Turbine waterwheels. Gas, steam, and water turbines have a casing around the blades that contains and controls the working fluid. Credit for invention of the steam turbine is given both to Anglo-Irish engineer Sir Charles Parsons (1854–1931) for invention of the reaction turbine, and to Swedish engineer Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) for invention of the impulse turbine. Modern steam turbines frequently employ both reaction and impulse in the same unit, typically varying the degree of reaction and impulse from the blade root to its periphery. The word "turbine" was coined in 1822 by the French mining engineer Claude Burdin from the
Steam turbine locomotive locomotive. However, poor efficiency at slow speeds doomed this turbine, and with diesel-electrics being introduced, no more S2s were built. The locomotive was retired in 1949 and scrapped in May, 1952. The Reid-Ramsey turbine, built by the North British Locomotive Company in 1910, had a 2-B+B-2 (4-4-0+0-4-4) wheel arrangement. Steam was generated in a standard locomotive boiler, with superheater, and passed to a turbine generator. Exhaust steam was condensed and recirculated by small auxiliary turbine pumps. The armatures of the motors were mounted directly on the four driving axles. It was later rebuilt as a direct-drive turbine locomotive as seen