Томас Хилл: Локомотивтерді жөндеуден лицензиялық келісімге дейін тарихы

Thomas Hill (Rotherham) Limited was a company which repaired and sold steam road vehicles, diesel and electric road vehicles and railway locomotives. It later made its name building and rebuilding diesel locomotives.

The Company was founded by Mr. Thomas A. Hill in 1937 with small premises at Whiston, near Rotherham, and was principally concerned with repair and maintenance of steam road vehicles, and in particular Sentinel steam waggons which were popular in the area. The Company also became involved in battery electric vehicles built by Douglas (Kingswood) Limited, and was incorporated in 1942 as Thomas Hill (Steam and Electric Vehicles) Limited, TH(SEV).

In 1982 the company was approached by the Varlen Corporation of Illinois USA to discuss the matter of a licence agreement enabling Varlen to build the Vanguard locomotives in the United States. Numerous discussions were held over the following months. Varlen became very enthusiastic and were convinced of great potential for these machines in their home markets. An agreement was signed between Varlen and THR at in May 1982. Part of the agreement was for THR to supply one rebuilt Steelman locomotive (ex BSC) and two new locomotives for demonstration purposes. The new locomotives were to be redesigned to meet all the requirements of U. S. Railroads. In February 1983 the rebuilt and modified Steelman loco was shipped to the USA, followed in July by the first new machine, a much modified loco based on the Ministry of Defence 35 ton 0 4 0. The company had been very proud in being selected by a very substantial American corporation who wished to build our products under licence and it came as a very big disappointment when toward the end of 1983 Varlen announced their intention to withdraw from the agreement. The President of Varlen, the instigator of the proposals to build new locos, and the motivator throughout, retired suddenly due to ill health. His successor had different ideas, and in 1984 the matter was settled out of court between Varlen and Vickers, who had assumed responsibility for THR.

Efforts were still being made to by the Company to obtain overseas business and many tenders were submitted, mainly for bogie type diesel electric machines which still required design and development. Unfortunately, Group pricing policy coupled with the need to recover such design and development charges over too few locomotives, forced up THR's prices resulting in uncompetitive and unsuccessful tendering. Meanwhile, Vickers had made it known that they wished to divest themselves of several of their smaller companies that did not fit into their future plans, THR was to be one of those companies. In February 1984 all the shares, stock and goodwill of THR were purchased by the Hunter Group of Companies, for administration by their existing railway company, Resco (Railways) Limited. The Thomas Hill name continued to be used after the purchase by Hunter Group.

On 30 June 1989 the company was sold again, this time to RFS Engineering. RFS were already operating at the old BR Doncaster Works. The Thomas Hill name was dropped, but developments of TH designs continued to be produced. RFS’s first seven locos (narrow gauge locos for the channel tunnel contract) were numbered into their own scheme, thereafter works numbers of locos continued TH’s numbering. Kilnhust Works closed during 1993. Stock and work were transferred to RFS’s Doncaster Works by August 1993. The final loco (CRACOE, for Tilcon, Grassington, N Yorks) was built at Doncaster as RFS Doncaster went into receivership. In 1998 RFS was acquired by Westinghouse Air Brake Company and in 2000 was renamed Wabtec Rail Limited. Wabtec has retained the IPR in the Thomas Hill and Sentinel ranges of locomotives.

After building 'specials' and rebuilding existing locomotives, THR started building their own locomotives. When Rolls Royce closed its locomotive business, THR took their place in the market place with similar but improved locomotives.

Thomas Hill rebuilt various 4w Sentinel vertical boilered steam locos into diesel locos. They removed the steam equipment and superstructure, added new buffer beams, shunters recesses steps and side skirts. Above the running plates, new superstructures housed either a 6 cylinder Rolls Royce engine, torque converter and gearbox (100 hp Sentinel steam locos, classed at TH as "1SDC" – steam to diesel conversion) or the 8 cylinder Rolls – (200 hp Sentinel steamer, classed as 2"SDC"). One of these engines, 103c "Megan" and another quite similar (111c) can be found at the Foxfield Railway These locos were allocated works numbers with a 'c' suffix ('c' for conversion).

Thomas Hill rebuilt nearly a dozen Fowler 0 4 0 diesel mechanical locos as 0 4 0DH, retaining the frame, running gear and some of the bodywork, fitting new engine and transmission and engine cover. These locos also were allocated works numbers with a 'c' suffix. A batch of 5 were ordered by the MoD – but trials with the first two failed to meet their specified tractive efforts (the original locos were plain bearings whereas TH had calculated assuming roller bearings) and although accepting that they were far superior to the Fowler original, the MoD cancelled the balance of the order.

THR was building around 15 new 0 6 0 "Vanguard" locos per year. This arrangement had been agreed by Rolls Royce in respect of the 0 4 0s but THR were selling 0 4 0s in tandem and even "tridem" which RR considered was to the detriment of Sentinel 0 6 0 and 0 8 0 sales. In addition a number of 0 6 0 specials had also been built by THR. In 1975, the most interesting prospect for new locomotives was the Ministry of Defence (MOD). For several years they had talked about a replacement programme for their "M" type locos, now it really was going to happen. This was prestige business and competition would be strong. A considerable effort had been made during the previous two years to convince the MOD of the advantages of the Vanguard design well in advance of their enquiry in the hopes of influencing their specification. The strategy paid off and the company was awarded the contract for six locomotives in 1976. These machines proved very suited to the Ministry requirements and three such contracts have now been completed making 18 identical locomotives now in Service. In May 1978, H. M. the Queen, during a visit to Bicester Army Depot, formally named a Vanguard locomotive "Conductor". THR executives were invited to attend the ceremony.

A notable project of the early 1970s was the Vanguard Titan locomotive built for BSC Middlesbrough. The Titan was a rigid frame 0 6 0 loco of 75 (nominal) tons weight. The prototype delivered in August 1972 had two C6T engines with a total rating of 556 BHP. Three subsequent locos which followed at the end of the year were fitted with two C8T engines, total rating 700 BHP. Initially these locomotives proved very satisfactory employed on the heavy ore trains, and five more locos were ordered. Problems began in 1974 with a number of failures resulting in all Titan locos being out of service producing a lack of confidence by BSC which threatened cancellation of the outstanding order. The ability of the locomotives to perform their duties very satisfactorily, and the determined efforts to overcome the problems made by the Company, restored confidence and the order stood. Five Titan locos were delivered to BSC Middlesbrough in 1975. When Middlesbrough replaced the locos with 75ton GECs, the Titans were transferred to BSC Ravenscraig.

In 1976 a Heads of Agreement was signed with the National Coal Board to design and develop a narrow gauge battery electric underground personnel carrier. The vehicle was to seat 4/6 people and was intended primarily for the colliery manager or other officials to use on their daily inspection visits underground. Control had to be simple so that little tuition was required and the vehicle could be safely driven by virtually anyone. Such a vehicle to carry six people was designed and built and, after some considerable delay in approvals by mines inspectorate etc., the prototype termed UPC (Underground Personnel Carrier) was put into service at Bates Colliery in 1977. From the point of view of the initial requirement it was a complete success, but areas for improvement were recognised and incorporated in the 10 production models planned. Unfortunately the vehicle was still classed as non essential to production and was dubbed as the managers Rolls Royce by men at the pit. It was not until December 1979 that the first actual production UPC was sold, ex stock, to Thoresby Colliery in the North Notts Area

The second UPC was used to a greater extent as a general purpose vehicle which quickly set the pace for further development and little more than two years later, a 24 seater version based on two of the original units with one cab removed and an 18 seat gondola between them, was delivered to Thoresby Colliery. This unit train as it was called, operated well, but again the NCB came up with a number of minor changes and additions which they would like to have made on any future models, which would have had a longer gondola to seat 24. Unfortunately the Miners Strike early in 1984 interrupted plans for further development of this vehicle and no more progress was made.

Valiants were "remanufactures" using 0 6 0DH Sentinel locos as a base, with some of the superstructure but with strengthened frames, new cabs and control systems. The first two, for Blue Circle Hope, were under specified and revealed the shortcomings of their Rolls Royce C8TFL engine, and although spending some months in traffic in 1987 8, resulted in a dispute between BCI and TH and ultimately their replacement with the unique 80ton B B "Blue John" from Hunslet Barclay. Further Valiants were built, but all received the Cummins 14 litre (NTA855) engine, which was proving much superior in the MoD Steelman locos.

The Steelman is a six wheel shaft drive loco of 450 to 750 bhp. The first Steelman utilised the Rolls Royce DV8TCA rated at 608 bhp at 1800 rpm and utilised a 2 speed "warm change" Wiseman transfer gearbox, giving the loco a top speed of 40 mph. The follow on 4 locos – 3 with the Rolls Royce DV8N (445 bhp) at 52tons and one with the DV8TCE (650 bhp) at 60tons – had re designed bodywork and single speed transfer gearboxes. All five went to the British Steel Corporation. Rolls expected to develop 2 axle versions to replace the Sentinel models but the sale of Class 14 locos from BR adversely affected the market and without the volume of sales, higher unit costs precluded further development. Following Rolls Royce's exit from loco building Thomas Hill took over the design, though resistance to it from Thomas Hill (senior) prevented it being offered until long after he'd retired, hence the regressive "Titan" design. The first two TH Steelman locos were built for ICI in 1984, and a sales drive within British Steel Ravenscraig resulted in their taking both the original 60Ton Steelman and the last of the production batch, which had meantime been the Varlen USA demonstrator and returned. Subsequently, Ravenscraig bought 2 new Steelman 60T 6w's using the Cat 3412, which power unit was also installed into a 75ton version for ARC Whatley Quarry. Meantime TH offered a 4w version of the Steelman loco on foreign and domestic enquiries – eventually winning an order for 9 for the MoD in 1986 7. HM the Queen named one of these at MoD Bicester (she had also named an earlier chain drive Vanguard). Offering a rubber suspension loco as a "tripper" however was not acceptable to overseas railway authorities, so a coil spring version was proposed, to be designated a "Steelman Rapide", leaving the rubber sprung original as the "Steelman Royale". After TH was absorbed by RFS, two "Steelman" locos were produced, but owe little to the original designs, being a 67ton 6w'er for Concoco, and a 150ton 12w'er for Tilcon, Grassington.