Sc., DIC, C. Eng, M.I.C.E., M.I.Mech.E., M.I.Loco.E.,[1] (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 many more technical works on locomotive performance.
[3] Recession during the 1930s (see Great Depression in the United Kingdom) led Nock to seek other forms of income, and after having taken a correspondence course in journalism, began to submit articles to magazines.
[11] In 1959 he took over the writing of the "British locomotive practice and performance" reports for The Railway Magazine from Cecil J. Allen, publishing 264 articles between then and 1980.
The carriage where he was sitting overturned, but he escaped without injury, and later wrote of his experience in his book Historic Railway Disasters.
Nock authored more than 140 books and 1000 magazine articles, although some of the work represented duplication from his own oeuvre,[18] as well as containing repetition or padding within the text.
[18] As a writer his output is considered accessible, uncontroversial, and empathic to the subject he wrote upon,[20] and rich in personal anecdotes,[21][22] though some feel his historical work and research was weak.