Cecil J. Allen

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This article is about the British railway engineer. He is not to be confused with Mary Cecil Allen.

Cecil J Allen
Cecil J. Allen.jpg
Born1886
Died5 February 1973
NationalityEnglish
OccupationRailway engineer
EmployerGreat Eastern Railway
London & North Eastern Railway

Cecil J. Allen (1886– 5 February 1973[1]) was a British railway engineer and technical journalist and writer.

Work[]

Allen qualified as a civil engineer and joined the Great Eastern Railway in 1903, later working for the London & North Eastern Railway retiring in 1946.[2] He inspected new rails for quality.

Allen also was the second contributor to the long-running British locomotive practice and performance article series in The Railway Magazine from 1909 to 1958,[3] He was concurrently editor of Trains Illustrated in the 1940s, and was succeeded in that position by his son, Geoffrey Freeman Allen, in 1950.[4]

Allen was a committed Christian and an accomplished organist, writing a chorus "The Lord has need of me". He was offered a place on the train when Mallard broke the world speed record in 1938, but declined the offer as the run was scheduled for a Sunday morning and clashed with his regular church (Christian Brethren) attendance.[citation needed] He died on 5 February 1973.[5]

Bibliography[]

He wrote numerous books on locomotives, and railway company histories, as well as an autobiography "Two Million Miles of Train Travel":[3]

Locomotives
  • The locomotive exchanges. Ian Allan Publishing. 1949.
  • Locomotive practice and performance in the twentieth century (2nd revised impression ed.). Heffer, Cambridge. 1950.
  • The Stanier Pacific of the L.M.S.. London. Ian Allan. 1950.
  • The Gresley Pacifics of the LNER. Ian Allan. 1950.
  • The Bulleid Pacifics of the Southern Region. Ian Allan. 1951.
  • British Pacific locomotives. Ian Allan. 1962.
  • British Atlantic locomotives. Ian Allan. 1968.
    • —; revised & enlarged by G. Freeman Allen (1976). British Atlantic locomotives (2nd ed.). Ian Allan.
  • Cecil J. Allen; et al. (1972). The Deltics : a symposium. Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0322-X.[6]
Railway company histories
  • The Great Eastern Railway. Ian Allan. 1955.
  • The North Eastern Railway. Ian Allan. 1964.
  • The London & North Eastern Railway. Ian Allan. 1966.
General railways
  • The Iron Road: The Wonders of Railway Progress. John F. Shaw & Co. Ltd. 1925.
  • "The Coronation" and other famous L.N.E.R.trains. Nicholson & Watson. 1937.
  • Titled trains of Great Britain. Ian Allan. 1946.
  • Switzerland's Amazing Railways (4th revised ed.). Thomas Nelson & Sons, London. 1965.
  • The Steel Highway. Longmans, Green & Co, London. 1928.
  • Modern railways: their engineering, equipment and operation. Faber. 1959.
  • Two million miles of rail travel: the autobiography of Cecil J. Allen. Ian Allan. 1965.
  • Salute to the Great Western. Shepperton: Ian Allan. 1970. ISBN 0-7110-0181-2.
Other
  • Hymns and the Christian faith. London, Pickering & Inglis. 1966.[7]

See also[]

  • Geoffrey Freeman Allen, his son, also a writer on railway topics, and first editor of Modern Railways

References[]

  1. ^ Obituary in The Times 7 February 1973
  2. ^ Mr Cecil J Allen The Railway Magazine issue 566 November 1946 page 389
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b "Cecil J. Allen". www.steamindex.com.
  4. ^ Roger Ford (16 August 1995). "Geoffrey Freeman Allen: The model railway writer". The Guardian. p. 10.
  5. ^ Cecil J Allen The Railway Magazine issue 872 March 1973 page 189
  6. ^ "The Deltics: a symposium by Cecil J. Allen and others". catalogue.nla.gov.au. National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "Hymns and the Christian faith 1 edition, By Cecil John Allen". www.openlibrary.org.


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