Robert Riddles

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Robert Arthur "Robin" Riddles, CBE, MIMechE, MinstLE (23 May 1892 — 18 June 1983) was a British locomotive engineer.

[edit] Biography

Riddles was born in 1892 and entered the Crewe Works of the London and North Western Railway as an apprentice in 1909. During the 1914-1918 Great War he served with the Royal Engineers.

Riddles-designed WD 2-10-0 600 Gordon served its country on the Longmoor Military Railway before being preserved.

Riddles-designed 9F 2-10-0 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive to be built (in 1960) for British Railways

In 1923 the LNWR became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. In 1933 Riddles became Locomotive Assistant to the new Chief Mechanical Engineer, William Stanier, and in 1935 Stanier's Principal Assistant.

In 1939 with the Second World War having just started, he moved to the Ministry of Supply, becoming Director of Transportation Equipment, and later designed the WD Austerity 2-8-0 and WD Austerity 2-10-0 locomotives.

In 1943 he moved to the post of Chief Stores Superintendent at the LMS - it has been said that he was anxious to get back into the railway business. On the death of Charles Fairburn in 1944 he applied for the position of Chief Mechanical Engineer, but the job went to George Ivatt, with Riddles being promoted to Vice-President of the LMS.

Upon the creation of the Railway Executive in 1947 in preparation for the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, he was appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of British Railways (BR). He subsequently oversaw the design of the BR standard classes, the last of which, and considered by some to be the best of the BR standard designs, was a powerful 9F 2-10-0 heavy freight locomotive.

Riddles retired in 1953 on the abolition of the Railway Executive, and became a director of Stothert & Pitt of Bath, cranemakers.

Riddles was succeeded as Chief Mechanical Engineer of BR by J.F. Harrison.