O. S. Nock
| Oswald Stevens Nock | |
|---|---|
| Born |
21 January 1905 Sutton Coldfield |
| Died | 29 September 1994 (aged 89) Bath |
| Education | Giggleswick School |
| Occupation | Signalling engineer |
| Known for | Railway author |
| Spouse(s) | Olivia Ravenall |
Oswald Stevens Nock (21 January 1905 – 29 September 1994), nicknamed Ossie, was a British railway signal engineer and senior manager at the Westinghouse company; he is well known for his prodigious output of popularist publications on railway subjects, including over 100 books, as well as a large number of more technical works on locomotive performance.
He authored articles on railway signalling and locomotive performance for The Engineer researched during World War II, and from 1958 to 1980 he succeeded Cecil J. Allen as the author the "British locomotive practice and performance" series published in The Railway Magazine.
Oswald Stevens Nock was born 21 January 1905 in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, the son of a bank employee, Samuel James Nock, and a schoolteacher Rose Amy née Stevens. In early childhood Nock's father became manager of a bank branch in Reading; O.S. Nock was subsequently educated at Marlborough House, and Reading School. After the family moved to Barrow in Furness in 1916 he became a boarder at Giggleswick School. In 1921 he enrolled at the City and Guilds Engineering College, in London, and obtained a degree in engineering in 1924, and joined the Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company in 1925.
Recession during the 1930s (see Great Depression in the United Kingdom) lead Nock to seek other forms of income, and after having taken a correspondence course in journalism, began to submit articles to magazines. His first submission was a technical paper on railways submitted to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. In 1932 he had his first works accepted for publication: the first was an article "Carlisle, a Station of Changes" published in January 1932 in The Railway Magazine, also in 1932 the London Evening News bought and published an article written as part of his journalism correspondence course: "Hyde Park's ghost trains"; Due to his moonlighting as a journalist, he published under pseudonyms including "C.K.S", "C.K. Stevens" or "Railway Engineer".
...
Wikipedia