1877 ad Paterson NJ Poors Manual of Railroads

The Cooke Locomotive and Machine Works, located in

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest city in and the county seat of Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

locomotives from 1852 until it was merged with seven other manufacturers to form

American Locomotive Company The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

(ALCO) in 1901.

History

The firm was established in 1852 by former

Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a 19th-century manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. It built more than six thousand steam locomotives for railroads around the w ...

superintendent (and son-in-law of William Swinburne of Swinburne, Smith and Company) John Cooke and former

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

resident Charles Danforth as the Danforth, Cooke, and Company, as a manufacturer of steam locomotives as well as cotton machinery. The company was renamed Danforth Locomotive and Machine Company in 1865, with Danforth serving as president until 1871, four years before his death in 1875. Cooke succeeded Danforth as president in 1871, continuing in such capacity until his own death in 1882, after which Cooke's sons, John, Frederick, and Charles reorganized the firm as the Cooke Locomotive and Machine Works, and continued operating the company as such until the merger in 1901. Alco-Cooke builder's plate

In 1901, Cooke and several other locomotive manufacturers merged to form the

; Cooke's plant becomes the Alco-Cooke Works, and locomotive production continued at the plant until 1926. Approximately 2600 locomotives were built by Cooke from 1852 to 1901, among the most notable engines produced by the firm are the

C. P. Huntington ''C. P. Huntington'' is a 4-2-4T steam locomotive on static display at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, California, USA. It is the first locomotive purchased by the Southern Pacific Railroad, carrying that railroad's number ...

, and the Western & Atlantic Railroad "Texas".

Exports

In addition to providing motive power for North American railroads, Cooke has also produced many locomotives for Central and South America as well as other parts of the world. Examples of exported locomotives include two 0-8-2 tank locomotives for the Port Talbot Railway and Docks Company,

South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...

, in 1899, as well as Barry Railway's five class K

0-6-2T T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is derived from the Semitic letters taw (ת, ܬ, ت) via the Greek letter ...

locomotives the same year. The firm also produced

2-6-2T T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...

locomotives for the War Department Light Railways to be used in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, preserved examples of which can be found on the

Froissy Dompierre Light Railway The Froissy Dompierre Light Railway (french: Chemin de fer Froissy-Dompierre, CFCD) is a narrow gauge light railway running from Froissy (a hamlet of La Neuville-lès-Bray) to Dompierre-Becquincourt, through Cappy, in the Somme department, F ...

and

Ffestiniog Railway The Ffestiniog Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Ffestiniog) is a heritage railway based on narrow-gauge, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park. The railway is roughly long an ...

Preserved Cooke locomotives

The following is a list of preserved locomotives built by Cooke before the ALCO merger in 1901. They are listed here in serial number order. In addition to the above locomotives, the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad WP&YR owns and maintains a steam-powered snowplow built by Cooke in 1899. This unit is on static display in Skagway, Alaska (see

Rotary snowplow A rotary snowplow (American English) or rotary snowplough is a piece of railroad snow removal equipment with a large circular set of blades on its front end that rotate to cut through the snow on the track ahead of it. The precursor to the rotary ...

for a photo). The following is a list of preserved locomotives built at the Cooke factory after the ALCO merger.

References

Steam Locomotive Builders

Steam locomotive preservation information

Notes

External links

* * * Defunct locomotive manufacturers of the United States History of Paterson, New Jersey Economy of Paterson, New Jersey Transportation in Paterson, New Jersey Historic American Engineering Record in New Jersey Industrial buildings and structures in New Jersey Companies based in Passaic County, New Jersey {{US-train-stub