Talk:James Holden (locomotive engineer)

Untitled

Added material from steamindex with explicit permission of the author to use the material on WP (under the WP license).

Still needs more Wikification, and I'm going to change the references to footnotes.

--cfp 12:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Reason for Cleanup box

Some of the "Main Article" links below redirect back to this page, or contain less information than this page. Content needs to be taken from this page and added to the given "Main Article". --cfp 00:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

"Excessive links"

Someone removed a whole load of links. I haven't a clue what a Belpaire boiler etc. is so the links are useful and necessary, thus I reverted the page. We could add a lot more links and still not have too many. Please lets not have an edit war. --cfp 16:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

ONE LINK to Belpaire boiler, preferably the first, is useful and very desirable, two or more are unnecessary and undesirable and contrary to Wiki policy. I hope you will be reverted, your action was both unnecessary and undesirable. Over-linking is contrary to accepted Wiki standards. NoelWalley 17:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Noel. Ken Gallagher's changes vastly improved the article which was seriously overlinked. In general each term should be linked on its first occurence, but not on subsequent occurences. There is no reason to link 25 separate occurences of the word "bogie" for example, just the first one. I've reverted back to Ken's version which is preferable. If there are individual terms unlinked anywhere in the article, feel free to restore the first link only. Thanks, Gwernol 17:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Look several of those sections are intended to be separate articles, thus the linking needs to start again. And in any case if I'm reading a page I will skim to the bit I'm interested in and only then will I start paying attention, and at that point I expect some links. It's crazy to make people search through the article to find the link. If a link is pointing at the right thing it is a good thing. Full stop. There is no real downside to them. If I was writing this article in a paper encylcopedia I would follow each incidence of Belparie boiler with the same footnote number. To finish here are a few selected quotes from Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context:

• "It is not uncommon to repeat a link that had last appeared much earlier in the article"
• "In general, do create links to...Technical terms, unless they are fully defined in the article and do not have their own separate article."

and here is what Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) principally defines overlinking as, neither of which applies:

• "more than 10% of the words are contained in links;"
• "it has more links than lines;"

Regular links are essential for an article like this to be understood by people without the relevent technical knowledge. I would appreciate if you would reinstate the majority of these links. --cfp 21:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup

I will try to clean up this page but it will take some time so please be patient. Biscuittin 09:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I've completed my cleanup faster than I expected. Hope you like it. I've re-written the ==List of locomotive classes== to match Locomotives of the London and North Eastern Railway. The whole article still needs attention so I'd welcome suggestions on what to do next. Biscuittin 00:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Humpty.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

James Holden's patents

I am trying to identify the other people listed in some of James Holden's patents:

• Reuben Thomas Preston was, I suspect, either the father or the brother of Walter Reuben Preston (see Talk:Walter Preston (British politician)
• Frederick Vernon Russell was Chief Draughtsman at Stratford and responsible for many of the "Holden" designs [1]
• Edmund Spenser Tiddeman was related (by marriage) to The Spooners of Porthmadog [2]
• Arthur Morton Bell has published some books on locomotives [3]
• Frederic Jocelyn Davis, no information
• John Charles Taite, no information

Biscuittin (talk) 23:37, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Update 15 Jan 2013

There is a reference to John Charles Taite (trading as Taite and Carlton, engineers and commission agents) in the London Gazette, 13 Jan 1893. [4] Biscuittin (talk) 09:34, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Dates at GWR

The article has him at GWR from 1865 to 1885.

However, he appears to have been the designer of the GWR 101 Class experimental oil-burner which was built in 1901-2.

Can anyone sort this conflict of info? I have raised the issue on the Locomotives of the Great Western Railway page and the class 101 page. John M Brear (talk) 11:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Are there any sources (other than the demonstrably-erroneous Hornby catalogues) that state that he was the designer of no. 101? --Redrose64 (talk) 16:16, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

A brief look doesn't show anything to hand on 101 and the several mentions of Holden don't include either that, GWR oil burning at this time, or Holden taking an interest in oil burning whilst still at Swindon. Most obviously, Holden left for the GER in 1885, which pre-dates the 101. I haven't looked in Holcroft yet though. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Holcroft mentions nothing on this: 101 or oil-firing. Holden's biggest involvement with GWR loco design seems to be about the use of inclined slide valves beneath the cylinders. Holden (at the GER) usually gets credit for this, however from Holcroft's comments it looks as if this was more Dean's innovation at Swindon and Holden then took it with him to Stratford and made greater use of it. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

I have found, in

• Tabor, F.J. (August 1959). White, D.E. (ed.). The Locomotives of the Great Western Railway, part six: Four-Coupled Tank Engines. RCTS. p. F45. ISBN 0-901115-36-3.

that GWR no. 101 was "an experimental side tank locomotive burning oil fuel on Holden's system". That is the only mention of Holden in the book. We might presume that "Holden's system" refers to the method patented by Holden and applied to GER Class T19 and some other locos; that the GWR decided to try it out, in which case patent law required them to pay a royalty fee and acknowledge the inventor. GWR no. 101 apparently had two oil-burning nozzles as built, which seems to match the fitments on the GER 2-4-0s, but was later altered to have just one. --Redrose64 (talk) 01:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)