Vulcan Foundry -> Tayleur Leas

[LNW-GW Joint]

This won't be news to regular passengers between Chester and Manchester via Warrington, but I thought it worth noting that the housing development on the site of the former Vulcan Foundry at Newton le Willows goes by the name of Tayleur Leas.

If this doesn't register, Charles Tayleur was the original developer of the engineering and locomotive building factory which became better known as Vulcan Foundry.
The factory opened in 1832 off the new Warrington & Newton Railway, one of the first branches off the Liverpool & Manchester Railway at Earlestown (then called Newton Jn).
Robert Stephenson was also involved initially, and the early Tayleur engines were built in conjunction with the Stephenson Newcastle works.
Engines were built for early British and foreign railways, including some of the first engines in the Austrian empire (for the Nordbahn in 1839).
The earliest GWR broad-gauge engines were also built there, including, appropriately, Vulcan of 1837 and Aeolus of 1838, the first engines to work on the GWR.

Charles Tayleur also had a foundry in Warrington at Bank Quay which built bridge components and even ships.

The Newton works became Vulcan Foundry in 1847, and was acquired by English Electric in 1957.
It passed to GEC in 1968, later GEC-Alsthom and then Alstom before closure in 2002.
The site was levelled in 2007, and redevelopment as residential housing started in 2010.
Vulcan Village, which originally housed the foundry factory workers, is just to the south of the Tayleur Leas development, and is a conservation area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_Foundry
https://www.stmodwenhomes.co.uk/our-developments/tayleur-leas/

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[krus_aragon]

An interesting read, fleshing out what little I knew about the Vulcan Foundry. Thank you.

 

[Ash Bridge]

Many thanks for this update, but how sad that such a historic former industrial site is now buried beneath yet another nondescript housing development.

 

[randyrippley]

how did they get the broad gauge locos to the GWR? Where was the nearest broad gauge track?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

how did they get the broad gauge locos to the GWR? Where was the nearest broad gauge track?

It was ship to the Thames and then barge on the Grand Junction canal from Brentford to West Drayton.
In Macdermot's GWR History it says:
"Gooch had to get them (Vulcan from Tayleur, Premier from Mather & Dixon and two engines which arrived later) from the wharf to the engine house about a mile distant.
An elm tree, which happened to be handily situated, was used to support the tackle for lifting the engines from the barge.
Vulcan was tried on 28 December 1837, between MP14 and 15.5 near Iver, and this length was the therefore the first section of the GWR on which a locomotive actually ran".

 

[randyrippley]

It was ship to the Thames and then barge on the Grand Junction canal from Brentford to West Drayton.
In Macdermots GWR History it says:
"Gooch had to get them (Vulcan from Tayleur, Premier from Mather & Dixon and two engines which arrived later) from the wharf to the engine house about a mile distant.
An elm tree, which happened to be handily situated, was used to support the tackle for lifting the engines from the barge.
Vulcan was tried on 28 December 1837, between MP14 and 15.5 near Iver, and this length was the therefore the first section of the GWR on which a locomotive actually ran".

Even then you've got an interesting task getting them - I presume - to the Mersey at Warrington. No ship canal then, so I guess towed by horse to the river, onto a barge or lighter, then lifted onto a ship at Liverpool?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Even then you've got an interesting task getting them - I presume - to the Mersey at Warrington. No ship canal then, so I guess towed by horse to the river, onto a barge or lighter, then lifted onto a ship at Liverpool?

It might have gone that way, but more likely on the L&M railway from Newton to the docks at Liverpool using the Wapping tunnel from Edge Hill to the Wapping dock.
The St Helens canal did pass just to the west of the Newton works, reaching the Mersey at Fidler's Ferry and Widnes, but I should think the Wapping route was easier.
http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=757

 

[edwin_m]

When mounted on a wagon it might have been out of gauge for the L&M, although that railway was originally laid with the "six-foot" at 4ft8.5in so large loads could be run on the middle pair of the four rails.