Vulcan Foundry

The Vulcan Foundry Ltd

Vulcan Foundry worksplate
Former type	Ltd
Industry	Engineering
Fate	Taken over
Successor	English Electric
Founded	1832
Defunct	1962
Headquarters	Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside
Products	Locomotive manufacture Engine manufacture

The Vulcan Foundry Limited was a British locomotive builder sited at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.

It was originally opened in 1832 as Charles Tayleur and Company to produce girders for bridges, switches and crossings, and other ironwork following the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Because of the distance from the locomotive works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, it seemed preferable to build and support them locally. In 1832, Robert Stephenson became a partner for a few years. The company had become The Vulcan Foundry Company in 1847 and acquired limited liability in 1864. From the beginning of 1898, the name changed again to The Vulcan Foundry Limited, dropping the word 'company.'

The site had its own railway station, Vulcan Halt, on the former Warrington and Newton Railway line from Earlestown to Warrington Bank Quay. The 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. Other early orders came from the Leicester and Swannington Railway and there were also some 4-2-0s for America which were among the first British 'bogie' locomotives.