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Kerr, Stuart and Company

Kerr, Stuart and Company Ltd was a locomotive manufacturer in Stoke-on-Trent, England.

History

It was founded in 1881 by James Kerr as "James Kerr & Company", and became "Kerr, Stuart & Company" from 1883 when John Stuart was taken on as a partner. The business started in Glasgow, Scotland, but during this time they were only acting as agents ordering locomotives from established manufacturers, among them Falcon, John Fowler & Co. and Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning. They bought the last-named company in 1892 and moved into the California Works in Stoke to begin building all their own locomotives. Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning had also been building railway and tramway plant. This side of their business was sold to Dick, Kerr and Co. in Preston.

Notable Kerr, Stuart employees

Kerr, Stuart standard designs

Kerr, Stuart were known for producing a number of standard designs with many engines being built for stock and sold 'off the shelf' to customers. The names of these locomotive types were often derived from the purchaser of the first of that type or from the name it was given.

The Kerr, Stuart designs are typified by having a single trailing truck (allowing a large firebox to be placed behind the driving wheels) and/or having a saddle tank. Several designs of side tank locomotive were produced that shared a chassis and boiler with a saddle tank design and it is not unknown for a standard chassis from one design to be used with a different design's standard boiler to produce a locomotive to suit a customer's special requirements.

Standard gauge designs

Narrow gauge designs

Steam railmotors

Kerr, Stuart had a large joiners shop and a significant passenger coach construction business. They were therefore very well placed to build steam railmotors. Their first was a diminutive 2 ft (610 mm) gauge saloon for the Maharajah of Gwalior in 1904 followed by a batch of 12 standard gauge railcars in 1905, six for the Taff Vale Railway, two for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, two for the Great Western Railway, one for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway[7] and one for the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway.[8][9] The last two in Indian gauge. The GWR gave a repeat order in 1906 for a further 12 slightly more powerful units. The Mauritius Government Railways ordered one in 1907.[10] The largest rail motor order was for 15 from the Italian State Railways.

Custom-built designs

locobrake with two coaches on a tourist trip in 1987. The locomotive was built by Stephenson in 1931 to an almost identical design to the Kerr Stuarts

In addition to their standard designs, Kerr Stuart accepted orders to build to customers' own designs. From 1900, they built 0-4-0T locobrake for the São Paulo Railway 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) gauge cable incline between Paranapiacaba and Piaçagüera. Six of them are preserved.[citation needed]

Narrow-gauge 0-4-0T 652 built in 1899 worked in the docks at Walvis Bay, Namibia until the 1950s and is now preserved in a purpose-built glass-windowed display hut in the forecourt of Walvis Bay station.[citation needed]

Between 1903 and 1904 they produced a 4-6-0 design for several Irish 3 ft (914 mm) gauge lines. A 4-6-2T version was built for the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway.[citation needed]

A large 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge 0-6-6-0 Meyer followed in 1904. Five American style bar-framed 2-8-0 tender locomotives were built for the 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Interocianic and Mexican Eastern Railways. In May 1910 they built a 2 ft (610 mm) gauge "modified Fairlie" for service in Madras - two 0-4-2T locomotives permanently coupled back to back. They received a repeat order for this combination.[citation needed]

In 1910 a class of four 4-2-2 express passenger locomotives designed by E. J. Dunstan were produced for the Shanghai Nanking Railway. In service these locomotives proved to be faster, smoother running, and more economicalthan the similar 4-4-0 engines on the same line.[citation needed]

Kerr Stuart works plate from GWR 57XX Class 0-6-0PT 7714 No.4449 of 1930

The company received several orders from the 2 ft (610 mm) gauge Gwalior Light Railway in India. This included four large 2-8-2 tender locomotives in 1928.[citation needed]

Six superheated 4-8-0 mixed traffic locomotives built in 1929 were the last of a series of 4-4-0 and 4-6-0s built for the Buenos Aires Central Railway of Argentina.[citation needed]

After the First World War, Kerr, Stuart received a number of large orders from the British mainline railway companies who were seeking to replace obsolete equipment with their own standard designs. In 1920 the Metropolitan Railway ordered eight superheated 4-4-4T passenger locomotives for the Aylesbury service. Between 1925 and 1927 the London Midland and Scottish Railway ordered fifty standard class 4F 0-6-0 goods locomotives and between 1929 and 1930 the Great Western Railway ordered 25 GWR 5700 Class 0-6-0PTs.[citation needed]

Diesel locomotives

In the late 1920s a number of diesel locomotives were built. These were available with two or three axles for various track gauges. The engines were by McLaren-Benz in 2-cylinder (30 hp), 4-cylinder (60 hp) or 6-cylinder (90 hp) form. Transmission was mechanical and final drive was by roller chains.[11]

They were very successful even though technology moved on quickly. Further development was stopped when Kerr, Stuart's went into receivership, but the Hunslet range of diesel locomotives was based on these. At least 3 Kerr, Stuart diesel locomotives have survived into preservation but none is in original condition having been given different engines.

The company in liquidation

Class E n° 14 1028 used in the Buenos Aires Midland Railway, c. 1930.

On 17 April 1930 a petition calling for the company to be wound up compulsorily was presented in the High Court (Chancery Division) by the Midland Bank.[12] At a hearing held on 8 May 1930 this petition was withdrawn on settlement of an £8,000 guarantee.[13] However, the sale of the works to George Cohen, Sons & Co Ltd was announced in August 1930; a skeleton staff was employed to complete contracts in progress.[14] Another winding-up petition was presented on 10 September 1930 and an order was made on 14 October.[15] At the creditors' meeting held on 14 November Herbert Langham Reed, the company's chairman and managing director,[16] attributed the failure of the company to the locking up of capital in the Peninsular Locomotive Company, registered in India 1921 to build locomotives (Kerr, Stuart held 80% of the capital and loaned £78,000), the [April] winding-up petition, which had resulted in a loss of confidence in the company, and 'to liabilities incurred by the company in supporting other companies'.[17]Company funds had, apparently, been used to finance a company called Evos Sliding Doorways. This company's failure had triggered the Midland Bank petition.[18] In LTC Rolt's autobiography "The Landscape Trilogy" it is also alleged that the company secretary was discovered to have committed suicide in Kerr, Stuart's London offices, and a large quantity of papers was found to have been burnt in the fireplace.[19] The firm's goodwill (designs, spare parts, etc.) was bought by the Hunslet Engine Company.

Some locomotives were built by W. G. Bagnall to Kerr, Stuart designs, a result of the chief Kerr, Stuart draughtsman, F. H. B. Harris, and a number of other Kerr, Stuart staff being employed by Bagnall's. These locomotives include examples of the Haig and Matary classes.

The last steam locomotive built in Britain for industrial use, was a Hunslet built Brazil class engine in 1971. This locomotive is now running on the private Statfold Barn Railway.

The Corris Railway commissioned a new locomotive based on the "Tattoo" design of its original No.4 (KS 4047 of 1921) and this was privately built over a ten-year period and went into service in 2005 as No.7.

In popular culture

Wilbert Awdry based the character of Peter Sam on a Kerr Stuart Tattoo in The Railway Series.

Preservation

References

  1. ^ Brell Ewart and Brian Radford "6233 Duchess of Sutherland and the Princess Coronation Class", Princess Royal Locomotive Trust Publication, 2002
  2. ^ Grupp, Florian (9 May 2009). "Tattoo class steam loco Nr. 14 (Kerr Stuart)" (Image). Flickr. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  3. ^ Grupp, Florian (9 May 2009). "Tattoo class steam loco Nr. 16 (Kerr-Stuart)" (image). Flickr. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  4. ^ Grupp, Florian (9 May 2009). "Steam loco 13 @ Namtu depot" (Image). Flickr. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Snailbeach locos". Shropshire Mines Trust. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  6. ^ Steve Green: The "Joffre" class 0-6-0Ts. In: The Corkscrew. Newsletter of the Wimborne Railway Society, Founded 1976. Issue 72, December 2012.
  7. ^ "New Locomotives for the Great Indian Peninsula Ry". The Locomotive Magazine. Vol. XII, no. 125. 14 July 1906. p. 114.
  8. ^ "Rail Motor Coaches" The Railway Magazine issue 98 – August 1905 – Page 136
  9. ^ "Los coches motor a vapor del Ferrocarril Sud" (in Spanish). 13 May 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  10. ^ "Steam rail motor coaches". Locomotive, Railway Carriage & Wagon Review. Locomotive Publishing Company. 1907. p. 206.
  11. ^ Rolt, L.T.C. A Hunslet Hundred, David & Charles 1964, pp 98–100
  12. ^ "No. 33600". The London Gazette. 25 April 1930. p. 2605.
  13. ^ The Times 9 May 1930
  14. ^ The Times 15 August 1930
  15. ^ "No. 33653". The London Gazette. 17 October 1930. p. 6391.
  16. ^ The Times 1 April 1930
  17. ^ The Times 15 November 1930
  18. ^ Cartwright R.C., The Llanfair Railway Journal 105, October 1987
  19. ^ LTC Rolt "The Landscape Trilogy" (2001): combined volume of "Landscape with Machines" (1971), "Landscape with Canals" (1977) and "Landscape with Figures" (1992)
  20. ^ "Buckinghamshire Railway Centre Stockbook".
  21. ^ "Rom River". Archived from the original on 4 May 2007. Retrieved 16 September 2008.

External links