Vulcan Foundry
The first locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were built by Robert Stephenson at his works at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, taken apart again, transported to Liverpool by road and by sea and then re-assembled. This process was slow and expensive.
In 1830 an engineer based in Liverpool, Charles Tayleur, began construction of a works alongside the Warrington and Newton Railway which was then being planned. Land was cheaper here than in Liverpool, and it was at a good central position.
In 1832 Robert Stephenson entered into partnership with Tayleur, and the works were named Vulcan Foundry. The first two locomotives, named after the partners, 'Tayleur' and 'Stephenson', were completed in 1833, for the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and delivered to Mr. Hargreaves, the General Manager. Like all locomotives of the day these were very small by later standards, having only 4 wheels each.
Already, in the same year, Vulcan Foundry made their first two export locomotives, called 'Fire Fly' and 'Red Rover', for the Camden and Woodbury Railroad in the USA. These were slightly larger than the 'Tayleur' and 'Stephenson' being early examples of the bogie type of engine.
Robert Stephenson continued to devote an equal share of his time and attention to the existing establishment at Newcastle (as was agreed at a meeting in 1832), as well as to the Vulcan Foundry at Newton. As time went on, however, he became more fully involved with railway construction projects and he ceased to be an active partner in the business. He finally parted company with the Vulcan Foundry in 1836.
Daniel (later Sir Daniel) Gooch, began his career at the Vulcan Foundry as an apprentice, in January 1834, before going on to become an outstanding designer, and later Chairman of the Great Western Railway. An entry in his diary gives a good account of the event, and a good picture of life at the time:-
On the 28th January 1834, I left home to go and work at the Vulcan Foundry, near Warrington in Lancashire, under Mr. Robert Stephenson. He and Mr. Tayleur of Liverpool had just built their works - indeed they were not quite finished - when I went there. The works were constructed chiefly for building locomotives. When I arrived at the Newton Junction late in the evening, I found Mr. Charles Tayleur, the Manager of the Vulcan Works, in the waiting room. I had a letter from Mr. Stephenson for him, and presented it with my great awe of him, as the arbitrator of my future. He, however, spoke in a kind, and friendly way to me, and this did much to reassure me.
A little later he continues:
"The works were situated about a mile from the Moss (where he was lodging); down a wretched dirty lane with ruts a foot deep. I had to be in the works not later than ten minutes past six in the morning, and a dreadful walk it was in the dark when I first went there."
Vulcan continued to export many locomotives, and in 1837 supplied one of the first to run in Russia, for the St.Petersburg-Pavlosk line. Other early export locomotives were 'Elephant', for the Belgian Railways in 1835, three locomotives for the South Carolina Railroad, eight for the Paris and St. Germain Railway in 1835 and 1836, three for the Kaiser Ferdinand Nordbahn in Austria in 1837 and 1839, and four for the Berlin and Saxony Railway in 1839.
As well as exports there were many early contracts for the rapidly expanding railway network in this country. In 1836, Vulcan supplied the first locomotive, 'Royal William', for the London and Greenwich Railway. The next year the Foundry built four locomotives for the Great Western Railway at their early, very wide gauge of seven feet (2.1 m). Because of this difference from what became the standard 4 foot 8 1/2 inch gauge these locomotives would have been sent in parts, probably by sea to Bristol.
The Vulcan Foundry developed new products, and in 1846 the earliest side tank engines for any railway were built there, for the Waterford and Kilkenny Railway, at the Irish gauge of 5 feet 3 inches (1.6 m).
In 1847 Vulcan took over the Bank Quay Foundry in Warrington which had been established in 1837. This was then used for the manufacture of gun, shot, shells, heavy castings and for shipbuilding. In 1852 an early iron seagoing ship, the 'Tayleur' was built there. This was a full rigged sailing ship of 1750 tons, which was a very large ship for the time. Unfortunately, this sank on its maiden voyage, with the loss of 450 lives. At the Court of Enquiry into the disaster it became clear that the ship's compass had not been adjusted to compensate for the iron hull. As a result the Captain charted his course by a compass which gave a false reading, and realised too late he had set a course for disaster, and the ship struck rocks off the coast of Ireland.
The Bank Quay Foundry made more iron ships in spite of the wreck of the 'Tayleur', as well as ironwork for the Conway Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Straits. Bank Quay Foundry did not last long, however, and closed in about 1854.
At the Vulcan Foundry itself, however, locomotive production continued at an impressive rate. In 1852, eight 2-4-0 passenger locomotives were exported to India, for the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. In the following year these were used to open the first public railway in India, between Bombay and Thana. Over the next hundred years an average of one locomotive every two weeks was produced at Vulcan for India - a total of 2,750.
In 1871 the Vulcan Works supplied the first locomotive ever to run in Japan. This was a saddle-tank type, and was used on the Imperial Japan Railway line between Tokyo and Yokohama. It was in service until 1930 and is now preserved in the Museum of Transport in Tokyo.
A strange looking engine type was the Robert Fairlie patent double locomotive. Vulcan Foundry produced engines of this type from 1872, early exports going to New Zealand, Peru, the USA, Mexico, Portugal and Burma. These were narrow-gauge engines for use mainly on mountain railways, where extra power was needed for steep gradients.
Locomotive production continued, and the 3000th one was produced in 1914, at the very beginning of the First World War. During the War production was turned over mainly to the production of war supplies. With men away at the Front, women came to work at Vulcan, mainly on the production of shells, in vast quantities. Other products made for the War at Vulcan included gun mountings and a mine-sweeping device, to deflect mines away from a ship, where they could be safely blown up at a distance from the vessel.
After the first World War, locomotive production continued, with larger and larger engines being made, such as four supplied to the Chinese National Railways in 1935, each being 93 feet 2 1/2 inches (28.4 m) long, including engine and tender.
Meanwhile a new method of exporting locomotives began in January, 1930. Instead of partly dismantling the engines as before, the locomotive was transported by road on a low loader. There were stories that whenever this happened, water pipes under Wargrave Road and Victoria Road broke under the pressure! It was also a tight fit under the railway bridge there (under the Liverpool and Manchester line), and the tyres on the transporter had to be let down temporarily. It would have been impossible to run the locomotives to the docks on the local railways. Firstly they were usually of a different gauge, but even when the gauge was the same they were often too large to fit under British railway bridges.
With the Second World War looming, Vulcan produced 50 light tanks to War Office specifications in 1935, and these later saw action during the War in Flanders and North Africa. From 1935 another tank was designed and later built at the Vulcan Foundry. This was the Matilda, and when war broke out in 1939 it was Britain's most powerful tank. With the Mark II successor, the 'Waltzing Matilda', Vulcan produced over 600 tanks for the War Office. These were used during the War on the Western Front, North Africa, Russia and the Pacific. Also during the War, Vulcan produced machine gun mountings, torpedo parts, as well as a number of 'Austerity' type steam locomotives. At the highest point of production it was said that Vulcan's output per head exceeded that of any other similar works in the country. In 1944 the workforce reached its highest level, of 4,128 employees.
At the end of World War II much of Europe was in ruins, and what is called the 'infrastructure' had to be built up again. As part of this reconstruction, the Ministry of Supply placed an order with the Vulcan Foundry to design a locomotive, which came to be called the 'Liberation' class. 120 of these were built, as the major part of Britain's contribution to UNRRA ( United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), and exported for use in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Luxemburg.
In 1956 the last steam locomotive was built at the Vulcan Foundry, for the East African Railways. This made a total of 6,204 steam locomotives built by Vulcan, which had become the fourth largest locomotive building firm in the country, with almost 70% of their engines being for export.
Already, between the wars, in 1926, Vulcan had begun to build diesel-electric locomotives, by agreement with a Danish company. From then on they produced diesel-electric, electric and diesel engines for use in this country and abroad.
In 1955, the Vulcan Foundry, together with its associated company (since 1944), Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns Ltd. of Newcastle-on-Tyne, became full members of the English-Electric Group of Companies.
With various mergers the name of the company operating at Vulcan foundry changed several times. In 1966 it became Ruston Paxman Diesels Ltd., later becoming Ruston Diesels Ltd., although this was still part of the GEC Group.
In 1970, locomotive production at the Vulcan Foundry finally came to an end. The last main line one produced was supplied to Ghana Railways and Ports.
From then onwards, Vulcan produced electric and diesel engines for ships and boats and for power generation, as well as engines for locomotives, although no longer complete locomotives.
In 1989 the engineering companies of GEC and Alcatel Alsthom merged to become GEC/Alsthom, becoming a major worldwide supplier in the power generation, transmission and distribution and rail transmission industries. GEC/Alsthom became Alstom in 1998 and the final change came in 2000, when MAN B&W Diesel AG, of Augsberg in Germany acquired Alstom Engines Ltd. The full name of the Company now at Vulcan is MAN B&W Diesel Ltd. Ruston.
In May 2001 came an announcement which was a shock to Newton-le-Willows, that the company is to move operations from the Vulcan site to another works in Stockport, where more than £20 million is to be spent to upgrade and extend facilities. To keep their jobs the 397 workforce will have to move or commute to Stockport. This will bring to a close more than 170 years of production at the Vulcan Foundry.
The first locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were built by Robert Stephenson at his works at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, taken apart again, transported to Liverpool by road and by sea and then re-assembled. This process was slow and expensive.
In 1830 an engineer based in Liverpool, Charles Tayleur, began construction of a works alongside the Warrington and Newton Railway which was then being planned. Land was cheaper here than in Liverpool, and it was at a good central position.
In 1832 Robert Stephenson entered into partnership with Tayleur, and the works were named Vulcan Foundry. The first two locomotives, named after the partners, 'Tayleur' and 'Stephenson', were completed in 1833, for the Bolton and Leigh Railway, and delivered to Mr. Hargreaves, the General Manager. Like all locomotives of the day these were very small by later standards, having only 4 wheels each.
Already, in the same year, Vulcan Foundry made their first two export locomotives, called 'Fire Fly' and 'Red Rover', for the Camden and Woodbury Railroad in the USA. These were slightly larger than the 'Tayleur' and 'Stephenson' being early examples of the bogie type of engine.
Robert Stephenson continued to devote an equal share of his time and attention to the existing establishment at Newcastle (as was agreed at a meeting in 1832), as well as to the Vulcan Foundry at Newton. As time went on, however, he became more fully involved with railway construction projects and he ceased to be an active partner in the business. He finally parted company with the Vulcan Foundry in 1836.
Daniel (later Sir Daniel) Gooch, began his career at the Vulcan Foundry as an apprentice, in January 1834, before going on to become an outstanding designer, and later Chairman of the Great Western Railway. An entry in his diary gives a good account of the event, and a good picture of life at the time:-
On the 28th January 1834, I left home to go and work at the Vulcan Foundry, near Warrington in Lancashire, under Mr. Robert Stephenson. He and Mr. Tayleur of Liverpool had just built their works - indeed they were not quite finished - when I went there. The works were constructed chiefly for building locomotives. When I arrived at the Newton Junction late in the evening, I found Mr. Charles Tayleur, the Manager of the Vulcan Works, in the waiting room. I had a letter from Mr. Stephenson for him, and presented it with my great awe of him, as the arbitrator of my future. He, however, spoke in a kind, and friendly way to me, and this did much to reassure me.
A little later he continues:
"The works were situated about a mile from the Moss (where he was lodging); down a wretched dirty lane with ruts a foot deep. I had to be in the works not later than ten minutes past six in the morning, and a dreadful walk it was in the dark when I first went there."
Vulcan continued to export many locomotives, and in 1837 supplied one of the first to run in Russia, for the St.Petersburg-Pavlosk line. Other early export locomotives were 'Elephant', for the Belgian Railways in 1835, three locomotives for the South Carolina Railroad, eight for the Paris and St. Germain Railway in 1835 and 1836, three for the Kaiser Ferdinand Nordbahn in Austria in 1837 and 1839, and four for the Berlin and Saxony Railway in 1839.
As well as exports there were many early contracts for the rapidly expanding railway network in this country. In 1836, Vulcan supplied the first locomotive, 'Royal William', for the London and Greenwich Railway. The next year the Foundry built four locomotives for the Great Western Railway at their early, very wide gauge of seven feet (2.1 m). Because of this difference from what became the standard 4 foot 8 1/2 inch gauge these locomotives would have been sent in parts, probably by sea to Bristol.
The Vulcan Foundry developed new products, and in 1846 the earliest side tank engines for any railway were built there, for the Waterford and Kilkenny Railway, at the Irish gauge of 5 feet 3 inches (1.6 m).
In 1847 Vulcan took over the Bank Quay Foundry in Warrington which had been established in 1837. This was then used for the manufacture of gun, shot, shells, heavy castings and for shipbuilding. In 1852 an early iron seagoing ship, the 'Tayleur' was built there. This was a full rigged sailing ship of 1750 tons, which was a very large ship for the time. Unfortunately, this sank on its maiden voyage, with the loss of 450 lives. At the Court of Enquiry into the disaster it became clear that the ship's compass had not been adjusted to compensate for the iron hull. As a result the Captain charted his course by a compass which gave a false reading, and realised too late he had set a course for disaster, and the ship struck rocks off the coast of Ireland.
The Bank Quay Foundry made more iron ships in spite of the wreck of the 'Tayleur', as well as ironwork for the Conway Suspension Bridge and the Britannia Tubular Bridge over the Menai Straits. Bank Quay Foundry did not last long, however, and closed in about 1854.
At the Vulcan Foundry itself, however, locomotive production continued at an impressive rate. In 1852, eight 2-4-0 passenger locomotives were exported to India, for the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. In the following year these were used to open the first public railway in India, between Bombay and Thana. Over the next hundred years an average of one locomotive every two weeks was produced at Vulcan for India - a total of 2,750.
In 1871 the Vulcan Works supplied the first locomotive ever to run in Japan. This was a saddle-tank type, and was used on the Imperial Japan Railway line between Tokyo and Yokohama. It was in service until 1930 and is now preserved in the Museum of Transport in Tokyo.
A strange looking engine type was the Robert Fairlie patent double locomotive. Vulcan Foundry produced engines of this type from 1872, early exports going to New Zealand, Peru, the USA, Mexico, Portugal and Burma. These were narrow-gauge engines for use mainly on mountain railways, where extra power was needed for steep gradients.
Locomotive production continued, and the 3000th one was produced in 1914, at the very beginning of the First World War. During the War production was turned over mainly to the production of war supplies. With men away at the Front, women came to work at Vulcan, mainly on the production of shells, in vast quantities. Other products made for the War at Vulcan included gun mountings and a mine-sweeping device, to deflect mines away from a ship, where they could be safely blown up at a distance from the vessel.
After the first World War, locomotive production continued, with larger and larger engines being made, such as four supplied to the Chinese National Railways in 1935, each being 93 feet 2 1/2 inches (28.4 m) long, including engine and tender.
Meanwhile a new method of exporting locomotives began in January, 1930. Instead of partly dismantling the engines as before, the locomotive was transported by road on a low loader. There were stories that whenever this happened, water pipes under Wargrave Road and Victoria Road broke under the pressure! It was also a tight fit under the railway bridge there (under the Liverpool and Manchester line), and the tyres on the transporter had to be let down temporarily. It would have been impossible to run the locomotives to the docks on the local railways. Firstly they were usually of a different gauge, but even when the gauge was the same they were often too large to fit under British railway bridges.
With the Second World War looming, Vulcan produced 50 light tanks to War Office specifications in 1935, and these later saw action during the War in Flanders and North Africa. From 1935 another tank was designed and later built at the Vulcan Foundry. This was the Matilda, and when war broke out in 1939 it was Britain's most powerful tank. With the Mark II successor, the 'Waltzing Matilda', Vulcan produced over 600 tanks for the War Office. These were used during the War on the Western Front, North Africa, Russia and the Pacific. Also during the War, Vulcan produced machine gun mountings, torpedo parts, as well as a number of 'Austerity' type steam locomotives. At the highest point of production it was said that Vulcan's output per head exceeded that of any other similar works in the country. In 1944 the workforce reached its highest level, of 4,128 employees.
At the end of World War II much of Europe was in ruins, and what is called the 'infrastructure' had to be built up again. As part of this reconstruction, the Ministry of Supply placed an order with the Vulcan Foundry to design a locomotive, which came to be called the 'Liberation' class. 120 of these were built, as the major part of Britain's contribution to UNRRA ( United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), and exported for use in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland and Luxemburg.
In 1956 the last steam locomotive was built at the Vulcan Foundry, for the East African Railways. This made a total of 6,204 steam locomotives built by Vulcan, which had become the fourth largest locomotive building firm in the country, with almost 70% of their engines being for export.
Already, between the wars, in 1926, Vulcan had begun to build diesel-electric locomotives, by agreement with a Danish company. From then on they produced diesel-electric, electric and diesel engines for use in this country and abroad.
In 1955, the Vulcan Foundry, together with its associated company (since 1944), Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns Ltd. of Newcastle-on-Tyne, became full members of the English-Electric Group of Companies.
With various mergers the name of the company operating at Vulcan foundry changed several times. In 1966 it became Ruston Paxman Diesels Ltd., later becoming Ruston Diesels Ltd., although this was still part of the GEC Group.
In 1970, locomotive production at the Vulcan Foundry finally came to an end. The last main line one produced was supplied to Ghana Railways and Ports.
From then onwards, Vulcan produced electric and diesel engines for ships and boats and for power generation, as well as engines for locomotives, although no longer complete locomotives.
In 1989 the engineering companies of GEC and Alcatel Alsthom merged to become GEC/Alsthom, becoming a major worldwide supplier in the power generation, transmission and distribution and rail transmission industries. GEC/Alsthom became Alstom in 1998 and the final change came in 2000, when MAN B&W Diesel AG, of Augsberg in Germany acquired Alstom Engines Ltd. The full name of the Company now at Vulcan is MAN B&W Diesel Ltd. Ruston.
In May 2001 came an announcement which was a shock to Newton-le-Willows, that the company is to move operations from the Vulcan site to another works in Stockport, where more than £20 million is to be spent to upgrade and extend facilities. To keep their jobs the 397 workforce will have to move or commute to Stockport. This will bring to a close more than 170 years of production at the Vulcan Foundry.