| Ron Jarvis, Ivan Andrews |  |
The Chackfield biography has a foreword by Jim Jarvis:
My brother Ron had hoped to write his own account of his interesting
career on the railways, and he retained a quantity of reports and records
for the purpose. Unfortunately he did not manage to start the book, initially
because of the range of useful activities he undertook during retirement,
followed by several years of distressing disability, which he bore with great
fortitude and patience.
His store of technical records have been retained by his nephew by marriage,
David Ward, and made available to the author for use in this excellent account
of Ron's life, and to complement the wealth of personal reminiscences by
family members and his colleagues during various stages of his career. Although
he did not reach the heights he had always aimed for, he nevertheless had
a significant influence on various matters in his own quiet, but persistent,
way, and gained the respect of many of the leading railway engineering offieers
in this country and also on the Continent.
Most of his achievements have never been recorded for the public, apart from
his name being widely associated with the rebuilding of the Bulleid Pacifies.
Hence this book admirably fills the void, and describes his unique experiences
with the gestation of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS)
articulated 3-car diesel train; supervising the assembly of Stanier class
'8F' 2-8-0s at Sivas on the wild Anatolian Highlands of Turkey; the arduous
Machine Tool Mission to India in 1944 led by Sir William Stanier; together
with plenty of more routine matters such as the design of several of the
British Railways (BR) standard steam classes, plus electric and electro-diesel
locomotives on the Southern Region, and finally the design of the mechanical
parts of the prototype High Speed train (HST). Despite his lifelong interest
in steam locomotives of all periods and pedigrees, he gave his full concentration
to the development of newer forms of traction. He also strove hard for the
preservation of really historic locomotives, drawings and photographs, etc.,
so it was natural for him to take on, virtually single-handed, his coach
restoration projects for the Festiniog Railway.
Needless to say, he was a wonderful brother to me. Despite a 10 year age
difference, he was always a real companion, whom I admired even as a toddler.
Apart from his academic achievements, he was an outstanding craftsman with
tools and instruments of all sorts. He encouraged me to share in his activities
in model railways and photography, and patiently, but firmly, instructed
me how to achieve higher quality in my handiwork as well as behaviour. Whilst
the story cannot be first-hand, the author has compiled an excellent review
of Ron's life and career, which gives great satisfaction to our family and,
hopefully, to the readers. I am delighted to have been invited by the author
to write this Foreword.
Ronald Guy Jarvis
Born 5 November 1911 in Harpenden and was educated at St George's
School thereat, before becoming a priviledged apprentice at Derby Works.and
died in Llandudno on 2 September 1994. Ron Jarvis had a very interesting
life and railway career which included working with Tommy Hornbuckle on the
Stanier three-car DMU, the preparation of 8F locomotives for service during
WW2. He had served his apprenticeship at Derby under H.G. Ivatt at same time
as H.A.V. Bulleid. Formerly Chief Technical Assistant at Derby (he represented
the LMR on the committee which investigated the output from the Interchange
trials of 1948 and represented Southern Region (Brighton Works) on team which
designed British Railways Standard locomotives. His input was greatest on
the class 4 2-6-4T and class 4 4-6-0 designs, although he was involved in
designing the 9F and the Franco-Costi boiler variant. He was also responsible
for the re-design of the "rebuilt" Merchant Navy class and Bulleid light
Pacifics. He also modified the front-end of the Maunsell 2-6-0s. He was deeply
involved in th preservation of railway records, especially those at Derby,
and worked as a volunteer on the Festiniog Railway. He is buried in St. Peter's
in Llanbedr (Humm J. Rly Canal
Hist. Soc., 2015, 38, 252). The Chackfield
biography is excellent although it does not appear (not in index) cover
his work on exhaust steam injectors acknowledged by
Metcalfe page 117..
Papers
Jarvis, R.G. The railways and coal. J.
Instn Loco. Engrs, 1952, 42, 390-404. Discussion: 404-24.
[Contribution 515]
British Railways consumed 15 million tons at a cost of £40m.
Noted testing to make savings, plus some anodyne comments on poppet valves
and high pressure boilers. On page 414 made some observations on experiments
with pulverized fuel.
Koffman, J.L. and Jarvis, R.G. Air springs as applied to multiple-unit vehicles
for heavy suburban services. J. Instn
Loco. Engrs., 1963, 53, 461-505. (Paper No. 649)
Discussion on paper by Topham The running man's ideal locomotive. J. Instn Loco. Engrs., 1946, 36, 62-5
Chackfield,
J.E. Ron Jarvis: from Midland Compound to the HST. 2004.
Excellent biography which includes Jarvis's involvement (Chapter 3)
in assembling 8F locomotives in neutral Turkey during WW2 and in the receipt
of them at the port of Iskenderun. Chapter 6 reccounts the return of 8Fs
from the Canal Zone to the LMS following WW2.
Formerly with English Electric (Cox: Locomotive panorama 1). He developed the mobile testing units (essentially electrical generators) with dynamometer car following the work of Prof. Nordmann of the Reichsbahn. Rimmer shows that Andrews could be oblivious to railway operating requirements.Wise noted his railway experience gained in the USA..
Theses (London University)
1. An investigation into the heat transfer of various air cooled tubes. 2.
The application of the preceding thesis to the design of condensers for
locomotives. MSc 1931.
An investigation of stresses in locomotive coupling rods. PhD 1946
Papers
The development of instruments for measuring the performance of steam locomotives
with the mobile testing plant. Trans. Soc. Instrum. Technol., 1957,
9, 45-60. Disc. : 60-1.16 illus., 10 diagrs., plan. Bibliog.
Heat losses of locomotive boilers. Engineering, 1955, 180,
209-11. illus., 6 tables. (REA 9670)
Tests of one of the class on the mobile test plant.
The mobile testing plant of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
Proc. Instn. mech. Engrs.,
1948, 158, 450-63. Disc.: 463-76+ 6 plates, 22 illus., 14 diagrs.,
2 plans, table. Bibliog.
A dynamometer car plus a set of coaches equipped with electric generators
which acted as a variable "load" for the locomotive being tested. Paper awarded
George Stephenson Prize: see
Locomotive Mag., 1949, 55,
37
Stresses in locomotive coupling and connecting rods. J. Instn Loco
Engrs, 1952, 42, 533-603 (Paper 517).
The design of both coupling and connecting rods is complicated by
the considerable inertia forces to which they may be subjected while working,
and as speeds and loads continually increase, designs are tending toward
the critical, and it therefore becomes increasingly important, both that
the working of such rods is fully understood, and that the loads to which
they are subjected in service should be ascertained. A theoretical paper
with 21 citations to other research on stress.
Comment on others papers
Sanford, D.W. The relationship
between smokebox and boiler proportions. J. Instn Loco. Engrs., 1944,
34, 40-53. Disc. : 53-76. 5 diagrs., 2 tables(Paper
451).
Andrews.. (55-6) commented upon smokebox efficiency and its
measurement.
Rimmer, Alan. Testing times at Derby: a
'Privileged' view of steam. Usk:
Oakwood, 2004. 120pp. (RS14)
Was involved in low speed tests with the mobile testing unit on the
London Transport Wimbledon branch: see page 53.
Jarvis, James (Jim)
Born in Harpenden in 1922, died in Luton on 21 August 2012. Jim was
the younger brother by ten years of Ron Jarvis who was Mechanical Engineer
(Design) for British Railways. Their father was the founder of the building
company Jarvis which has undertaken some civil contracts with Network Rail.
Jim worked for the LMS and later BR on locomotive design and development
and his qualifications included an M.Sc from Illinois University awarded
after a two year scholarship which involved working in the Roanoke Works
of the Norfolk and Western RR. In particular Jim was proud of having devised
the dynamic balancing for the Standard 9F 2-10-0s (material on Internet,
but source not given), using principles he had learnt in North America.
He also visited Canada and his photographs of Toronto and Montreal taken
in 1952 have been published by the Modellers of North America. Jim was in
the forefront of modern-day railway photography, as early as the 1930s going
linesiding in Scandinavia and making a steam tour of South Africa (as he
liked to recall, the Knysna branch was Class 7 4-8-0s in those days) with
an older brother. He was quickly into 35mm colour and brought back many excellent
pictures of North American steam from his university stint in the USA in
the fifties. Jim travelled widely in search of steam. He loved northern Italy
and published some of his pictures of the Val Gardena line privately. He
had wonderful photos of Spanish trains great and small taken on a number
of trips with Peter Gray, John Dewing and others when the going was good
in the 1960s. Jim Jarvis was a stalwart member of the Continental Railway
Circle and was a familiar figure on organised rail tours: Lawrence Marshall's
'Great Indian Train Journeys' were a favourite of his. Assume that wonderful
Dufay Colour image of malachite green J2 4-6-2T No. 3236 on final page of
Hugh Ballantyne's Southern steam in colour was taken by him, also
wonderful photographs of trains on Mallaig extension taken in March 1956
Scottish steam in colour and elsewhere.
Papers
Fire precautions in locomotives and rolling stock.
Rly Div. J., 1971, 2, 94-126.
Disc: 127-62. 9 illus., 6 diagrs.
2014-04-23