Vincent Raven

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Sir Vincent Litchfield Raven KBE (3 December 1858-14 February 1934) was chief mechanical engineer of the North Eastern Railway from 1910 to 1922.

Vincent Raven was born the son of a clergyman at Great Fransham, Norfolk and educated at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire. In 1877 he began his career with the North Eastern Railway as a pupil of the then Locomotive Superintendent, Edward Fletcher. By 1893 he had achieved the post of Assistant Mechanical Engineer to Wilson Worsdell who was then the Locomotive Superintendent. In this post he was involved for the first time with an electrification project, as the N.E.R. was electrifying the North Tyneside suburban route in 1904. This was a third rail system at 600 volts DC.

In 1910 he became Chief Mechanical Engineer on Wilson Worsdell's retirement (The title of the post had changed from Locomotive Superintendent in 1902). Raven dveloped some of Worsdell's designs for steam locomotives, like the T2 0-8-0 freight locomotive, as well as introducing designs of his own. In particular he favoured a 3 cylinder design with the locomotives driving on the leading coupled axle. This was applied to a series of locomotives, class S3, a mixed traffic 4-6-0, class Y, a 4-6-2 tank engine for freight work, class D, a 4-4-4 tank engine for passenger work, class Z, a 4-4-2 'Atlantic' for express passenger work, and class 4-6-2, a 'Pacific' for express passenger work. The most memorable of these was the class Z Atlantics which had a reputation for speed and good riding on East Coast Main Line expresses north of York.

The 3 cylinder principle was also applied to class X, a heavy freight 4-8-0 tank engine, but this had a divided drive with the inside cylinder driving the second axle and the outside cylinders driving the third axle. The class T3 was also three cylinder with all cylinders driving the second axle of this heavy freight 0-8-0.

Despite this, Raven was a great advocate for electrification, and in 1915, a section of line was electrified between Shildon in the south west Durham coalfield and Newport, on Teesside, with the intention of improving performance on coal trains from Shildon to Middlesbrough. For this, he introduced electrification at 1500 volts DC with overhead wires. Ten centre cab electric locomotives of 1100 horsepower were built at Darlington for this, numbered in a series from 3 to 12 (1 and 2 were a different design of 1902 for the Tyneside electrification at 600 volts DC). Following the success of the Shildon - Newport scheme, Raven set about electrification of the main line from York to Newcastle, also at 1500 volts DC, but with third rail power supply. A prototype loco was built in 1922 at Darlington for this, No. 13, which was a new design of 1800 horsepower and a 2-D-2 (4-6-4) wheel arrangement. Although successfully tested between Newport and Shildon using the overhead power supply, 13 was destined to be unlucky as it never did the job for which it was designed. The reorganisation of Britain's railways in 1923 led to the abandonment of the electrification plans by the successor company, the LNER.

During World War One, Raven was Superintendent at Woolwich Arsenal where he organised munitions production, for which he received a knighthood in 1917.The 'grouping' of the railways in 1923 gave the Chief Mechanical Engineer's post to Nigel Gresley of the Great Northern Railway and Raven became a Technical Adviser. He resigned in 1924, and passed away in 1934.

How did his work fare after the grouping? As we have seen, the proposed electrification of the East Coast Main Line was quickly abandoned. The Shildon - Newport electrification reverted to steam haulage in 1935. Falling traffic levels and the need to replace the overhead equipment were cited as the reasons. The electric locomotives went into store, and lasted until 1950, when they were all scrapped except one, which was rebuilt for use on the Woodhead route of the Manchester-Sheffield-Wath electric railway. It was never used on this scheme, but found work as a shunter at Ilford until 1964 when it was scrapped. No 13 was also scrapped in 1950, having spent most of its life in storage. The steam classes fared better, most lasting into nationalisation in 1948. The beautiful and effective Clss Z all were scrapped by the early 1950's. The S3s lasted well, some being rebuilt with different boilers and new cylinders. The class D tank engines were rebuilt by the LNER as 4-6-2 tank engines and lasted into the very early 1960s when they were replaced by diesel units. The freight classes also lasted well, the class Y tanks going before 1960 and the class X and T3 lasting a little longer. The rugged, reliable and simple T2s lasted until the end of steam locomtive use in North East England, in September 1967. they were, along with the Worsdell designed P3s, the last pre-grouping locomotives in use in Britain. Two Raven steam locomotives survive in preservation, a T2 No 2238 (currently in running order as No. 63395 in British Railways paintwork) and No. 901, the pioneer T3, the only surviving loco of Raven's 3 cylinder design.

[edit] References

  • Sir Vincent Raven, and the North Eastern Railway (2005) by Peter Grafton ISBN 0-85361-640-X
  • North Eastern Steam (1970) by W. A. Tuplin SBN 04-385051-0
  • The Electric Locomotives of the North Eastern Railway ( 1988) by Ken Hoole ISBN 0-85361-367-2

[edit] External links

by Andrew Everett MA, June 2006, Tempus Publishing]

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