Builders of Wooden Railway Cars ... and some of other stuff

Dickson Manufacturing Company

Iron furnace founded 1856 by Thomas Dickson

grew to major machinery fabricator w/ 3 separate shops

The Cliff Works (Scranton)  - purchased from Cooke & Co. (not related to Cooke of Paterson, NJ) - converted 1862 to loco plant (Cooke had done 3 locos for D&H)

1st loco under Dickson completed March 1862 for D&H Canal Co.

Car plant opened 1864

100th loco 1872

peak yrs 1880s, 1890s

all types and sizes locos, mining to road

most locos regional but not all - SF & CG good customers

1,000th loco 1898

1901 sold off general machinery business and planned loco expansion, but sold to American Locomotive Company which was "not enthusiastic" about Scranton plant

last loco April 1909.

White/Pass-537:

Dickson marketed the Boies wheel, a demountable, steel-tired wheel apparently designed and/or developed by Henry M. Boies

"The Boies wheel featured flexible center plates. "

White/Locos-43/44:

 

Dickson plant ca. 1875
Dickson plant ca. 1875. (Manufactories and Manufacturers of Pennsylvania of the Nineteenth Century)

Cast of Characters

Thomas Dickson [Ex.]

George L. Dickson [Ex.]

Henry M. Boies [Ex.]

John Swift [Supt.]

W.B. Culver [Supt]

C.A. Delany [Supt]

None of these names in White/Pass except Boies as above.

For More Information

Best, Gerald M., comp. Locomotives of the Dickson Manufacturing Company.  San Marino, CA: Golden West Books, 1966.

Reproduction of Dickson’s 1885 catalog, with an introduction and roster of locomotives 1862-1902.
 

11 April 2006

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