Titan Foundry

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Lore & Background

The site had its own railway station, Vulcan Halt, on the former Warrington and Newton Railway line from Earlestown to Warrington Bank Quay. The wooden-platformed halt was opened on 1 November 1916 by the London and North Western Railway, and closed on 12 June 1965. Details of the earliest locomotives are not precisely known despite an 'official' list apparently concocted in the 1890s which contains a lot of guesswork and invention, with many quite fictitious locomotives, for the period before 1845. This list claims that the first two locomotives were 0-4-0 Tayleur and Stephenson built in 1833 for 'Mr Hargreaves, Bolton', but this seems unlikely. The earliest authenticated products were 0-4-0 Titan and Orion, similar to Stephenson's design, and delivered in September and October 1834 to the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. From 1835 the company was selling to Belgium, France, and in 1836 to Austria and Russia, the beginnings of an export trade which was maintained throughout the life of the company. In 1852 the first locomotives ever to run in India were supplied to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. During 1870 the company supplied the first locomotive to run in Japan.

In Their Own Story

From 1939 the works was mostly concerned with the war effort, becoming involved in the development and production of the Matilda II tank. From 1943 large orders were received from the Ministry of Supply for locomotives, 390 Austerity 2-8-0s and fifty Austerity 0-6-0 saddle tanks. In 1944 the Vulcan Foundry acquired Robert Stephenson and Hawthorns and in 1945 received an order for 120 'Liberation' 2-8-0 locomotives for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Europe. The war had left India's railways in a parlous state and in 1947, with foreign aid, embarked on a massive rebuilding plan. The Vulcan Foundry benefited from orders for XE, XD, and YD 2-8-2s; and ten WG 2-8-2s sub-contracted from the North British Locomotive Company, but the writing was on the wall for all British manufacturers. Not only was the competition fierce from other countries, but India had developed the ability to build its own locomotives.

Reader's Guide

The company had experience of both diesel and electric locomotives, having built thirty-one so-called 'Crocodile' 2600 hp 1,500 V DC electric freight locomotives in 1929 for India. These were classified as EF/1 which after Indian independence became the WCG-1 class. India's National Rail Museum, New Delhi exhibits an WCG-1 locomotive from the Vulcan foundry. In 1931, the company supplied the first experimental diesel shunter to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. In 1936, Vulcan, a diesel-mechanical 0-6-0 shunter with a Vulcan-Frichs 6-cylinder 275 hp (205 kW) diesel engine was loaned to the LMS, and was then used by the War Department, which numbered it 75 (later 70075). Following the end of World War II, it found industrial use in Yugoslavia. In 1938, ten diesel railcars were ordered by New Zealand Railways, the NZR RM class (Vulcan). They were supplied in 1940, although one was lost at sea to enemy action. In 1948, it supplied 10 Class 15 Diesel Electric shunters to Malayan Railways, as well as twenty Class 20 Diesel Electric locomotives for the same company nine years later. The works has produced many locomotives for both domestic and foreign railways. It was a major supplier of diesel-electrics to British Railways notably the Class 55 Deltic. The works also developed a prototype gas turbine locomotive, the British Rail GT3. Other classes of diesel locomotives to be built for British Railways at the Vulcan Foundry included: Class 20, Class 37, Class 40 and Class 50. Electric locomotives were also built for British Rail by Vulcan Foundry, which included many Class 86s in 1965 and 1966. In the mid-1950s, negotiations began to sell the company. In 1957, the purchase was finalised and the business became part of the English Electric group. Although the works still produced diesel engines under name Ruston Paxman Diesels Limited, which had been moved from Lincoln, locomotive manufacturing finished in 1970. Output was mainly for marine and stationary applications, but the company was the supplier of choice for British Rail Engineering Limited for locomotives built at Doncaster and Crewe. The factory passed through various hands as English Electric was bought by GEC, which in turn became GEC Alsthom (later renamed Alstom) and finally as part of MAN Diesel in 2000. At the end of 2002, the works closed. It was then an industrial estate, appropriately called 'Vulcan Industrial Estate'. The site is just north of Winwick Junction, where the line to Newton-le-Willows branches off to the west from the West Coast Main Line. All the former factory buildings on the site were demolished in October 2007 however, the workers cottages, known as 'Vulcan Village', still survive at the southern corner of the site. By early 2010, work had started on the construction of 630 homes on the levelled site by the developer St Modwen.

Did You Know?

• The Vulcan Foundry opened in 1832 as Charles Tayleur and Company, originally to produce girders for bridges and ironwork for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
• The earliest authenticated locomotives built were 0-4-0 Titan and Orion, delivered in September and October 1834 to the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
• In 1852, the company supplied the first locomotives ever to run in India, to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway.
• During 1870, the company supplied the first locomotive to run in Japan.
• The Vulcan Foundry built thirty-one 'Crocodile' 2600 hp 1,500 V DC electric freight locomotives in 1929 for India, classified as EF/1 (later WCG-1).