Werkspoor
| Werkspoor
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Naamloze vennootschap (NV) |
| founding | 1827 |
| Seat | Amsterdam |
| Branch | Mechanical engineering and vehicle technology |
Werkspoor (formerly Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel ) was a Dutch vehicle and mechanical engineering company , best known as a manufacturer of railway vehicles and associated equipment such as boilers , steam engines and steam turbines as well as diesel engines for ships, locomotives and other vehicles. At times, Werkspoor also manufactured steel structures and bridges as well as bus superstructures and aircraft .
The company went on in the 1970s in the Dutch mechanical and plant engineering company Stork ; the large area of diesel engine construction was later transferred to the Finnish Wärtsilä .
history
The company's roots were laid in 1826 under Paul van Vlissingen (1797–1876), who had previously gained experience as an entrepreneur in the Dutch East India Company . On the island Oostenburg ( 52 ° 22 '16.2 " N , 4 ° 55' 32.2" O ) in Amsterdam he founded a repair shop for steam engines. Van Vlissingen enjoyed the support of King Wilhelm I , who had observed the industrialization of England in English exile during the Napoleonic occupation of the Netherlands and wanted to promote a similar development in the Netherlands.
Shortly afterwards, in 1827, Abraham Dudok van Heel (1802–1873) joined as a partner. The company was founded under the name Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel - Koninklijke Fabriek van Stoom- en Andere Werktuigen (Royal Factory for Steam and Other Tools) . By the middle of the 19th century, the factory had grown into one of the largest mechanical engineering companies in the Netherlands with around 1,000 workers. Steam engines and boilers were manufactured for steam ships and locomotives as well as for industry, for example sugar factories , entire steam locomotives and other railway equipment, but also other heavy machinery and steel construction bridges. From 1891 the company continued to operate as the Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel with financial support from the Stork machine factory .
In 1913 the company moved into a new factory in the industrial area of Lage Weide near Utrecht .
The name Werkspoor ( Dutch for Werkbahn ) was originally a street name, from 1890 the telegram address of the company. In 1929, Werkspoor NV became the company's official name.
In 1954, Werkspoor merged with the Machinefabriek Gebr. Stork & Co. and then renamed Verenigde Machinefabrieken Stork-Werkspoor (VMF).
In 1972 VMF Stork-Werkspoor gave up building rail vehicles .
In 1978 the diesel engine division was spun off into the subsidiary Stork-Werkspoor Diesel BV (SWD). In 1989 Stork sold this area to the Finnish diesel engine manufacturer Wärtsilä .
In preparation for the outsourcing of the diesel engine division, the Werkspoor part of the name was dropped from VMF Stork-Werkspoor and the remaining energy technology division has only operated as Stork since then .
Products
Prime movers
Werkspoor and its predecessor Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel initially primarily manufactured steam engines and the associated steam boilers as power machines for stationary use in industry and power plants as well as mobile use on steam ships and locomotives . Large combustion engines later took the place of steam engines.
Steam boiler by Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel in the De Cruquius pumping station (built in 1849)
Steam engine of Werkspoor in a sugar factory in Surinam (Bj. 1921)
Diesel engine in the coconut oil factory on Java (1929)
Large diesel engine from more recent times
Steel and bridge construction
Werkspoor was also active in steel construction and built a. a. the following steel bridges :
- Moerdijk Bridge , a railway bridge over the Hollands Diep , built by Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel (1875), at the time the longest bridge in Europe
- Bommel Bridge (built 1931–1933)
- Waalbrücke Nijmegen (built 1931–1936)
Planes
In 1930, Werkspoor received an order from Albert Plesman to manufacture a cargo aircraft in cooperation with the aircraft manufacturer Pander & Zonen based on designs by Joop Carley . However, it took more than a year for the Jumbo works spoor from the factory in Utrecht to take off into the air for the first time, as problems with overheating arose during the development of the engine. The only copy flew two years for KLM in cargo traffic and after seven years as a training aircraft until the Second World War , on 10 May 1940 by a German bombing raid on the airport Schiphol was destroyed.
Before that, in 1925, Werkspoor was involved in the construction of a test helicopter by the Dutch aviation pioneer Albert Gillis von Baumhauer .
Omnibus bodies
Even before the Second World War Werkspoor bodies and other parts on behalf of other manufacturers, for example, made Kromhout and Diamond T . In the post-war period Werkspoor built 195 buses with chassis from Crossley Motors for the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) and its subsidiaries .
After a seven-year break in the production of buses, Werkspoor then entered into a cooperation with Leyland Motors between 1956 and 1962 , because the NS wanted an alternative bodybuilder alongside the quasi-monopoly Verheul . 477 Leyland Werkspoor integral buses were in use for many years at many NS subsidiaries. A patented "anti-reflex" windshield , which consisted of curved panes of glass and avoided reflections from the interior, was also taken over under license from other manufacturers , especially in Switzerland .
In 1962 the bus body production went to Hainje , a Werkspoor subsidiary in Heerenveen in the province of Friesland .
Railway technology
Werkspoor produced a variety of steam , diesel and electric - locomotives and small locomotives , railcars , wagons , S / U-Bahn - and tram vehicles.
After the Second World War, Werkspoor often cooperated with the Dutch manufacturers Beijnes in Haarlem and Allan in Rotterdam as well as other foreign manufacturers ( SLM / Oerlikon , Baldwin / Westinghouse , ...).
A selection of images:
Diesel locomotive 450 series
Electric locomotive 1000 series
Electric locomotive 1200 series
Railcar Plan V
Metro Rotterdam
Tram Amsterdam 1G and 7G (only the right vehicle 724 was partly built by Werkspoor)
The Werkspoormuseum
The Werkspoor Museum was opened in 1950 in the former admiralty building of the Dutch East India Company near the Werkspoor site in Oostenburg / Amsterdam . The 500 meter long building was built in 1660 as a rope factory . Documents, paintings and other objects relating to the history of the East India Company (on the ground floor) and the companies Van Vlissingen & Dudok van Heel , Werkspoor and Stork (on the upper floor) are displayed here today .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Werkspoor on www.stork.nl
- ↑ a b History - Stork Special Products at www.storkspecialproducts.com
- ↑ Paul van Vlissingen on www.stork.nl
- ^ Tradewind Caribbean Airlines - KLM: History. The years 1929–1938 ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Video: Baumhauer helicopter on www.youtube.com
- ↑ Werkspoormaterieel at www.nicospilt.com
- ↑ Werkspoor on www.treininfo.eu ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Werkspoormuseum: the history on www.stork.nl (English)
