It was Linden, a standard gauge 0-6-0ST delivered to Brassey and Ballard, a railway civil engineering contractor as were several of the firm's early customers.

This basic standard gauge shunting and short haul "industrial" engine was to be the main-stay of Hunslet production for many years.

[note 1] Many short wheelbase 0-6-0T locomotives were supplied to the Manchester Ship Canal Company in the 1880s.

At about this time, Hunslet was building a series of 2-6-2Ts for the Sierra Leone Government Railway, design elements of which were included in the construction of the famous Russell a 1 ft 11+1⁄2 in (597 mm) gauge engine built for the Portmadoc, Beddgelert & South Snowdon Railway.

Alcock came to Hunslet at a time of change when the industry was being asked for far larger and more powerful locomotives than had ever been required in the past.

The company, like many others, found itself employing women on the shop floor and engaged in the manufacture of munitions.

It continued to produce limited numbers of locomotives, significant examples being lightweight narrow gauge 4-6-0T designs for the War Department Light Railways.

Important in post-war production was the Hunslet flame-proof diesel engine for use in the coal mines, as well as further batches of Austerity shunters for the National Coal Board (NCB) and the British Army, and rebuilding some older Austerities, work which continued into the early 1960s.

[note 2] The "Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds" works was closed in 1995, the last order being a batch of narrow gauge diesel locomotives for tunnelling on the Jubilee Line Extension of the London Underground.

[8] In 2006, the company manufactured remote-controlled diesel electric shunters for John M. Henderson & Co[9] to be supplied to POSCO's coking plant in South Korea.

In 2007, Hunslet began developing a new family of locomotives ranging from shunters to vehicles weighing up to 100 tons.

It chiefly undertook maintenance and refurbishment of diesel multiple unit passenger trains at the Andrew Barclay Caledonia Works in Kilmarnock.

In October 2007, Hunslet-Barclay went into receivership and in November was purchased by FKI (the owner of Brush Traction) and renamed Brush-Barclay.