- Ernest Lemon
Sir Ernest John Hutchings Lemon (
9 December 1884 -15 December 1954 ) was Chief Mechanical Engineer of theLondon, Midland and Scottish Railway and later its Vice-President.Biography
Lemon was educated at
Heriot-Watt College . He served an apprenticeship with theNorth British Locomotive Company and then worked for theHighland Railway and forHurst Nelson .In 1911 Lemon became Chief Wagon Inspector of the
Midland Railway inEngland . In 1917 he was made Carriage Works Manager atDerby . In 1923 he was appointed Divisional Carriage and Wagon Superintendent at Derby. There he developed production line methods for the construction ofwagon s andcarriage s.Despite having little experience in locomotive engineering, in 1931 Lemon was appointed to the post of
Chief Mechanical Engineer replacing the retiring Henry Fowler. After less than a year as CME however, Lemon was again promoted to Vice-President Railway Traffic, Operating and Commercial, replacingJ.H. Follows who retired due to ill health. Under his Vice-Presidency, the LMS undertook modernisation of theirmotive power depot s.William Stanier had been head-hunted from theGreat Western Railway to replace him as CME and revolutionised the LMS's locomotive policy.During the
Second World War Lemon was made Director-General of Aircraft Production and was knighted. In 1942 and 1943 he was President of theInstitution of Electrical Engineers . He retired from the railway in 1948 and died inEpsom in 1954.External links
* http://www.steamindex.com/people/fowler.htm#lemon
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