Foster, Rastrick and Company

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Preserved Foster, Rastrick and Company steam locomotive Agenoria at the National Railway Museum, York

Foster, Rastrick and Company was one of the pioneering steam locomotive manufacturing companies of England. It was based in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, now West Midlands. James Foster, an ironmaster, and John Urpeth Rastrick, an engineer, became partners in 1816, forming the company in 1819. Rastrick was one of the judges at the Rainhill Trials in 1829.

Locomotives

For America

The company built only four steam locomotives (each one having vertical cylinders, placed at the back and each side of the furnace, with grasshopper beams and connecting-rods from them to the crankpins in the four coupled wheels). Of these however, the Stourbridge Lion built in 1828, was the first locomotive to be tried in America. This engine and two others, Delaware and Hudson were ordered for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company by its chief engineer while on a research visit to England, and arrived in New York in May 1829 for what became short-lived testing.

For England

The fourth locomotive, Agenoria, was built for service on the Earl of Dudley's Shutt End Colliery Railway in Kingswinford, Staffordshire. It weighed 11 tons, had four coupled wheels of 4 ft ¾in diameter and two cylinders of 8.5 inches diameter by 36 inches stroke. Agenoria was probably the first locomotive to use mechanical lubrication for its axles. Unlike the company's first three steam locomotives it had a long life, being withdrawn from service in c.1864. It was presented to the Science Museum (London) in 1884 and is now on permanent display at the National Railway Museum in York.

Dissolution

Although pioneering, the company's locomotive designs were almost immediately outdated upon the arrival in 1829 of George Stephenson's Rocket, the locomotive which virtually set the pattern for the rest of the steam age. Ceasing locomotive work, the company was officially dissolved on 20 June 1831, its assets being absorbed into the Stourbridge Iron Works of John Bradley & Co. (iron manufacturer and owner of several coal mines), where James Foster was already the major partner and after 1832 the sole owner.

The factory building today

The original factory building in Lowndes Road where Stourbridge Lion and Agenoria were built is still standing, although near to collapse from a fire in 2004. Its renovation began in 2012 to house (with a new adjoining building) a Stourbridge medical practice, which will be known as the Lion Medical Practice. Lion Medical Practice opened during April 2014.

Sources

• Brief biographies of major mechanical engineers. Retrieved 9 February 2005 – company overview.
• Senate House Library, University of London, John Bradley & Co (Stourbridge) Ltd., Ironfounders. Retrieved 22 April 2005 – verifies Foster family connections and company dates.
• Lowe, J.W., (1989) British Steam Locomotive Builders, Guild Publishing

External links

• Brief history by the Malvern Industrial Archaeology Circle