- Whale Buffer
- A type of buffer
 used on locomotives, it had a short fully-tapered stock and circular base with six bolts. Introduced whilst George Whale was Locomotive Superintendent.
- Whale, George (1842—1910)
- Chief Mechanical Engineer of the LNWR from 1903 to 1908. Formerly Running Superintendent, he was not a design engineer, but was responsible for the modernisation of the LNWR engine fleet with the introduction of the very successful “Precursor” and “Experiment” classes.
- Wheel Base
- The horizontal distance between wheels on a vehicle. The wheel base was important when using turntables to ensure that the vehicle would fit, and on curves, since vehicles with a short wheelbase will traverse curves more easily.
- Wheel Tapper
- A man employed to walk along an express train, when stopped at an intermediate station, tapping the carriage wheels with a hammer; any crack in a wheel would be revealed by its failure to ring true; this was a regular practice at Crewe.
- Whistle (Engine)
- Whistles were not only used as warnings (eg to a gang working on the line) but also for working the trains. At a specific signal box before a junction the driver would indicate, by a pattern of long and short blasts on the whistle, the line the train needed to take at the junction. From that point forward the signalman offered the train to the next box with a bell code giving both its class and its route. LNWR whistles had a very distinctive shrill note.
- Whitehaven Cleator & Egremont Railway (WC&ER)
- The Act for the line was obtained on 16th June 1854, and was opened to goods traffic on 1st July 1857. For the same reasons that led to the birth of the Cleator & WorkingtonJunction Railway, and because of the founding of that railway, the WC&ER was vested in the LNWR in 1877. After a bit of a row with the Furness Railway over an agreement they made not to act independently, the railway was vested jointly in the LNWR and the Furness Railway in 1878. The railway operated their own rolling stock, which was divided up between the two companies and was locally known as the ‘Joint Lines’.
- Whitehaven & Furness Junction Railway (W&FJR)
- Created by an Act of 21st July 1845, it was opened throughout in November 1850. It shared its rolling stock with the Whitehaven Junction Railway until it was amalgamated with the Furness Railway at the same time as the other two local lines (1866).
- Whitehaven Junction Railway (WJR)
- It obtained an Act of Parliament on 4th July 1844 and was opened throughout in March 1847. It had a range of rolling stock that was eventually managed as joint stock between itself and the Whitehaven & Furness Junction Railway. With the Cockermouth & Workington Railway, it was amalgamated with the LNWR in 1866.
- Whitworth 2-4-0 Locomotive Class
- See Small Jumbo. No.1045 Whitworth was the first of this class into traffic in September 1889.
- Whyte Wheel Arrangement
- In 1900 the American engineer F W Whyte proposed a system to notate the wheel arrangement of a locomotive. The number of wheels is counted starting with leading undriven carrying wheels, followed after a dash by the number of coupled driving wheels, another dash and finally the number of undriven trailing wheels. Tank engines are indicated by appending a ‘T’ to the wheel arrangement (e.g. 0-6-2T). This can be further refined by using ‘ST’ to indicate a saddle tank (e.g. 0-4-0ST), ‘PT’ for pannier tanks (e.g. 0-6-0PT) and ‘WT’ for a well tank (e.g. 0-4-2WT). Under this system a ‘T’ on its own indicates side tanks. Some wheel arrangements were so common they also had names. See Pacific, Atlantic and Consolidation.
- Wicket Gate
- Subsidiary gates provided at level crossings for pedestrians. The wicket gates were not inter-locked with the signals and were normally locked shut only as the train approached, thus saving time for people wishing to cross the line. In some situations a footbridge was provided instead of pedestrian gates.
- Wigan Branch Railway
- Incorporated 1830 and opened in 1832 as a 7-mile branch from the Liverpool & Manchester Railway at Parkside to Wigan. There was also a 2 mile branch to Springs, on the Leeds Liverpool Canal (hence the later ‘Springs Branch’ engine shed at the junction) which was opened in 1838, the year in which the W.B.R. joined with the Preston & Wigan to form the North Union Railway. Most of the W.B.R. is now part of the West Coast main line.
- Williams, Charles (1883—1970)
- The authority on LNWR engines; he gave S.S. Scott a lot of help and continued researching Crewe loco History after Scott’ death.
- Wind Shoes
- To help prevent the wheels of locomotives slipping on greasy rails sanding was introduced whereby loose dry sand was dropped onto the rails just ahead of the driving wheels. The LNWR experimented in 1913 with wind shoes attached to these sanding pipes which helped prevent the sand being blown away before reaching the wheels. In practice they were vulnerable to damage and made little difference so were removed after only a few years.
- Wirral Railway
- The Wirral Railway ran from West Kirby, where it made a connection with the West Kirby branch of the Birkenhead Railway, to Birkenhead Park station, where it made an end-on connection with the Mersey Railway, for Liverpool. Branches ran from Bidston, where there was a junction with the Chester and Wrexham lines of the Great Central, to New Brighton and to Seacombe. The Wirral Railway became part of the LMS at the grouping.
|
Prev. Page