The Norris Locomotive Works was a steam locomotive manufacturing company based in Philadelphia, that produced nearly one thousand railroad engines between 1832 and 1866. It was the dominant American locomotive producer during most of that period and the first major exporter of American locomotives, selling its popular 4-2-0 engines to railways in Europe and building the first locomotive used in South America.
The company was started in 1832 as the American Steam Carriage Company by William Norris (1802–1867) and Major Stephen H. Long (1784–1864), a military topographical engineer and explorer. [1] The two men had experimented with steam engine building for years and, as early as 1829, designed a locomotive to burn anthracite coal. Norris and Long also built an engine called the Black Hawk, which performed with partial success on the Boston and Providence Railroad and the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in the early 1830s. Long later left the firm and William Norris was joined by his brother Septimus, who patented several locomotive-related inventions. The two brothers reformed the enterprise into the Norris Locomotive Works.
One of the most historic events in railroading history occurred on July 10, 1836, when the Norris Brothers ran a test of a 4-2-0 locomotive on the Belmont Inclined Plane of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad The two-track incline ran from the Schuylkill River for 2,805 feet towards present-day Belmont Avenue, rising one foot in 15 for a total of 187 feet. Named George Washington, the 14,400 pound engine hauled a load of 19,200 pounds, including 24 people riding on the tender and a freight car up the grade at 15 miles per hour. This engine, the first in the world to ascend a hill by its own power, proved that a steam locomotive could climb a grade while pulling a load. So remarkable was this accomplishment that reports published in engineering journals emphatically doubted its occurrence. A second, more formal trial with an even greater load proved the engine's capabilities on July 19, 1836. Norris 4-2-0s were exported to England for the Lickey Incline about 1842, English manufacturers having declined to supply.
Norris built the Lafayette for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the following year based on plans of the George Washington. Named after the American Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, this new 4-2-0 engine was the B&O's first locomotive to feature a leading truck and may have been the first standardized production model locomotive in the entire world. Innovations included positioning of cylinders outside and adjacent to the smokebox with pistons connecting to the face of the drive wheels instead of a crank axle, the four-wheel swiveling pilot truck, inside bar frame support, and placement of the two drivers ahead of the firebox (this supposedly offered greater power output as more of the locomotive's weight rested on the drivers and therefore increased tractive effort). The Lafayette established the configuration that American steam locomotives would follow until the end of the steam era.
In 1847, the Norris Works built the first ten-wheel locomotive in America: the Chesapeake. Operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, this was also the world's first 4-6-0 locomotive. It weighed 22 tons and had 14½ by 22 inch cylinders and driving wheels 46 inches in diameter. Initially a wood-burning locomotive, the Chesapeake was converted to burn anthracite coal in 1862, and ran for about another fifteen years. Some authorities claim that Septimus Norris came up with the design, but other sources attribute it to master builder John Brandt of the Erie Railway.
There were nine Norris brothers altogether, six of them had been involved in locomotive building at some point. William Norris' enterprise was renamed Norris Brothers when brothers Richard and Octavius joined it in 1844 during a period of financial distress and reorganization that included William's gradual departure from the business. The firm later became Richard Norris and Son. Other locomotive factories, operated independently (and unsuccessfully) by various Norris brothers later opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Schenectady, New York.
The Norris Locomotive Works sold many locomotives overseas, as noted above. This company was the first American exporter of locomotives—and perhaps of large mechanical devices generally. As early as 1840, thirty percent of the firm's production until then had been for foreign markets. Norris machines operated in England, France, the states of the German Confederation (including Prussia, Austria and Saxony), Belgium, Italy, Canada, Cuba and South America ( The Copiapó , built in 1850 for Chilean Railroad, was the first locomotive in all of South America). These engines influenced contemporary and subsequent locomotive design in many of these countries.
William Norris had several large-scale operating models constructed as presentation pieces to rulers of several nations. Such sovereigns included Tsar Nicholas of Russia and King Louis Philippe I of France, who was so pleased with his model that he gave Norris a gold medal and a handsome gold box. A quarter-sized 4-4-0 locomotive and tender were built for Commodore Matthew C. Perry to deliver as a gift on his second expedition to Japan in 1854. A small circular railway—which also included a miniature passenger car made by another manufacturer and a mile of track—was set up near Yokohama. The Japanese soon could take the first train ride available in the Far East.
Richard Norris and Son was the largest locomotive maker in the United States, if not the world, during the 1850s. Employing many hundreds of men, the factory consisted of some ten buildings spread over several city blocks at what is now the campus of the Community College of Philadelphia. The firm reached its peak in 1857–58, after which time, the Norris family seems to have lost interest in the business. Manufacturing quality and output fell during the Civil War and the plant closed in 1866, although deliveries continued for a year or two.
The firm's factory complex was located in the area around 17th and Hamilton Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on several acres of what had once been the famous Bush Hill estate of Andrew Hamilton, used as a hospital during the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic. The site was near the right-of-way of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, which crossed through Philadelphia just north of Callowhill Street. This route was later owned by the Reading Railroad.
The property lay idle until the adjacent Baldwin Locomotive Works, which had surpassed Norris as the largest locomotive builder in the U.S., acquired the site in 1873. The Norris buildings stood until 1896, when part of the property was cleared for construction of the third United States Mint in Philadelphia. Still standing, that building has been adapted as part of the Community College of Philadelphia. No trace of either the Norris or Baldwin factories remains in that part of Philadelphia.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete when demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation.
George Washington Whistler was an American civil engineer best known for building steam locomotives and railroads. He is credited with introducing the steam whistle to American locomotives.
A steam dummy or dummy engine, in the United States and Canada, was a steam locomotive enclosed in a wooden box structure made to resemble a passenger railroad car. Steam dummies had some popularity in the first decades of railroading in the U.S., from the 1830s but passed from favor after the American Civil War.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-2-0 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, two powered driving wheels on one axle and no trailing wheels. This type of locomotive is often called a Jervis type, the name of the original designer.
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. Between its founding in 1832 and its acquisition in 1905, the company built more than 6,000 steam locomotives for railroads around the world. Most 19th-century U.S. railroads owned at least one Rogers-built locomotive. The company's most famous product was a locomotive named The General, built in December 1855, which was one of the principals of the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War.
Moncure Robinson was an American civil engineer and railroad executive. He was one of the leading engineers for railroad survey and construction projects from the 1820s to the 1840s. He conducted surveys for and constructed multiple railroad lines including the Danville and Pottsville Railroad, the Allegheny Portage Railroad, the Chesterfield Railroad, the Petersburg Railroad, the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad, the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, the Winchester and Potomac Railroad, the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, and the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad.
Foster, Rastrick and Company was one of the pioneering steam locomotive manufacturing companies of England. It was based in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, now West Midlands. James Foster, an ironmaster, and John Urpeth Rastrick, an engineer, became partners in 1816, forming the company in 1819. Rastrick was one of the judges at the Rainhill Trials in 1829. The company was dissolved on 20 June 1831.
The Lickey Incline, south of Birmingham, is the steepest sustained main-line railway incline in Great Britain. The climb is a gradient of 1 in 37.7 for a continuous distance of two miles (3.2 km). Constructed originally for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) and opened in 1840 it is located on the Cross Country Route between Barnt Green and Bromsgrove stations in Worcestershire.
Bromsgrove railway works was established in 1841 at Aston Fields, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England as a maintenance facility for the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. However, as well as maintaining those provided by other manufacturers, it built one locomotive.
Septimus Norris was an American mechanical engineer and steam locomotive designer. He was the youngest of three brothers all active in the field — his eldest brother William Norris founded the Norris Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Richard Norris took over the firm in about 1841. The other two brothers were primarily businessmen, while Septimus was an engineer. He worked for the Norris firm under William's management, but did not continue under Richard's; railway historian John H. White, Jr. believes animosity existed between Septimus and Richard. Septimus later worked for the Portland Company and the Schenectady Locomotive Works.
Jones, Turner and Evans was a locomotive manufacturer in Newton-le-Willows, England from 1837, known as Jones and Potts between 1844 and 1852.
Rothwell, Hick and Rothwell was an engineering company in Bolton, England. Set up in 1822, the partners became interested in the production of steam locomotives after the Rainhill Trials. The company's first engine was Union, a vertical boiler, 2-2-0 with horizontal cylinders for the Bolton and Leigh Railway of which Hick and Rothwell were promoters and original shareholders, followed by three more locomotives the following year for American railways.
Neilson and Company was a locomotive manufacturer in Glasgow, Scotland.
George Forrester and Company was a British marine engine and locomotive manufacturer at Vauxhall Foundry in Liverpool, established by Scottish engineer George Forrester. The company opened in 1827 as iron founders and commenced building steam locomotives in 1834.
Grant Locomotive Works was an American manufacturer of steam railway locomotives from 1867 to 1895, first in Paterson, New Jersey, and then in Chicago. The company built about 1,888 locomotives.
Edward Bury was an English locomotive manufacturer. Born in Salford, Lancashire, he was the son of a timber merchant and was educated at Chester.
William Mason is a 4-4-0 steam locomotive currently on display at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It was built for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, carrying that railroad's number 25. The locomotive is named in honor of its builder, William Mason, who built around 754 steam locomotives at his Mason Machine Works firm in Taunton, Massachusetts, from 1853 until his death in 1883. The engine had been one of the oldest operable examples of the American Standard design, and is the fourth oldest Baltimore and Ohio locomotive in existence, the oldest being the 0-4-0 no. 2, the Andrew Jackson from 1836, second oldest is the no. 8 0-4-0, John Hancock built later that same year, and the third being the 0-8-0 no. 57, Memnon of 1848. While operable, William Mason had been one of the oldest operational locomotive in the world, and the oldest in the western hemisphere.
Breese, Kneeland, and Company was a nineteenth century builder of steam locomotive engines located at Jersey City, New Jersey. Initially styled the New York Locomotive Works, the company was active under various ownerships in building steam locomotives from 1853 until 1873. The original proprietors were Charles Kneeland, William Hamilton and S. Breese. Encrease Personette Gould (1822-1876), usually known as E. P. Gould, a well known mechanic and formerly the mechanical superintendent of the Hudson River Railroad was the first shop foreman and designer.
Henry Roe Campbell was an American surveyor and civil engineer. Campbell contributed to American railroading and bridge-building in the first half of the 19th century. Campbell patented his 4-4-0 design in February 1836, just a few months before the patent law was changed to require that claims include proof of originality or novelty.
