Robert A Riddles

[Vespa]

Hello all, this is my first post on here and I am aware that Mr Riddles is possibly low in the pecking order for LNER designers/engineers. Can someone please enlighten me as to why he got the name "Robin", when he was given Robert as his name? I am researching his designs and his influence of designs more credited to the likes of W A Stanier etc. This small anomally is seemingingly difficult to explain.

[65447]

The 'steamindex' website is always a mine of information and source of sources, this being the extensive collection and notes re Riddles: http://www.steamindex.com/people/riddles.htm as is Grace's guide: http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Robert_Riddles - perhaps you will find the answer in one of those.

Alternative forenames are not uncommon and for several uncomplicated reasons - e.g. to distinguish between two like-named members of a family, an alternate or diminutive name from childhood, a personal, sibling or parental preference, what he was called as an apprentice and so on. HNG was called 'Tim', from 'Tiny Tim'...

[Vespa]

Thank you for your reply. My wife informs me that Robin is an alternative to Robert.

[Amandajackson]

Robert riddles is also an ancestor of mine, he happens to be a cousin of my nans grandmother which makes him my 1st cousin 3 times removed. I have been researching my family tree on ancestry as I knew I had a big family but didn't quite know how big it was until I started the tree.

[Mickey]

I like all of his B.R. Standard locos in particular and always have done.

Apparently Robert Riddles was almost unique amongst British CME as he was a qualified loco driver and during the 1920s usually drove trains between Crewe, Manchester & Carlisle.

Mickey

[65447]

I like all of his B.R. Standard locos in particular and always have done.

Apparently Robert Riddles was almost unique amongst British CM&EEs as he was a qualified loco driver and during the 1920s usually drove trains between Crewe, Manchester & Carlisle.

Mickey

/pedant mode on
Unique means that the subject is the only one, so almost unique is meaningless in that context. There have been very few Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineers; the majority of those who were capable of driving (and one must include the extensive period before qualification was required) were the engineers of the early locomotives and/or the railways that they ran on, the engineer to the railway company (who may well have been a civil rather than mechanical or locomotive engineer), those bearing the title locomotive engineer or locomotive superintendent and even in the Grouping period there was a distinction between Mechanical and Electrical Engineers. The LNER ever only had a Chief Mechanical Engineer; the post of Electrical Engineer reported to the senior position but was never combined with it.

The LNER Running Department had several senior staff who were well qualified to drive as well as being fine engineers trained through the works apprentice system, of which R H N Hardy is perhaps the best known.
/pedant mode off

[Mickey]

Unique means that the subject is the only one, so almost unique is meaningless in that context.

Yes you are dead right 65447 and I thought the same thing when I read that statement about him being 'almost unique' as a qualified loco driver elsewhere but I just quoted it as it was written.

Also I amended my original post Robert Riddles was a CME and not a CM&EE as posted.

Sorry folks.

Mickey

[Hatfield Shed]

...I am aware that Mr Riddles is possibly low in the pecking order for LNER designers/engineers... I am researching his designs and his influence of designs more credited to the likes of W A Stanier etc...

While Riddles never was in the employment of the LNER or its constituents, he was very heavily influenced by Doncaster's engineering practise in one critical respect. When he obtained the BR CME's office and was able to have locos designed and constructed, he abandoned the narrow firebox dead end which had run it's path at Swindon, Crewe and Derby; for the clearly evident advantages of the wide firebox which had proven so effective in general service on the GNR, LNER and latterly SR under Bulleid. No more attempts to get 6P to 8P capability out of 4-6-0s, his largest 4-6-0 was the Standard 5; designs for higher sustained power output were all wide firebox. His sole example of 8P locomotive design edged yet closer to where Doncaster had been heading under Gresley, and interestingly this design did not reveal its full power potential until given the Kylchap ejector system...

[Robpulham]

Thank you for your reply. My wife informs me that Robin is an alternative to Robert.

Apparently I am called Robin because my Dad who was named Robert was called Robin throughout his childhood.