Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works - 1831 To 1856: Thomas Rogers Era

1831 To 1856: Thomas Rogers Era

The firm that was to become Rogers Locomotive Works began in 1831. Thomas Rogers had been designing and building machinery for textile manufacturing for nearly 20 years when he sold his interest in Godwin, Rogers & Company (of which he was the Rogers part of the name) in June of that year. Rogers set out on his own with a new company called Jefferson Works in Paterson, New Jersey. The Jefferson Works built textile and agricultural machinery for a year before Rogers met the two men who would help transform the company into a major locomotive manufacturer.

In 1832, Rogers partnered with two investors from New York City, Morris Ketchum and Jasper Grosvenor. Jefferson Works was renamed Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor, and the company began to diversify into the railroad industry. The company soon manufactured springs, axles and other small parts for railroad use.

The first locomotive that Rogers' company assembled was actually built by Robert Stephenson and Company of England in 1835. This locomotive was the McNeil for the Paterson and Hudson River Railroad. It took another two years before Rogers received its first order for a complete locomotive. In 1837, the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad ordered two locomotives from Rogers to form the beginning of the railroad's roster. The first of these two locomotives was the Sandusky, which became the first locomotive to cross the Allegheny Mountains (albeit by canal boat and not by rail), and the first locomotive to operate in Ohio.

Sandusky included features designed by Thomas Rogers that had not been seen in locomotive construction to date. It was also the first locomotive to use cast iron driving wheels, and the wheels included built-in counterweights to reduce the amount of wear on the track caused by the weight of the driving rod and wheel all coming down at once during the wheels' rotations. Before Sandusky's construction, driving wheels were typically built with wooden spokes, much like wagon wheels. Some accounts also state that Sandusky was the first locomotive to feature a whistle, but this has since been proven false.

Rogers was not working completely alone in American locomotive manufacturing. In 1837, in addition to building the company's first locomotive, Rogers also filled orders from fellow locomotive builders Matthias W. Baldwin (founder of Baldwin Locomotive Works) and William Norris (founder of Norris Locomotive Works) for locomotive tires of various sizes. Once Rogers started working on his own locomotives, however, no further orders from either Baldwin or Norris were forthcoming. Within Rogers' own shop, William Swinburne worked as the shop foreman until he moved on to form his own locomotive manufacturing company, Swinburne, Smith and Company in 1845. After Swinburne left Rogers, John Cooke also worked at the Rogers plant. Like Swinburne, Cooke later went on to form his own locomotive manufacturing firm, Danforth, Cooke & Company. Another engineer who worked at Rogers was Zerah Colburn, the well known locomotive engineer and, later editor and publisher. Colburn was, around 1854, "superintendent and/or consultant" at the works where he introduced a number of improvements in locomotive design.

Rogers locomotives were, from very early in the company's history, seen as powerful, capable engines on American railroads. The Uncle Sam, serial number 11, a 4-2-0 (a locomotive with two unpowered axles in front, followed by one powered axle) built in 1839 for the New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company, was noted by American Railroad Journal for hauling a 24-car train up a grade of 26 feet per mile (4.9 m/km) or 0.49% at 24.5 mph (39.4 km/h). In 1846, Rogers built what is referred to as the largest 6-wheel truck engine (4-2-0) in the United States; the Licking, serial number 92, built for the Mansfield and Sandusky Railroad, generated 110 psi (760 kPa) of steam pressure and could pull a 380-short-ton (345 t; 339-long-ton) train up a grade of 16 feet per mile (3 m/km) or 0.3%.

Arguably, the most famous locomotive to come out of the Rogers shops was built in 1855. Rogers built a 4-4-0, serial number 631, in December of that year for the Western and Atlantic Railroad. The railroad named the locomotive The General. This locomotive, best known for being at the heart of an American Civil War incident, is now on display at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History (the Big Shanty Museum) in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Not only were Rogers locomotives known in the industry for their power, but they were also known for their endurance. It is estimated that one locomotive, Illinois Central Railroad 4-4-0 number 23, serial number 449, built in December 1853, operated over one million miles (1.6×106 km) in its thirty-year career on the Illinois Central.