the locomotives he produced made little impact. The engineering business failed some years later, although by this time Adams had expanded his interests to include clothing design and journalism. Confusion with William Adams Confusingly, one of the first railway companies to use his axle-box design widely was the London and South Western Railway where the Locomotive Superintendent, the creator of the Adams Bogie, was also named William Adams. By further coincidence he too had formerly operated a locomotive works in Bow, but this was not a private concern but the depot of the North London Railway. In 1865 the Society of Engineers, London, made direct comparison between the bogie with the india-rubber lateral bearing of William Adams and the radial axle box of William Bridges Adams: during trials on the North London Railway the laterally sprung bogie was thought superior to the radial axle, but when William Adams moved to the LSWR he adopted the axle box designed by his rival Bridges Adams. The locomotives now known as Adams Radials are named after the Locomotive Superintendent, but they are famous for the axle invented by William Bridges Adams. References Simmons, Jack and Biddle, Gordon (1997).The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, Oxford University Press. Wood, H. T. revised Harrington, Ralph (2004). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. English Pleasure Carriages has a modern reprint under . Writings of Junius Redivivus (i) The first of three appreciations by John Stuart Mill in his autobiography. Notes External links Adams Radial Fairfield illustrated on the GWR Steam Railmotor Project People from Madeley, Staffordshire People from Loughton English railway mechanical engineers Locomotive builders and designers British railway pioneers 1797 births 1872 deaths 19th-century British businesspeople