Ruston & Hornsby (Lincoln)
Ruston and Hornsby was a British industrial engineering firm formed in 1918 at Lincoln, the product of a merger between Ruston, Proctor and Co. and Richard Hornsby and Sons of Grantham — two Lincolnshire engineering firms whose combined resources made Ruston and Hornsby a major British manufacturer of industrial diesel engines, oil engines, and the small diesel locomotives that powered Britain's collieries, factories, docks, and industrial railways from the 1930s onward. The Lincoln works was the firm's principal manufacturing site, and the Ruston locomotive became one of the most familiar sights in British industrial railway operation through the mid-twentieth century.
Ruston and Hornsby's industrial diesel locomotives — the LB, 88DS, 165DS, and successor families — were compact, reliable four-wheel machines designed for the shunting and short-haul haulage requirements of collieries, steelworks, quarries, and port railways. Built in large numbers from the 1930s through to the 1960s, Ruston locomotives served wherever a small, simple diesel shunter was needed in preference to the larger and more expensive main-line locomotive builders' products. Many examples survive today in industrial preservation, their distinctive Ruston sound and compact proportions making them recognisable at heritage railways and industrial museums across Britain.
The firm was acquired by English Electric in 1969, and the locomotive business wound down through the 1970s as the industrial narrow-gauge and light railway market contracted. The Lincoln site continued as a gas turbine manufacturing facility — today part of Siemens Energy — the industrial engineering tradition of the site maintained though in an entirely different technical domain from the diesel locomotives that Ruston built in its railway-serving years.
About
Ruston & Hornsby was a British industrial engineering firm formed in 1918 by the merger of Ruston, Proctor & Co. of Lincoln and Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham. The firm operated principally from a large works in Lincoln and was for many decades one of the leading British suppliers of small industrial diesel locomotives.
The firm's locomotive products covered colliery, factory, dockyard and light-industrial railway use across Britain and the Commonwealth from the 1930s to the 1960s, chiefly the LB, 88DS and 165DS classes of small four-wheel diesel shunters. Many Ruston & Hornsby diesels survive today in industrial preservation.
The firm was acquired by English Electric in 1969, and the locomotive business was eventually wound down through the 1970s. The Lincoln site continued in business as a gas-turbine manufacturer (today Siemens Energy).
