Rogers
Locomotive and Machine Works - (en)
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a 19th century manufacturer of
railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New
Jersey in the United States. They built more than six thousand steam
locomotives for railroads around the world. Most railroads in 19th
century United States rostered 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. Rogers was the second-most
popular American locomotive manufacturer of the 19th century behind
the Baldwin Locomotive Works amongst almost a hundred manufacturers.
The company was founded by Thomas Rogers in an 1832 partnership with
Morris Ketchum and Jasper Grosvenor as Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor.
Rogers remained president until his death in 1856 when his son, Jacob
S. Rogers, took the position and reorganized the company as Rogers
Locomotive and Machine Works. The younger Rogers led the company until
he retired in 1893. Robert S. Hughes then became president and
reorganized the company as Rogers Locomotive Company, which he led
until his death in 1900.
Rogers avoided the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) merger in 1901
through closing and reopening as Rogers Locomotive Works. The company
remained independent until 1905 when ALCO purchased it; ALCO continued
building new steam locomotives at the Rogers plant until 1913. ALCO
used the Rogers facilities through the 1920s as a parts storage
facility and warehouse, but eventually sold the property to private
investors. Today, several Rogers-built locomotives exist in railroad
museums around the world, and the plant's erecting shop is preserved
as the Thomas Rogers Building; it is the current location of the
Paterson Museum whose mission is to preserve and display Paterson's
industrial history.
1831 to 1856: Thomas Rogers era
The firm that was to become Rogers Locomotive Works began in 1831.
Thomas Rogers had been designing and building machinery for textile
manufacturing for nearly 20 years when he sold his interest in Godwin,
Rogers & Company (of which he was the Rogers part of the name) in
June of that year. Rogers set out on his own with a new company called
Jefferson Works in Paterson, New Jersey. The Jefferson Works built
textile and agricultural machinery for a year before Rogers met the
two men who would help transform the company into a major locomotive
manufacturer.
In 1832, Rogers partnered with two investors from New York City,
Morris Ketchum and Jasper Grosvenor. Jefferson Works was renamed
Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor, and the company began to diversify
into the railroad industry. The company soon manufactured springs,
axles and other small parts for railroad use.
The first locomotive that Rogers' company assembled was actually built
by Robert Stephenson and Company of England in 1835. This locomotive
was the McNeil for the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad. It took
another two years before Rogers received their first order for a
complete locomotive. In 1837, the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad
ordered two locomotives from Rogers to form the beginning of the
railroad's roster. The first of these two locomotives was the Sandusky,
which became the first locomotive to cross the Allegheny Mountains (albeit
by canal boat and not by rail), and the first locomotive to operate in
Ohio.
Ex-Virginia and Truckee Railroad No. 119, a type 4-4-0 steam
locomotive, rides atop a Union Pacific Railroad flatcar as it stops in
Ogden, Utah on May 9, 1969 just prior to the 100th anniversary of the
completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.Sandusky included
features designed by Thomas Rogers that had not been seen in
locomotive construction to date. It was also the first locomotive to
use cast iron driving wheels, and the wheels included built-in
counterweights to reduce the amount of wear on the track caused by the
weight of the driving rod and wheel all coming down at once during the
wheels' rotations. Before Sandusky's construction, driving wheels were
typically built with wooden spokes, much like wagon wheels.
Rogers was not working completely alone in locomotive manufacturing.
In 1837, in addition to building the company's first locomotive,
Rogers also filled orders from fellow locomotive builders Matthias W.
Baldwin (founder of Baldwin Locomotive Works) and William Norris (founder
of Norris Locomotive Works) for locomotive tires of various sizes.
Once Rogers started working on his own locomotives, however, no
further orders from either Baldwin or Norris were forthcoming. Within
Rogers own shop, William Swinburne worked as the shop foreman until he
moved on to form his own locomotive manufacturing company, Swinburne,
Smith and Company in 1845. After Swinburne left Rogers, John Cooke
also worked at the Rogers plant. Like Swinburne, Cooke later went on
to form his own locomotive manufacturing firm, Danforth, Cooke &
Company. Another engineer who worked at Rogers was Zerah Colburn, the
well known locomotive engineer and, later editor and publisher.
According to well-established sources, Colburn was, around 1854, 'superintendent
and/or consultant' at the works where he introduced a number of
improvements in locomotive design.
Rogers locomotives were, from very early in the company's history,
seen as powerful, capable engines on American railroads. The Uncle
Sam, serial number 11, a 4-2-0 built in 1839 for the New Jersey
Railroad and Transportation Company, was noted by American Railroad
Journal for hauling a 24-car train up a grade of 26 feet per mile
(1:200) at 24.5 mph (39 km/h).[1] In 1846, Rogers built what is
referred to as the largest 6-wheel truck engine (4-2-0) in the United
States; the Licking, serial number 92, built for the Mansfield and
Sandusky Railroad, generated 110 pounds-force per square inch (760
kPa) of steam pressure and could pull a 380-short ton (345 tonne)
train up a grade of 16 feet per mile (3 metres per km).
The General on display in Chattanooga, Tennessee, circa 1907.In
November of 1868 Rogers delivered 5 identical coal-burning 4-4-0 steam
locomotives (assigned Nos. 116–120) to the Union Pacific Railroad,
which were subsequently placed into freight service in western Wyoming
and Utah.Union Pacific No. 119 would gain fame on May 10, 1869 when it
took part in the "Golden Spike" ceremony at Promontory, Utah
to celebrate the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
The unit was rebuilt in the early 1880s, and redesignated as road No.
343 in 1885. No. 119 was retired and sent to the scrapyard after
nearly 35 years of service in April, 1903. A full-scale, operating
replica was completed in 1979, and today sits on display at the Golden
Spike National Historic Site.
Arguably, the most famous locomotive to come out of the Rogers shops
was built in 1855. Rogers built a 4-4-0 (a locomotive with two
unpowered leading axles and two powered driving axles), serial number
631, in December of that year for the Western and Atlantic Railroad.
The railroad named the locomotive The General. This locomotive is now
on display at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History
(the Big Shanty Museum) in Kennesaw, Georgia.
Not only were Rogers locomotives known in the industry for their
power, but they were also known for their endurance. It is estimated
that one locomotive, Illinois Central Railroad 4-4-0 number 23, serial
number 449, built in December 1853, operated over one million miles
(1.6 million km) in its thirty year career on the Illinois Central.
1856 to 1905: Reorganization and decline
When Thomas Rogers died in 1856, his son Jacob S. Rogers reorganized
RK&G, with Ketchum and Grosvenor remaining as investors, as the
Rogers Locomotive & Machine Works. Rogers built their first 2-6-0,
which is sometimes referred to as the first 2-6-0 built in the United
States, in 1863 for the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation
Company.[5] The company continued manufacturing both locomotives and
textile machinery for nearly another 20 years. In the mid-1870s,
Rogers ended production of textile machinery and began concentrating
solely on locomotive manufacturing. Rogers customers of the mid-19th
century continued purchasing their locomotives. The Louisville and
Nashville Railroad (L&N) purchased so many locomotives from Rogers
that Rogers gave the L&N a free locomotive as a thank-you bonus in
1879.
Illinois Central Railroad 201, built by Rogers in 1880, preserved at
the Illinois Railway Museum.1887 saw the appointment of Reuben Wells
as shop superintendent. Jacob Rogers, now in his late 70s, gradually
passed more and more responsibility to Wells until Rogers resigned the
presidency in 1893. After just over 60 years, the Rogers company would
no longer be run by a member of the Rogers family. The company
reorganized under its former treasurer and new president, Robert S.
Hughes, as the Rogers Locomotive Company; Jacob Rogers remained the
company's principal investor. Hughes led the company until his own
death in 1900. A year later, Jacob Rogers closed the Rogers Locomotive
Company plant.
In 1901, the year that Jacob Rogers died and the same year that the
American Locomotive Company (ALCO) was formed through the merger of
eight other locomotive manufacturers, the company reopened as the
Rogers Locomotive Works. Reuben Wells was again the shop
superintendent. But Rogers was at a competitive disadvantage. Not
enough capital investment was made to purchase new equipment or in
research and development. ALCO and Baldwin, the two companies that
were at the time the largest locomotive manufacturers in North
America, held too much of a lead in manufacturing and selling their
own locomotives for Rogers to keep up. Compounding Rogers' troubles
was the greater city of Paterson that had grown up around the shop.
There was not any room for Rogers to expand.
1905 to present: Absorbed into ALCO
Faced with stiff competition and an inability to grow its own capacity,
Rogers Locomotive Works was purchased by ALCO in 1905. Rogers' last
independently built locomotive was serial number 6271, an 0-6-0T (a
locomotive with three powered axles and water tanks and fuel storage
mounted on its frame to take the place of a separate tender) built for
W. R. Grace & Company in February 1905. ALCO continued building
locomotives at the Rogers plant until 1913 when manufacturing at the
plant ceased permanently. Locomotives built at the Rogers plant under
ALCO are generally referred to as locomotives built by ALCO-Rogers.
ALCO used the Rogers plant buildings as warehouses well into the
1920s, but eventually sold off all of the property. The original
Rogers erecting shop was converted into office space and was still in
use in that manner as late as 1992.
The erecting shop building has since been renamed the "Thomas
Rogers Building" and is now the home of the Paterson Museum. The
museum preserves and displays artifacts of Paterson's industrial
history. A 2-6-0 locomotive that was used in the construction of the
Panama Canal is on display outside the museum, but it is one that was
built by ALCO-Cooke (the former Cooke Locomotive and Machine Works
plant, also located in Paterson) and not by Rogers.
