Brecknell Willis is a

Wabtec Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, commonly known as Wabtec, is an American company formed by the merger of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) and MotivePower in 1999. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Wab ...

company headquartered in

Chard Chard (; '' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'', Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, or Swiss chard, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf b ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of the nine official regions of England, regions of England in the United Kingdom. Additionally, it is one of four regions that altogether make up Southern England. South West England con ...

and brand-name of electrification equipment for railways, mostly

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a Linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a se ...

s and

contact shoe A current collector (often called a "pickup") is a device used in trolleybuses, trams, electric locomotives and Electric multiple unit, EMUs to carry electric power (Electric current, current) from overhead lines, electric third rails, or ground ...

History

Henry Brecknell and Sons began operating in 1854. In 1894, it moved into electrification. Since 1938 it has been in Chard, when known as Brecknell, Willis & Co. Ltd. In 2023, site’s production facility was closed by Wabtec. The production was transferred to other Wabtec plants while the office in Chard will maintain its engineering, project management, and sales office. Antonio Scancariell
Brecknell Willis’ production to be transferred by the end of the year
chardandilminsternews.co.uk, 27 March 2023

Products

For the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

, it has supplied shoe gear and conductor rail systems, as well as pantographs to the rail industry.

Pantographs

Low height pantograph

The Brecknell Willis Low Height pantograph is one of the four standard devices in use on British railway locomotives and multiple units and is a development of the standard Brecknell Willis High Speed pantograph. The Low Height pantograph is suitable for speeds up to . It has a small aerofoil mounted on the knuckle joint between the upper and lower arms.

High reach pantograph

Although it had been used on a few rapid transit systems and on a Blackpool tram, the first use of the high reach pantograph in the UK was the main lines was back in 1974 when a small number were fitted to some Class 309s based at

Ilford EMU Depot Ilford Depot is a traction maintenance depot located in Ilford, Greater London, England. The site is used for train stabling and maintenance by Greater Anglia, Elizabeth line, London Overground and Alstom. Location The depot is situated on th ...

. These continued to be used until around 1980 when they were all removed.

High speed pantograph

The High speed pantograph was designed during the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of ongoing research into developing a pantograph capable of speeds over the 100 mph (160 km/h) limit of the

Stone Faiveley AMBR pantograph Faiveley Transport (), formerly Faiveley, is an international manufacturer and supplier of equipment for the railway industry founded in 1919. It introduced the single-arm pantograph in 1955. The company has subsidiaries in more than 24 count ...

, which was the standard type in use at the time. The first locomotive to be fitted with the pantograph was Class 86 No 86244, during February 1980. The pantograph is the mainstay within the UK railway system, where it is used on most overhead electric locomotives and EMUs. It has also been exported across the world, being used on the US high speed train

Acela The ''Acela'' ( ; originally the ''Acela Express'' until September 2019) is Amtrak's flagship passenger train service along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) in the Northeastern United States between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 13 intermedia ...

and the

Eurostar Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, connecting Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The service is operated by the Eurostar Group which was formed from the merger of Eurostar, ...

Class 373.

Gallery

Image:Brecknell willis low height.jpg, Low height pantograph Image:20091223 375 Supertram 114.jpg,

Sheffield Supertram The South Yorkshire Supertram, sometimes referred to as the Sheffield Supertram, is a tram and tram-train network covering Sheffield and Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. The network is owned and operated by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Co ...

Siemens-Duewag Supertram The Siemens-Duewag Supertram is a fleet of 25 trams built by Siemens Mobility, Siemens-Duewag of Düsseldorf, Germany in 1992 for use on the South Yorkshire Supertram light rail network in England. They were the only trams in use on the network ...

Image:Metrolink tram in Eccles.jpg,

Manchester Metrolink Manchester Metrolink is a tram/light rail system in Greater Manchester, England. The network has List of Manchester Metrolink tram stops, 99 stops along of standard-gauge route, making it the Transport in the United Kingdom#Trams and light ra ...

AnsaldoBreda T-68 The Firema T-68 was a model of light rail passenger vehicle first operated on the Manchester Metrolink network in Greater Manchester, England in 1992. It was constructed by Firema specifically as a high-floor, articulated bi-directional tram ...

Image:Kinki Sharyo P3010 1.jpg,

Los Angeles Metro Rail The Los Angeles Metro Rail is an urban rail transit system serving Los Angeles County, California, United States, consisting of six lines: four light rail lines (the A, C, E and K lines) and two rapid transit lines (the B and D lines), ...

Kinki Sharyo P3010 The P3010 is an Articulated car, articulated light rail car used on the Los Angeles Metro Rail system manufactured by Kinki Sharyo, operated on all of the Metro Rail light rail lines. Ordered by Metro in 2012, the first train entered service i ...

Image:2 Pantograph.jpg,

Siemens Desiro The Siemens Desiro (, , ) is a family of Diesel multiple unit, diesel or electric multiple unit passenger trains developed by Siemens Mobility, a division of the German Siemens, Siemens AG conglomerate. The main variants are the Desiro Classic, ...

Class 360/2 pantograph with the characteristic aerofoils clearly visible Image:Acela overhead view.jpg, Overhead view of the Brecknell Willis High Speed pantograph in action on the US

vehicle

References

External links

Brecknell Willis

Details of different UK railway pantographs

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120515121734/http://www.traintesting.com/BW%20Highreach%20pan.htm Traintesting webpage on Brecknell Willis High Reach pantograph development {{Railway electrification Chard, Somerset Tram technology British companies established in 1854 Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom Electric railways in the United Kingdom Pantographs (rail)