Nigel Gresley

Sir Herbert Nigel Gresley ( born June 19, 1876 in Edinburgh, Scotland, † April 5, 1941 in Watton -at- Stone, Hertfordshire ) was a leading British steam locomotive designers.

From 1911 to 1922 he was superintendent of the Great Northern Railway and is responsible for the design, repair and maintenance of all locomotives. Under his leadership, a number of the most successful modern locomotives emerged. From 1923 to 1941 he worked for the London and North Eastern Railway ( LNER ) as a mechanical engineer. There designed some of the most famous steam locomotives in Britain, including the LNER Class A4 that includes the number 4468 Mallard with. The Mallard is considered the steam locomotive that has reached the highest occupied by measurements of speed. An identical locomotive, number 4498, was named in honor Gresleys. It now belongs to the Museum Railway North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

He was a supporter of the triplet structure (ie, three-cylinder engine with a simple steam expansion ), most of his creations have this design principle. To this end he invented the so-called Gresley control for the inner cylinder. In this control, the slide of the inner cylinder is derived from the spool movements of the outer cylinder forth mechanically. A complex and difficult to access internal control is thus avoided. The American ALCO had a license for the Gresley control and used them for all of their 3 -cylinder locomotives. The largest and most famous American machines with this control were the 2'F1 ' ( according to American notation 4-12-2 ) locomotives of the Union Pacific Railroad Class 9000th

Sir Nigel Gresley was 1936 President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He died at age 65 after a brief illness.

• Mechanical Engineer
• Railway engineer
• Knight Bachelor
• Briton
• Born 1876
• Died in 1941
• Man