Advertisement for rails by Dick, Kerr & Co. in the Street Railway Journal, March 1896, on display at the San Francisco Railway Museum
W.B. Dick and Company was founded in 1854 in Glasgow by William Bruce Dick. The company were initially oil refiners and manufacturers of paint used for coating the bottom of ships. They had depots and works in Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Barrow-in-Furness, Cardiff and Hamburg by 1890.[2] From 1883 the company joined with John Kerr and under its new name, expanded into rail transport, supplying tramway equipment and rolling stock and built around fifty locomotives up to 1919.
In 1885 Dick, Kerr and Co. started construction of 6 steam launches at its Britannia Works, Kilmarnock.[3] In 1888 it produced the 'Griffin' gas engine which is described and illustrated in The Engineer.[4] This 6-stroke engine was devised to get around Otto's patent of the 4-stroke cycle. By 1892 Dick, Kerr was producing gas engines in a wide range of sizes using the Otto principle, both single and double acting.[5]
In 1890 it took limited company status, as railway and tramway appliance makers and as iron and steel founders and electricians. There was a public offer of shares to acquire the engineering and contracting company of the same name –reasons given were the advancing years of the senior partner and the need for investment to expand the works at Kilmarnock including a modern iron and steel foundry.[6]
Until the late 1890s the company had largely produced steam tram engines,[7] but in 1888 they bought the assets of the Patent Cable Tramways Corporation (including the Highgate Cable Tramway) and in 1892 they built the Brixton Cable Tramway for the London Tramways Company.[8] They built other cable tramways in Douglas, Matlock and two in Edinburgh, but while cable tramways overcame problems where horse tramways struggled with hills, it was the electric tramway that came to dominate, and Dick Kerr became one of the largest manufacturers of electric tramway cars.[9]
Generating Station, Preston, from a 1900 advertisement in the Street Railway Journal
The company facilities in Preston, Lancashire, were acquired in 1893 along with the railway and tramway plant activities of Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning which had been bought from Kerr Stuart and Company.
The company was registered on 24 August 1899, as a reconstruction of a company of the same name, to take over a business of engineers and contractors. In 1899 the "English Electric Manufacturing Co." was incorporated as a public company, for purpose of manufacturing, at its own new works at Preston, every variety of electrical machinery, particularly for use by railways and tramways.[10] In 1900 it was an exhibitor at the First International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibition in London.
Dick Kerr controls on a Glasgow tram
In 1902 the bulk of the capital of the English Electric Manufacturing Co was acquired,[11] and the capital of that company largely increased, which gave Dick, Kerr and Co a factory at Preston. In the same year, the company was a major exhibitor at the Second International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibition in London.
In 1904 Dick, Kerr and Co. were contractors for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's electrification.[12] From 1904 to 1912, the company supplied first generation tram cars to Hong Kong Tramways. The 60 single deck cars were retired in 1935. In 1910 they began construction of steam turbines under the Bergmann patents, and one year later built a lamp factory at Preston, to make metal filament lamps.
They also produced 100 petrol-electric locomotives for the War Department Light Railways. These locomotives weighed 7 tons and had a 45hp Dorman 4JO four-cylinder petrol engine driving a 30kW DC generator at 1000 rpm.[13] This supplied current at up to 500 volts to 2 traction-motors driving the 32 inch wheels via a 6.68:1 reduction gear. The motors had an hourly rating of 25hp, allowing the locomotive to haul 100tons at 5.2mph. The two motors were run in parallel, with speed control by altering the generator voltage, and either motor could be cut out in event of a failure.
The generator also offered electric starting of the petrol engine by connecting to another locomotive, and the locomotives could also be used as mobile generators. In a parallel order 100 similarly rated locomotives were made by British Westinghouse, who were probably the original designers, though the DC generator/DC motor speed control mechanism is an early example of the application of a Ward Leonard control system (Harry Ward Leonard patented its application to vehicles in 1903).[14] The selection of this drive system was in part because the War Department had originally considered using overhead electric as an alternative way of powering the locomotives, but it was subsequently decided this was not practical.
Dick, Kerr supplied the New South Wales Railways and Tramways (NSWR&T) with 25 cycle alternators for use in Ultimo Power Station and White Bay Power Station, which were commissioned from 1913 to 1918.
Towards the end of the war the company took steps to change from a war footing to a peacetime one, which included the takeover of Willans and Robsinson, and the United Electric Car Company, which were completed by November 1918 - they had also cemented an alliance with Siemens Brothers & Co Ltd, and established companies in France and Japan in connection with railway and tramway products. Seeking new and well equipped engineering capability they had reached an agreement with Coventry Ordnance Works Ltd.
In 1919, the Britannia works in Kilmarnock was sold to the Kilmarnock Engineering Company, who according to their 1925 advert[15] produced steam, electric and petrol locomotives as well as mining gear, rails, points, crossings, and rolling stock. Although they were in production until at least the mid-1930s, few if any of their locomotives and other products survive.
The absorbed companies retained much of their original structure, and the English Electric Company advertised itself in 1920 as a specialised manufacturer of electrical machinery at:
Dick Kerr Works, Preston
Ordnance Works, Coventry
Phoenix Works, Bradford
Siemens Works, Stafford
Willans Works, Rugby
The Dick Kerr name was kept for the works in Preston until well into the 1950s.
Surviving Dick Kerr products
Locomotives
Dick Kerr locomotives known to have survived:
600mm (1ft11+5⁄8in) gauge 4wPE from 1917, at the Tacot de Lacs, France
2ft (610mm) gauge 0-4-2T "Gresham" of 1910 (Builder's Number unknown), ex Marian Mill #3, Queensland, plinthed in Pioneer Shire Council Park, Seaforth 1964. Now privately owned and stored at Echuca, Victoria pending restoration
2ft (610mm) gauge 0-4-0T "Valdora" of 1893 (Builder's Number unknown), Racecourse Mill then to Moreton Mill in 1937, Queensland. Plinthed 1964 - on display at Nambour, Queensland
2ft6in (762mm) gauge 0-4-2T MTR No.2 of 1910 (Builder's Number unknown), built for the Karachi Port Trust, then worked at the Marala Timber Depot (1917–1922) before finally coming to the Creosating Plant at Dilwan on the Northern Railway of India. The locomotive was modified by the Amritsar Workshops in 2000 and is now preserved in non-working order at the National Rail Museum, New Delhi
2ft6in (762mm) gauge 0-4-2T MTR No.1 of 1910 (Builder's Number unknown), presumably also built for the Karachi Port Trust, then worked at the Marala Timber Depot before finally coming to the Northern Railway of India. The locomotive was renovated by the Amritsar Workshops in September 1990 and is now plinthed at the entrance to the General Manager's Office of the Northern Railway of India, Baroda House, New Delhi.
Electric Tram 19 – Built in circa 1901. This narrow-gauge open-top double-decker tram, probably ran on the Dudley-Stourbridge route. Stored at the Black Country Living Museum
Leicester 76 - Leicester City Tramcar 76 saw service from 1904 to 1947, after which it was used as a cricket pavilion. The tramcar arrived at the National Tramway Museum in 1960 and has been fully restored.[18]
Lisbon tram series 400-474, built in 1901 by the St. Louis Car Company, equipped with controllers supplied by Dick, Kerr & Co.; as of 2020 survive numbers 436 (in Portland), 435, 437, 441, 444, and 446 (in Portugal).[19] Lisbon “caixote” cars of series 403÷610, rebodied locally in 1960-1961 partly based on some of those 400-474 cars with inherited controllers; as of 2014, number 442 is known to have survived.[20]
Other Products
An example of the unusual 6-stroke Griffin gas engine manufactured by Dick, Kerr & Co is on display at the Anson Engine Museum.
A V-skip railway truck of 2 foot gauge manufactured by Dick, Kerr & Co is preserved at the Moseley Railway Trust.
The English Electric Company Limited (EE) was a British industrial manufacturer formed after the armistice ending the fighting of World War I by amalgamating five businesses which, during the war, made munitions, armaments and aeroplanes.
Brush Traction was a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England whose operations have now been merged into the Wabtec company's Doncaster UK operations.
The Ganz Machinery Works Holding is a Hungarian holding company. Its products are related to rail transport, power generation, and water supply, among other industries.
British Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company was a subsidiary of the Pittsburgh, US-based Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. British Westinghouse would become a subsidiary of Metropolitan-Vickers in 1919; and after Metropolitan-Vickers merged with British Thomson-Houston in 1929, it became part of Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in 1959. Further consolidation saw AEI taken over by GEC in 1967.
Motor Rail was a British locomotive-building company, originally based in Lewes, Sussex, they moved in 1916 to Bedford. Loco manufacture ceased in 1987, and the business line sold to Alan Keef Ltd of Ross-on-Wye, who continue to provide spares and have built several locomotives to Motor Rail designs.
The Drewry Car Co was a railway locomotive and railcar manufacturer and sales organisation from 1906 to 1984. At the start and the end of its life it built its own products, for the rest of the time it sold vehicles manufactured by sub-contractors. It was separate from the lorry-builder, Shelvoke & Drewry, but it is believed that James Sidney Drewry was involved with both companies.
The Portsdown and Horndean Light Railway was a tram service that ran initially from Cosham to Horndean in Hampshire, England.
A tram engine is a steam locomotive specially built, or modified, to run on a street, or roadside, tramway track.
The stud contact system is an obsolete ground-level power supply system for electric trams. Power supply studs were set in the road at intervals and connected to a buried electric cable by switches operated by magnets on the tramcars. Current was collected from the studs by a "skate" or "ski collector" under the tramcar. The system was popular for a while in the early 1900s but soon fell out of favour because of the unreliability of the magnetic switches, largely due to friction and rapid corrosion affecting its cast iron moving components.
A trench railway was a type of railway that represented military adaptation of early 20th-century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of soldiers and artillery at the front lines required delivery of enormous quantities of food, ammunition and fortification construction materials where transport facilities had been destroyed. Reconstruction of conventional roads and railways was too slow, and fixed facilities were attractive targets for enemy artillery. Trench railways linked the front with standard gauge railway facilities beyond the range of enemy artillery. Empty cars often carried litters returning wounded from the front.
The Rothesay tramway was a narrow gauge electric tramway on the Isle of Bute, Scotland. It opened in 1882 as a 4 ft gauge horse tramway, was converted to a 3 ft 6 in gauge electric tramway in 1902, and closed in 1936. It was the only public tramway to be built on a Scottish island.
The United Electric Car Company was a tramcar manufacturer from 1905 to 1917 in Preston, Lancashire, England.
Northampton Corporation Tramways operated the tramway service in Northampton between 1901 and 1934.
Coventry Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Coventry, England, between 1912 and 1940.
The Dublin and Lucan Steam Tramway operated a 3 ft narrow gauge steam tramway service between Dublin and Lucan between 1880 and 1897. The company was renamed as the Dublin and Lucan Electric Railway Company and steam power was replaced by electricity in 1897. This service ran until 1925.
Wigan Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Wigan, England, between 1901 and 1931. The first tramway service in the town was run by the Wigan Tramways Company, whose horse trams began carrying passengers in 1880. They began replacing horses with steam tram locomotives from 1882, but the company failed in 1890 when a Receiver was appointed to manage it. The Wigan & District Tramways Company took over the system in 1893 and ran it until 1902. Meanwhile, Wigan Corporation were planning their own tramway system, obtaining an authorising Act of Parliament in 1893, and a second one in 1898. This enabled them to build electric tramways, and in 1902, they took over the lines of the Wigan & District Tramways Company.
At the peak of Britain’s first-generation tramways, it was possible to travel by tram all the way from Pier Head at Liverpool to the Pennines in Rochdale by tram.
Huddersfield Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Huddersfield, England, between 1883 and 1940. It initially used steam locomotives pulling unpowered tramcars, but as the system was expanded, a decision was taken to change to electric traction in 1900, and the first electric trams began operating in February 1901. The system was built to the unusual gauge of 4 ft 7+3⁄4 in, in the hope that coal wagon from neighbouring coal tramways, which used that gauge, could be moved around the system. This did not occur, but two coal trams were used to delivered coal to three mills.
The Great Grimsby Street Tramways Company was a tramway serving Grimsby and Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, England. It was a subsidiary of The Provincial Tramways Company. They opened a horse tramway in 1881, running from the Wheatsheaf Inn in Bargate to the border with Cleethorpes, with a branch along Freeman Street, and extended the line into Cleethorpes in 1887. It followed the trend of many British systems, and was converted to an electric tramway in December 1901. Small extensions were made to the system at both ends, but the basic plan of the system remained the same throughout its life.
References
↑ Lowe, J.W., (1989) British Steam Locomotive Builders, Guild Publishing.
↑ Mário Vieira: Lisboa - Listagem de Eléctricos (2014.02)
↑ "Electricity generator". MOSI - MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY. Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester. 2007. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
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