Charles Fairburn
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Charles Edward Fairburn (5 September 1887 — 12 October 1945) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
Biography
Born in Bradford in 1887, Fairburn won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford University, in 1905, gaining first class honours and being the first graduate to graduate from Oxford's new Engineering School. He then served two years under the tutelage of Henry Fowler at the Midland Railway. In 1912 Fairburn joined the Siemens Dynamo Works of Stafford, as a researcher. Between 1913 and 1916 he was assistant to the Resident Engineer on the Shildon-Newport electrification of the North Eastern Railway, being responsible for the design of overhead line electrification equipment and electric locomotives.
Fairburn served as an Experimental Officer in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. Afterwards, he joined English Electric as head of their railway electrification department. By 1931 he had risen to Chief Engineering Manager of the Traction Department of EE and had been involved in electrification schemes in forty-nine countries and helped the development of diesel locomotives.
LMS_Class_4MT_42085_at_Haverthwaite.JPG
In 1934 Fairburn joined the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) as Chief Electrical Engineer. In 1938 he was appointed Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) under William Stanier. Fairburn was made Acting CME when Stanier was called away on war work in 1942 and was officially made CME on Stanier's retirement in 1944. During war-time, production of new locomotives was to the proven designs of Stanier, The only locomotive of his brief reign to emerge being that of the LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T, a modified version of the LMS Stanier 2-6-4T.
Fairburn died of a heart attack aged 58 on 12 October 1945. He was succeeded by H.G. Ivatt, another candidate for the job Robin Riddles being promoted to Vice-President at about the same time.
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| Preceded by: William Stanier 1932-1944 | Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway 1944-1945 | Followed by: Henry George Ivatt 1946-1947 |