W.H. Nichols

Charles River Museum Award
From Charles River Museum:


 * The Third Annual Spirit of Innovation Award will be presented by the Trustees of the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation on June 2, 2016 to the Nichols Family, a storied clan descended from legendary engineer/machinist W.H. Nichols who established his eponymous company in Waltham in 1904. Nicknamed “Accurate Nichols” for his exacting standards, W.H.’s lifelong motto was “Anything Almost Right is Wrong.”


 * Later known as W.H. Nichols and Sons, the company built its well-earned reputation for precision manufacturing by successfully developing production capabilities for IBM, DuPont, and other companies and inventors whose products were theretofore believed to require machining tolerances too exact to be mass produced. Their manufacturing excellence earned W.H. Nichols & Sons a remarkable five “E Awards” (no company ever earned more than six) for particularly outstanding wartime production excellence helping to defeat the World War II Axis Powers.


 * Steam engines were a great hobby of the Nichols men. W.H. is seen here on "Ella Cinders," a "live steam" model locomotive he built that ran on a track around the company property and was a popular attraction with local children.



Ella Cinders
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From Critical Past:


 * This railroad was built as a hobby by Mr. W.H. Nichols at his Nichols Machine Company in Waltham, Mass. Mr. Nichols was a pioneer in the hobby of building "live steam" locomotives. He built a multi-gauge track at his factory and hosted "meets" of the Boston Society of Model Engineers. The film clip shows his 7-1/4 inch gauge locomotive "Ella Cinders" pulling a trainload of people around the track. The locomotive was copied after one that Mr. Nichols remembered from his home in Canada on the Hamilton & Dundas Railway. The prototype was a "dummy" locomotive which had a streetcar type body built over the boiler. Mr. Nichols never finished that part, and ran the miniature locomotive with no cab at all. The model still exists, and is owned by descendants of Mr. Nichols. It was still operable into the 1990s, and is scheduled for a rebuild in the near future. The boy in the close-up and running the train in the film is Charles S. Purinton.

Charles S. Purinton wrote in Live Steam of Years Gone By, page 13:


 * W.H. Nichols also had 7-1/4 inch gauge. The first in New England and the only one for many years.  His locomotive was named Ella Cinders after a famous comic strip character of the times.  The cylinders and feed pump came from a Stanley Steamer automobile, and the boiler was huge.  A horizontal boiler of marine design with a cylindrical flue firebox.  I can remember burning coal in this engine just once.  Usually it was fired with "Ford" charcoal briquets and this occasion was for a theater newsreel.  The producers thought there should be smoke and with the Cannel coal there was lots of it!  So much so that I was ill afterwards.  Cannel coal and hot dogs; boy, was I ever sick!