Thomas Edward Hett Heywood (29 November 1877 – 26 November 1953) was a British engineer. During his career, he worked for the

Taff Vale Railway The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) was a standard gauge railway in South Wales, built by the Taff Vale Railway Company to serve the iron and coal industries around Merthyr Tydfil and to connect them with docks in Cardiff. It was opened in stage ...

, the

Burma Railway Company Rail transport in Myanmar (then Burma) began in 1877. Three private rail companies were nationalised nineteen years later. During the Japanese occupation of Burma, Allied prisoners of war were forced to build the Burma Railway The Burma Rail ...

, the

Great North of Scotland Railway The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) was one of the two smallest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping, operating in the north-east of the country. Formed in 1845, it carried its first passengers the fro ...

and the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

(LNER).

Career

He trained at the Taff Vale Railway under

Tom Hurry Riches Tom Hurry Riches (1846–1911) was a British engineer who became the Locomotive Superintendent of the Taff Vale Railway in October 1873, and held the post until his death on 4 September 1911. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest ...

and won a Whitworth Exhibition gold medal for engineering in 1899. He then worked as a draughtsman and inspector at

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

. In 1902, he became Assistant Locomotive, Carriage and Wagon Superintendent of the Burma Railway Company. After returning from Burma he again worked for the Taff Vale Railway as Junior Assistant Superintendent at

Penarth Penarth ( , ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, approximately south of Cardiff city centre on the west shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay. Penarth is a Seaside resort#Brit ...

Dock. In 1914, he became

Locomotive Superintendent 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 Great North of Scotland Railway. After the 1923

Grouping Grouping generally refers to the creation of one or more groups, or to the groups themselves. More specifically, grouping may refer to: * Shot grouping in shooting sports and other uses of firearms * the use of symbols of grouping in mathemati ...

, Heywood's post ceased to exist but he became Running Superintendent of the Northern Scottish Area of the LNER.

Innovations

Heywood expanded the use of

superheating In thermodynamics, superheating (sometimes referred to as boiling retardation, or boiling delay) is the phenomenon in which a liquid is heated to a temperature higher than its boiling point, without boiling. This is a so-called ''metastable state ...

on the GNSR, and created a new class of superheated

4-4-0 4-4-0, in the Whyte notation, denotes a steam locomotive with a wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles (usually in a leading bogie), four powered and coupled driving wheels on two axles, and no trailing wheels. First built in the ...

locomotives which became the

GNSR Classes V and F The GNSR Classes V and F is a type of 4-4-0 steam locomotive built by Neilson, Reid & Co., Inverurie Works, North British Locomotive Co. and GNSR Inverurie Works for the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR). It consisted of GNSR class V (in ...

Retirement and death

He retired in June 1942 and died at

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

in November 1953.lner.info

References

External links

* British railway mechanical engineers Locomotive builders and designers 1953 deaths 1877 births British expatriates in British Burma {{UK-engineer-stub