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1 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 -
2 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 -
3 Fairlie, Robert Francis
[br]b. March 1831 Scotlandd. 31 July 1885 Clapham, London, England[br]British engineer, designer of the double-bogie locomotive, advocate of narrow-gauge railways.[br]Fairlie worked on railways in Ireland and India, and established himself as a consulting engineer in London by the early 1860s. In 1864 he patented his design of locomotive: it was to be carried on two bogies and had a double boiler, the barrels extending in each direction from a central firebox. From smokeboxes at the outer ends, return tubes led to a single central chimney. At that time in British practice, locomotives of ever-increasing size were being carried on longer and longer rigid wheelbases, but often only one or two of their three or four pairs of wheels were powered. Bogies were little used and then only for carrying-wheels rather than driving-wheels: since their pivots were given no sideplay, they were of little value. Fairlie's design offered a powerful locomotive with a wheelbase which though long would be flexible; it would ride well and have all wheels driven and available for adhesion.The first five double Fairlie locomotives were built by James Cross \& Co. of St Helens during 1865–7. None was particularly successful: the single central chimney of the original design had been replaced by two chimneys, one at each end of the locomotive, but the single central firebox was retained, so that exhaust up one chimney tended to draw cold air down the other. In 1870 the next double Fairlie, Little Wonder, was built for the Festiniog Railway, on which C.E. Spooner was pioneering steam trains of very narrow gauge. The order had gone to George England, but the locomotive was completed by his successor in business, the Fairlie Engine \& Steam Carriage Company, in which Fairlie and George England's son were the principal partners. Little Wonder was given two inner fireboxes separated by a water space and proved outstandingly successful. The spectacle of this locomotive hauling immensely long trains up grade, through the Festiniog Railway's sinuous curves, was demonstrated before engineers from many parts of the world and had lasting effect. Fairlie himself became a great protagonist of narrow-gauge railways and influenced their construction in many countries.Towards the end of the 1860s, Fairlie was designing steam carriages or, as they would now be called, railcars, but only one was built before the death of George England Jr precipitated closure of the works in 1870. Fairlie's business became a design agency and his patent locomotives were built in large numbers under licence by many noted locomotive builders, for narrow, standard and broad gauges. Few operated in Britain, but many did in other lands; they were particularly successful in Mexico and Russia.Many Fairlie locomotives were fitted with the radial valve gear invented by Egide Walschaert; Fairlie's role in the universal adoption of this valve gear was instrumental, for he introduced it to Britain in 1877 and fitted it to locomotives for New Zealand, whence it eventually spread worldwide. Earlier, in 1869, the Great Southern \& Western Railway of Ireland had built in its works the first "single Fairlie", a 0–4–4 tank engine carried on two bogies but with only one of them powered. This type, too, became popular during the last part of the nineteenth century. In the USA it was built in quantity by William Mason of Mason Machine Works, Taunton, Massachusetts, in preference to the double-ended type.Double Fairlies may still be seen in operation on the Festiniog Railway; some of Fairlie's ideas were far ahead of their time, and modern diesel and electric locomotives are of the powered-bogie, double-ended type.[br]Bibliography1864, British patent no. 1,210 (Fairlie's master patent).1864, Locomotive Engines, What They Are and What They Ought to Be, London; reprinted 1969, Portmadoc: Festiniog Railway Co. (promoting his ideas for locomotives).1865, British patent no. 3,185 (single Fairlie).1867. British patent no. 3,221 (combined locomotive/carriage).1868. "Railways and their Management", Journal of the Society of Arts: 328. 1871. "On the Gauge for Railways of the Future", abstract in Report of the FortiethMeeting of the British Association in 1870: 215. 1872. British patent no. 2,387 (taper boiler).1872, Railways or No Railways. "Narrow Gauge, Economy with Efficiency; or Broad Gauge, Costliness with Extravagance", London: Effingham Wilson; repr. 1990s Canton, Ohio: Railhead Publications (promoting the cause for narrow-gauge railways).Further ReadingFairlie and his patent locomotives are well described in: P.C.Dewhurst, 1962, "The Fairlie locomotive", Part 1, Transactions of the Newcomen Society 34; 1966, Part 2, Transactions 39.R.A.S.Abbott, 1970, The Fairlie Locomotive, Newton Abbot: David \& Charles.PJGRBiographical history of technology > Fairlie, Robert Francis
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4 Steam and internal combustion engines
See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA[br]Giffard, Baptiste Henry JacquesHamilton, Harold LeePorta, Giovanni Battista dellaBiographical history of technology > Steam and internal combustion engines
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