Edward Thompson Wartime CME

At our meeting on 19 May a good audience in the room and on line heard Simon Martin’s well researched presentation Edward Thompson Wartime CME of the LNER.

Thompson was workshop manager at Stratford in 1930, Mechanical engineer at Darlington in 1934 and Doncaster in 1938. The premise of many previous accounts of this period have suggested that Thompson who became CME on Gresley’s death and held office from 1941 to 1946 set out to destroy or change Gresley’s work. Simon demonstrated that this view was untrue.

Thompson knew Gresley well from a very young age and admired his work though the pair disagreed about Gresley’s conjugated valve gear which worked well in peacetime but gave problems with poor maintenance in wartime. Thompson presented the LNER board an internal report under the name of Sir William Stanier who appointed E S Cox to produce the report which recommended building no more 3 cylinder locomotives with conjugated valve gear, rebuilding some locomotives and modifying the existing fleet to remedy the failure prone middle big end. His successful rebuild of the pioneer Gresley Pacific Great Northern also caused controversy because he came from the North Eastern. It was really an A4 conversion and the last development of the A4. All small and medium engines were rebuilt with 2 cylinders. The Pacifics were fitted with Kylchap. There began a modernisation and standardisation programme with A2/A3 a clear development from P2, the B1 essentially an LNER Hall (or Black Five), O1 rebuilt O4, J11 rebuilt J39and the L1 tank engines..

Some non standard designs were kept namely A3, A4, B16, B17, D49, K3, V1,V2, V3. The P3’s were controversially rebuilt .

No less an authority than Richard Hardy who encountered Thompson as an apprentice and rose through the LNER ranks to the British Rail Board considered Thompson a good engineer. Thompson retired in 1946 and was succeeded by Peppercorn. His standardisation bore fruit after his retirement but he did reduce the variety of LNER classes of locomotives. He definitely did not try to destroy Gresley’s heritage.

An excellent talk which was well received in the room and on line.

John Fitzgerald