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1 Schmidt, Wilhelm
[br]b. 18 February 1858 Wegeleben, Saxony, Germanyd. 16 February 1924 Bethel, Westphalia, Germany[br]German engineer, inventor of an effective means of superheating steam in locomotive boilers.[br]Schmidt was educated at Dresden Technical High School and worked as an assistant to a locksmith. He experimented with steam engines worked at extremely high pressures and developed ideas for using superheated steam. Two early types of locomotive superheater that he designed were tried out in Prussia in the late 1890s, but his firetube type, which was eventually successful, was first used in Belgium in 1901. Within ten years of its introduction, superheating using Schmidt-type superheaters was standard practice on large locomotives worldwide.In the superheater, steam from the boiler is passed through tubular elements within the firetubes before passing to the cylinders. This raises the steam's temperature without increasing its pressure: advantages of doing so include increasing the volume of steam produced and reducing condensation in the cylinders, with consequent economies of fuel and water. Schmidt superheaters were first used in Britain in 1906 by George Hughes, Locomotive Superintendent of the Lancashire \& Yorkshire Railway, on two goods locomotives, and then by D.Earle Marsh on the London Brighton \& South Coast Railway; hefitted them to 4–4–2 express tank locomotives in 1908. These were conspicuously successful in comparative trials with equivalent non-superheated locomotives from the London \& North Western Railway.[br]Further ReadingJ.Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson, p. 501 (with references to superheaters, pp. 286, 392–4).C.Hamilton Ellis, 1959, British Railway History, Vol. II: 1877–1947, George Allen \& Unwin, pp. 268–71 (for the introduction of superheating to Britain).PJGR -
2 Sprague, Frank Julian
[br]b. 25 July 1857 Milford, Connecticut, USAd. 25 October 1934 New York, USA[br]American electrical engineer and inventor, a leading innovator in electric propulsion systems for urban transport.[br]Graduating from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1878, Sprague served at sea and with various shore establishments. In 1883 he resigned from the Navy and obtained employment with the Edison Company; but being convinced that the use of electricity for motive power was as important as that for illumination, in 1884 he founded the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company. Sprague began to develop reliable and efficient motors in large sizes, marketing 15 hp (11 kW) examples by 1885. He devised the method of collecting current by using a wooden, spring-loaded rod to press a roller against the underside of an overhead wire. The installation by Sprague in 1888 of a street tramway on a large scale in Richmond, Virginia, was to become the prototype of the universally adopted trolley system with overhead conductor and the beginning of commercial electric traction. Following the success of the Richmond tramway the company equipped sixty-seven other railways before its merger with Edison General Electric in 1890. The Sprague traction motor supported on the axle of electric streetcars and flexibly mounted to the bogie set a pattern that was widely adopted for many years.Encouraged by successful experiments with multiple-sheave electric elevators, the Sprague Elevator Company was formed and installed the first set of high-speed passenger cars in 1893–4. These effectively displaced hydraulic elevators in larger buildings. From experience with control systems for these, he developed his system of multiple-unit control for electric trains, which other engineers had considered impracticable. In Sprague's system, a master controller situated in the driver's cab operated electrically at a distance the contactors and reversers which controlled the motors distributed down the train. After years of experiment, Sprague's multiple-unit control was put into use for the first time in 1898 by the Chicago South Side Elevated Railway: within fifteen years multiple-unit operation was used worldwide.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, American Institute of Electrical Engineers 1892–3. Franklin Institute Elliot Cresson Medal 1904, Franklin Medal 1921. American Institute of Electrical Engineers Edison Medal 1910.Bibliography1888, "The solution of municipal rapid transit", Trans. AIEE 5:352–98. See "The multiple unit system for electric railways", Cassiers Magazine, (1899) London, repub. 1960, 439–460.1934, "Digging in “The Mines of the Motor”", Electrical Engineering 53, New York: 695–706 (a short autobiography).Further ReadingLionel Calisch, 1913, Electric Traction, London: The Locomotive Publishing Co., Ch. 6 (for a near-contemporary view of Sprague's multiple-unit control).D.C.Jackson, 1934, "Frank Julian Sprague", Scientific Monthly 57:431–41.H.C.Passer, 1952, "Frank Julian Sprague: father of electric traction", in Men of Business, ed. W. Miller, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 212–37 (a reliable account).——1953, The Electrical Manufacturers: 1875–1900, Cambridge, Mass. P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia of World RailwayLocomotives, London: Hutchinson, p. 143..John Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.GW / PJGR -
3 Caprotti, Arturo
[br]b. 22 March 1881 Cremona, Italyd. 9 February 1938 Milan, Italy[br]Italian engineer, inventor of Caprotti poppet valve gear for steam locomotives.[br]Caprotti graduated as a mechanical engineer at Turin Royal Polytechnic College and spent some years in the motor car industry. After researching the application of poppet valves to railway locomotives, he invented his rotary cam valve gear for poppet valves in 1915. Compared with usual slide and piston valves and valve gears, it offered independent timing of inlet and exhaust valves and a saving in weight. Valve gear to Caprotti's design was first fitted in 1920 to a 2−6−0 locomotive of the Italian State Railways, and was subsequently widely used there and elsewhere. Caprotti valve gear was first applied in Britain in 1926 to a Claughton class 4−6−0 of the London, Midland \& Scottish Railway, resulting in substantial fuel savings compared with a similar locomotive fitted with Walschaert's valve gear and piston valves. Others of the class were then fitted similarly. Caprotti valve gear never came into general use in Britain and its final application was in 1954 to British Railways class 8 4−6−2 no. 71000; this was intended as the prototype of a class of standard locomotives for express trains, but the class was never built, because diesel and electric locomotives took their place. Some components survived scrapping, and a reconstruction of the locomotive is in working order.[br]Further ReadingJohn Marshall, 1978, A Biographical Dictionary of Railway Engineers, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson (contains a note about Caprotti (p. 497) and a description of the valve gear (p. 301).PJGR -
4 Walschaert, Egide
SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines[br]b. 20 January 1820 Mechlin, Belgiumd. 18 February 1901 Saint-Lilies, Brussels, Belgium[br]Belgian inventor of Walschaerrt valve gear for steam engines.[br]Walschaert was appointed Foreman of the Brussels Midi workshops of the Belgian State Railways in 1844, when they were opened, and remained in this position until 1885. He invented his valve gear the year he took up his appointment and was allowed to fit it to a 2–2–2 locomotive in 1848, the results being excellent. It was soon adopted in Belgium and to a lesser extent in France, but although it offered accessibility, light weight and mechanical efficiency, railways elsewhere were remarkably slow to take it up. It was first used in the British Isles in 1878, on a 0–4–4 tank locomotive built to the patent of Robert Fairlie, but was not used again there until 1890. By contrast, Fairlie had already used Walchaert's valve gear in 1873, on locomotives for New Zealand, and when New Zealand Railways started to build their own locomotives in 1889 they perpetuated it. The valve gear was only introduced to the USA following a visit by an executive of the Baldwin Locomotive Works to New Zealand ten years later. Subsequently it came to be used almost everywhere there were steam locomotives. Walschaert himself invented other improvements for steam engines, but none with lasting effect.[br]Further ReadingP.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia, of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson (includes both a brief biography of Walschaert (p.502) and a technical description of his valve gear (p. 298)).E.L.Ahrons, 1927, The British Steam Railway Locomotive 1825–1925, London: The Locomotive Publishing Co., pp. 224 and 289 (describes the introduction of the valve gear to Britain).J.B.Snell, 1964, Early Railways, London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson, 103.PJGR -
5 Winans, Ross
[br]b. 17 October 1796 Sussex County, New Jersey, USAd. 11 April 1877 Baltimore, Maryland, USA[br]American inventor and locomotive builder.[br]Winans arrived in Baltimore in 1828 to sell horses to the Baltimore \& Ohio Railroad (B \& O), which was then under construction. To reduce friction in rail vehicles, he devised a system of axles which ran in oil-baths, with outside bearings. He demonstrated a hand-driven wagon with this system at the Rainhill Trials; the Liverpool \& Manchester Railway bought some wagons fitted with the system, but found them on test to be inferior to wagons with grease axle boxes. Back in Baltimore, Winans assisted Peter Cooper in building Tom Thumb. He took charge of the B \& O shops c.1834; he is said to have built the first eight-wheeled passenger coach and to have been the first to mount such a coach on two four-wheeled trucks or bogies. The arrangement soon became standard American practice, and, with partners, he built over 100 locomotives for the B \& O. In 1847 he pioneered the use of anthracite as locomotive fuel, and from 1848 he built his "Camel" locomotives with the driver's cab above the boiler.[br]Further ReadingJ.H.White Jr, 1979, A History of the American Locomotive-Its Development: 1830–1880, New York: Dover Publications Inc.P.Ransome-Wallis (ed.), 1959, The Concise Encyclopaedia of World Railway Locomotives, London: Hutchinson, p. 503 (biography).Dictionary of American Biography.H.Booth, 1980, Henry Booth, Ilfracombe: Arthur H.Stockwell, pp. 75 and 91–2 (for the Liverpool \& Manchester wagons).See also: Stephenson, GeorgePJGR
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