Corpet-Louvet was a

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

manufacturer based in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

History

Founded in 1855 as Anjubault, based in the Avenue Phillippe-Auguste in Paris, the firm was taken over by Lucien Corpet in 1868. Corpet's daughter Marguerite married Lucien Louvet, the engineer of the '' Compagnie Meusienne des Chemins de Fer'', which used Corpet locomotives. Corpet died in 1889, and the management of the firm was taken over by Louvet. In 1912, the firm moved to new premises at La Corneuve, and a limited liability company, Corpet, Louvet et Compagnie was formed. The last steam locomotive was built in 1953, but the company is still in business, manufacturing "

Caterpillar Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths). As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder ...

" earth moving equipment under licence.

Locomotives

The locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet had four different names on the worksplates.

Anjubault

Works numbers 1 to 121 carried Anjubault worksplates. The first three locomotives were built for the ''Compagnie d'Orsay'' and were named ''L'Yvette'', ''L'Orge'' and ''Le Florian''. They were all

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

. Almost all Anjubault locomotives were four coupled locomotives, but works number 4 bis (a duplicate works number) was a six coupled locomotive built for the ''Compagnie Est-Landon'' in 1858. The majority of ''Anjubault'' locomotives were sold to contractors building new railway lines in France. A few locomotives are known to have been sold to India, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.

L Corpet

Works numbers 122 to 565 carried L Corpet worksplates. In the 1870s and 1880s, Lucien Corpet continued to build four-coupled locomotives and also started to build six-coupled locomotives, including some designed to be able to be regauged. This design was introduced in 1880. The first

metre gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...

locomotives built for light railways were works numbers 314 and 315 built for the ''Chemin de Fer de Cambrésis'' in 1880 and 1881. Corpet introduced Brown

valve gear The valve gear of a steam engine is the mechanism that operates the inlet and exhaust valves to admit steam into the cylinder and allow exhaust steam to escape, respectively, at the correct points in the cycle. It can also serve as a reversing ...

on some of his locomotives in 1881. This system was popular with '' Swiss Locomotive Works'' at

Winterthur Winterthur (; ) is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. With over 120,000 residents, it is the country's List of cities in Switzerland, sixth-largest city by population, as well as its ninth-largest agglomeration with about 14 ...

, Switzerland. Works numbers 341-44 were the first Corpet locomotives with Brown valve gear.

Vve L Corpet & L Louvet

Works numbers 566 to 1415 carried Vve L Corpet & L Louvet works plates.Vve is short for Veuve, the French for ''widow''. At the end of the 1880s and into the 1890s many light railways were built in France, many of them to metre gauge. Metre gauge six-coupled tank locomotives formed the bulk of Corpet-Louvet's production until the outbreak of the First World War. In the

Ardennes The Ardennes ( ; ; ; ; ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geological ...

, light railways were built to gauge. Corpet-Louvet supplied fourteen locomotives between 1895 and 1906. The line and locomotives were later converted to metre gauge. Corpet-Louvet also built

Mallet locomotive A Mallet locomotive is a type of compound locomotive, compound articulated locomotive, articulated steam locomotive, invented by the Swiss engineer Anatole Mallet (1837–1919). The front of the locomotive is articulated on a bogie. The Compou ...

s, the first being

0-4-4-0 In the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotive wheel arrangement, an 0-4-4-0 is a locomotive with no leading wheels, two sets of four driving wheels, and no trailing wheels. The arrangement is chosen to give the articulation ...

s built in 1897 for the ''Tramways à Vapeur d'Ille et Vilaine''. Works numbers 1409 - 13 were

0-6-6-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a wheel arrangement refers to a locomotive with two engine units mounted under a rigid locomotive frame, with the front engine unit pivoting and each engine unit with six coup ...

Mallets built for the ''Chemin de Fer du Centre''. These were the largest metre gauge locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet.

Corpet, Louvet & Compagnie

Works numbers 1416 to 1962 carried Corpet, Louvet & Compagnie worksplates. Production was severely hit by the First World War, with only three locomotives being outshopped in 1915 and none in 1916. During the 1920s, production was mainly metre gauge six-coupled tank engines. During the early 1930s, production was mainly 0-8-0-ST and 2-10-2ST locomotives. The Depression hit the firm hard, with only two locomotives being delivered in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1938. No new locomotives were delivered in 1937 or 1939. During the Second World War, Locomotives under construction when Paris was overrun were completed, but some of these could not be delivered to their intended customers, and saw service in France. The largest locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet were ten

2-10-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels, ten powered and coupled driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. In the United States and elsewhere the is known as th ...

T locomotives built for

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (, , SNCF ) is France's national State-owned enterprise, state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the Rail transport in France, country's national rail traffic along with th ...

in 1940-42. These weighed 91 tonnes. Six standard gauge

0-8-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of no leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and no trailing wheels. Locomotives of this type are also referre ...

ST locomotives were built for

Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...

in 1944. It is thought these locomotives carried Krupp works plates. The first locomotive delivered after the liberation of Paris in August 1944 was works number 1875, a standard gauge 0-8-0T of similar design to those built for Krupp. The last locomotive built for a French light railway was works number 1926 built for the ''Chemin de Fer de Cambrésis'' in 1948. The last locomotive, works number 1962 was ordered by the ''Houillères du Bassin d'Auvergne'' but subsequently cancelled. However, a locomotive carrying works number 1962 was recorded in service with the company in 1955!

Preserved Corpet-Louvet locomotives

References

{{commons category, Corpet-Louvet 8. Stefan Hooß, Corpet,Louvet et Cie, Edition Shéhérazade Karlsruhe 2018

External links

Preserved locomotives
French companies established in 1855 Manufacturing companies based in Paris Defunct locomotive manufacturers of France