Neilson and Co

Neilson and Company of Hyde Park Street, Glasgow was a locomotive manufacturer

1836-7 The firm was founded at McAlpine Street by Walter Neilson (eldest son of James Beaumont Neilson) and James Mitchell for the manufacture of stationary and marine engines. The firm was known as Kerr, Mitchell and Neilson

Walter Montgomerie Neilson

1840 Known as Kerr, Neilson and Co

1843 First locomotives (0-4-0) built

1845 Known as Neilson and Mitchell

1852 Stationary engines at Cowlairs on the incline of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway

1855 Stopped the manufacture of stationary and marine engines. The company changed its name again to Neilson and Company. By then, the company was building four-coupled tank engines, along with 2-4-0 and 0-4-2 tender locos. Some of these were for Cowlairs Works and St. Rollox Works, but many more went to India.

1861 Business had increased to such an extent, that a new works was built at Springburn, also named Hyde Park Works

1864, Henry Dübs set up in business on his own at Queens Park Works, as Dubs and Co, taking a number of key staff with him. James Reid, who had previously worked for Neilson, however, returned and became a partner.

1870 Two Woolf Compound Beam Engines for Leicester Waterworks (Cropston Station). (Neilson Brothers of Glasgow)

Through the 1870s considerable numbers of 0-4-4 tank engines were built for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, Midland Railway and the Great Eastern Railway. Many other types were built for railways at home and abroad, including fifty 0-4-2s for India. The company's first eight-coupled locos were built in 1872, also for India.

1879 the first 2-6-0s to run on British rails were built for William Adams of the Great Eastern Railway. One of these was named "Mogul" and this became the name applied to all locomotives of this wheel arrangement. (However, the name had already been employed in the USA about ten years earlier.)

1884 Walter Neilson left the company and set up as Clyde Locomotive Works leaving Reid as the sole owner

1889 Engine for London and South Western Railway illustrated (no. 3197)

1894 Tank locomotive for Nippon railway. Illustration and details in 'the Engineer'

1898 The name changed to Neilson, Reid and Company

1900 An estimated 5,394 locomotives had been built. They employed 3,500 men and produced 300 locomotives per annum

1903 However, by this time, intense competition from America meant that small companies were unable to survive. There was a need for amalgamation, and in 1903 Neilson Reid combined with Dubs and Co and Sharp, Stewart and Co to form the North British Locomotive Co, the largest locomotive company in the world, outside of the United States

See Also

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Sources of Information

• British Steam Locomotive Builders by James W. Lowe. Published in 1975. ISBN 0-905100-816
• [1] Wikipedia
• The Engineer of 28th December 1894 p568
• The Imperial Journal 1852 Volume II. p198
• The Engineer of 18th Jan 1889 p68
• The Steam Engine in Industry by George Watkins in two volumes. Moorland Publishing. 1978. ISBN 0-903485-65-6