Beyer, Peacock and Company

It retained its stock market listing until 1976, when it was bought and absorbed by National Chemical Industries of Saudi Arabia.

German-born Charles Beyer had undertaken engineering training related to cotton milling in Dresden before moving to England in 1831 aged 21.

There he was mentored by head engineer and prolific inventor of cotton mill machinery Richard Roberts.

Thomas Brassey came to the rescue, persuading Henry Robertson to provide a £4,000 loan in return for being the third (sleeping) partner.

[3][note 1] During the Great Depression, faced with competition from tramways and electric railways, the company began to look for alternatives so that they were not dependent on one product.

[3] Beyer and Peacock started building their Gorton Foundry in 1854 two miles east from the centre of Manchester at Openshaw on a 12-acre site, on the opposite (south) side of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR) line from Peacock's previous works.

[note 2] The site was chosen because land was cheaper than in the city, allowing ample room to expand, and there was a good water supply from an MS&LR reservoir.

[3] Aside from this locomotive, and nine 2-6-0's built for the Costa Rica Railway,[6] the company remained out of the North American market.

The locomotives' main designer, Hermann Ludwig Lange (1837–92), was a native of Beyer's home town, Plauen, Saxony (now Germany) who had undertaken an apprenticeship followed by engineering training.

In Garratt's design, two girders holding a boiler[note 4] and a cab were slung between two "engine" units, each with cylinders, wheels and motion.

[10] In 1976 Beyer Peacock was sold to Sheikh Mohammed Y. Al Bedrawi's National Chemical Industries of Saudi Arabia.

List shows delivery year(s), railway and locomotive class, wheel arrangement (Whyte notation) and number in order.

List shows delivery year(s), railway and locomotive class, wheel arrangement (Whyte notation) and number in order.

Prins August, built for Sweden in 1856, preserved at Swedish Railway Museum in Gävle , Sweden. It is said to be the oldest operating steam engine in the world. [ 1 ]
Layout of the Gorton Foundry workshops of Beyer, Peacock and Co. Ltd
The Gorton Foundry in 1870
Beyer, Peacock's innovative condensing locomotive of 1871 – the inaugural motive power for London's underground railway. The large black pipe and another on the right-hand side took steam from the cylinders to the side tanks rather than ejecting it into the atmosphere as on conventional locomotives.
The three separate units of a Beyer-Garratt locomotive. The tractive effort of this locomotive was double that of its 4-8-0 predecessor . (Click to enlarge.)