Robert Wallace Urie (22 October 1854 – 6 January 1937) was a Scottish locomotive engineer who was the last

chief mechanical engineer Chief mechanical engineer and locomotive superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotive ...

of the

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

Career

After serving an apprenticeship with and working for various private locomotive manufacturers he joined the

Caledonian Railway The Caledonian Railway (CR) was a major Scottish railway company. It was formed in the early 19th century with the objective of forming a link between English railways and Glasgow. It progressively extended its network and reached Edinburgh an ...

in 1890, and became chief draughtsman, and later Works Manager at St. Rollox railway works under

Dugald Drummond Dugald Drummond (1 January 1840 – 8 November 1912) was a Scottish steam locomotive engineer. He had a career with the North British Railway, LB&SCR, Caledonian Railway and London and South Western Railway. He was the older brother of the eng ...

. In 1897 he moved with Drummond to join the

(LSWR) as works manager at

Nine Elms Nine Elms is an area of south-west London, England, within the London Borough of Wandsworth. It lies on the River Thames, with Battersea to the west, South Lambeth to the south and Vauxhall to the east. The area was formerly mainly industrial ...

in London. He transferred to the new works at Eastleigh in 1909. Following the death of

in 1912, Urie became chief mechanical engineer until his own retirement at the grouping of 1923.

Locomotive designs

Robert Urie made a significant contribution to the development of more powerful express passenger and goods locomotives for use on the London and South Western Railway main line, with simple yet robust designs. In particular his LSWR H15 class, LSWR N15 class and LSWR S15 class

4-6-0 A 4-6-0 steam locomotive, under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives by wheel arrangement, has four leading wheels on two axles in a leading bogie and six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles with the ...

as well LSWR Class G16 4-8-0T and LSWR H16 class 4-6-2T locomotives continued to be built by the Southern Railway under

Richard Maunsell Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell (pronounced "Mansell") (26 May 1868 – 7 March 1944) held the post of chief mechanical engineer (CME) of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway from 1913 until the 1923 Grouping and then the post of CME of the ...

's direction.

Patents

* GB191410781, published 13 August 1914, Improvements in means for connecting pipes or conduits * GB191410782, published 3 September 1914, Improvements in steam superheaters

Family

His son David Chalmers Urie was a locomotive engineer with the

Highland Railway The Highland Railway (HR) was one of the smaller British railways before the Railways Act 1921, operating north of Perth railway station in Scotland and serving the farthest north of Britain. Based in Inverness, the company was formed by merger ...

and later the

London, Midland and Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally ...

References

* (incorporating ) p. 18

Career

Locomotive designs

Patents

Family

References

Further reading