Douglas Earle Marsh (1862–1933) was an English railway engineer, and was the Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the

London, Brighton and South Coast Railway The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR (known also as the Brighton line, the Brighton Railway or the Brighton)) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1922. Its territory formed a rough triangle, with London at ...

from November 1904 until his early retirement on health grounds in July 1911.

Early career

Marsh was born at

Aylsham Aylsham ( or ) is a historic market town and civil parish on the River Bure in north Norfolk, England, nearly north of Norwich. The river rises near Melton Constable, upstream from Aylsham and continues to Great Yarmouth and the North Sea ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

on 4 January 1862, and was educated at

Brighton College Brighton College is a fee-charging, co-educational, boarding and day public school for boys and girls aged 3 to 18 in Brighton and Hove, England. The school has three sites: Brighton College (the senior school, ages 11 to 18), Brighton Co ...

and

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He worked for the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

under

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becoming an Assistant Works Manager at

Swindon Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swi ...

in 1888. In 1896 he became Chief Assistant Mechanical Engineer of the Great Northern Railway at

Doncaster railway works Doncaster Railway Works is a railway workshop located in Doncaster, England. Also referred to as ''The Plant'', it was established by the Great Northern Railway in 1853, replacing the previous works in Boston and Peterborough. Until 1867 it u ...

under H.A. Ivatt, where he participated in the design of the Ivatt Atlantics.

LB&SCR

Marsh succeeded

R. J. Billinton Robert John Billinton (5 April 1844 – 7 November 1904) was the Locomotive, Carriage, Wagon and Marine Superintendent of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway from 1890 until his death. Early career He was born in Wakefield either on 5 Ap ...

as the Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent at

Brighton Works Brighton railway works (also known as Brighton locomotive works, or just the Brighton works) was one of the earliest railway-owned locomotive repair works, founded in 1840 by the London and Brighton Railway in Brighton, England, and thus pre-d ...

on 23 November 1904. Marsh's locomotive classes included two designs of Atlantic 4-4-2 (

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and H2 Class), and four designs of 4-4-2T ( I1, I2, I3, and I4). In 1910 he designed two 4-6-2T tank locomotives of the J1 and J2 classes. His least successful design was the LB&SCR C3 class

0-6-0 is the Whyte notation designation for steam locomotives with a wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles, and no trailing wheels. Historically, this was the most common wheel arrangement used o ...

freight locomotives. Marsh also rebuilt many of his predecessors' locomotives with larger boilers thereby creating the A1X, B2X, C2X,

E4X ECMAScript for XML (E4X) was an extension to ECMAScript (which includes ActionScript, JavaScript, and JScript) to add native support for XML. The goal was to provide a simpler alternative to the Document Object Model, DOM interface for accessing XML ...

, E5X and E6X classes. In 1907 he introduced an example of the Schmidt superheater on one of his

LB&SCR I3 class The LB&SCR I3 class was a class of 4-4-2 steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of ...

locomotives, with dramatically improved results. Whilst at Brighton he abolished the Stroudley yellow livery for passenger locomotives and removed the names from them. During Marsh's period in office

Brighton railway works Brighton railway works (also known as Brighton locomotive works, or just the Brighton works) was one of the earliest railway-owned locomotive repair works, founded in 1840 by the London and Brighton Railway in Brighton, England, and thus pre-d ...

built up a serious backlog of locomotives awaiting repair, and by 1910 30% of the locomotive stock was unusable. Marsh received much of the blame for this, although it was partly because the works was overwhelmed at the time.

Resignation and retirement

Marsh was never popular within the workforce at Brighton. He resigned on the grounds of deteriorating health in July 1911, following accusations of a number of irregularities in his accounting. Shortly after his resignation he became a consulting engineer for the

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until 1932. He died in

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in May 1933.

Patents

* GB191028252, published 30 November 1911, Improvements in and relating to systems and apparatus for washing out and filling locomotive boilers and the like

References

Sources

* D.L. Bradley, ''Locomotives of the LB&SCR, Parts II. and III.''

Railway Correspondence and Travel Society The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society (RCTS) is a national society founded in Cheltenham, England in 1928 to bring together those interested in rail transport and locomotives. Since 1929 the Society has published a regular journal ''The ...

, 1972. , 1978. * Klaus Marx, Douglas Earle Marsh: his life and times. Oakwood Press, 2005. {{DEFAULTSORT:Marsh, D. E. 1862 births 1933 deaths English engineers Locomotive builders and designers Locomotive superintendents London, Brighton and South Coast Railway people English railway mechanical engineers People from Aylsham