March 16, 1944 as a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1963 he received the James Watt Medal . He was also a member of the exclusive Athenaeum Club . In Crewe, the Sir William Stanier Community School is named after him.

literature

• Rolf Martens: Sir William A. Stanier , in: Lok-Magazin 58, pp. 13-18 (part 1), Lok-Magazin 60, pp. 232-243 (part 2), Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1973

Web links

• William Stanier in "Who's Who" from 1966 (English)
• The LMS Society, Chief Mechanical Engineers (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ The LMS Society, Chief Mechanical Engineers
2. ↑ List of Fellows of the Royal Society (PDF; 1.1 MB)
3. ↑ "Who's Who" from 1966
4. ^ Homepage of the Sir William Stanier Community School