William Pickersgill

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William Pickersgill (1861 - 2 May 1928) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Caledonian Railway from 1914 when he replaced John Farqharson McIntosh until grouping in 1923. He was appointed locomotive superintendent of the Northern Division of the LMS but retired in 1925.

He had previously been apprenticed at GER at Stratford and succeeded in 1894 as the locomotive superintendent of the Great North of Scotland Railway. William Pickersgill was born in Nantwich in 1861 (possibly Crewe) and died in Bournemouth on 2 May 1928. He started work on the Great Eastern Railway at Stratford in 1876 where he was a Whitworth Exhibitioner, and after several posts in the running department he was appointed district locomotive superintendent in Norwich in 1891. In 1894 he succeeded James Johnson as the Locomotive Superintendent of the GNoSR where he continued to develop the 4-4-0 type for that railway and was responsible for the new Locomotive Works at Inverurie which replaced the unsatisfactory premises at Kittybrewster. In March 1914 succeeded McIntosh as Locomotive, Carriage & Wagon Superintendent of the Caledonian Railway. He further developed the McIntosh 4-4-0 type, introduced the class 60 4-6-0 for freight service, and an extraordinary 4-6-0 with derived motion which was highly unsuccessful. Following the Grouping he was appointed Mechanical Engineer of the Northern Division, but retired in 1925. Pickering was Chairman of the ARLE in 1912, and was interested in flange and check rail dimensions.