David Bruce Peebles

Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. was an Edinburgh industrial electrical engineering company.

The company was founded as D. Bruce Peebles & Co. by Scottish engineer David Bruce Peebles (1826–1899) in Edinburgh in 1866. The company initially specialised in gas engineering but later expanded to include electrical engineering as well. It continued to trade after Peebles' death and, in 1902, the name was changed to Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. The company held the British manufacturing rights for the Cascade converter and a licence to manufacture three-phase electrical equipment designed by Ganz of Budapest.

In 1903, Peebles expanded into Canada. Along with other investors, it formed the Canadian Electric Traction Company and supplied the three-phase equipment, car motors and generators for the South Western Traction Company of London, Ontario. The main line ran 28-miles between London and Port Stanley, a resort town on Lake Erie. It was the only three-phase traction line in Canada, and was closed in 1918.

In 1904 the company opened a new factory at a site in East Pilton, Edinburgh, employing 3,000 at its peak in the 1950s. The works had its own internal railway system, which was electrified and used electric shunting locomotives built by Peebles themselves. This was the first electric line in Edinburgh (main line electrification did not reach Edinburgh until the early 1990s). In 1905 the company was exhibiting at the Third International Electric Tramway and Railway Exhibition. It also manufactured at least one (from an order of ten) electric locomotives for the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway.

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