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Brooks Locomotive Works At Fredonia Technology Incubator

DUNKIRK — Brooks Locomotive Works, an exhibition of photography and artifacts focusing on the Brooks Locomotive Works, is on display at the Fredonia Technology Incubator from Jan. 22 to March 20.

A reception will be held Thursday, Jan. 30, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Fredonia Technology Incubator, 214 Central Ave., Dunkirk. The reception includes an illustrated lecture at 5:30 p.m. by Roy Davis and Roger Schulenberg. The reception is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and registration is required by visiting brookslocomotiveexhibit.eventbrite.com. The registration link is listed on the incubator’s website and Facebook page.

For more information, call 680-6009 or email incubator@fredonia.edu. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The incubator parking lot is off Washington Avenue.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the incubator and the Historical Society of Dunkirk. It tells the story of Dunkirk’s Brooks Locomotive Works and American Locomotive Company (ALCO)/Brooks Works, but recounts the early history of steam locomotives. The exhibition features original and reprinted photographs of the Brooks plant, its employees, and the locomotives they manufactured throughout the years; wooden mold patterns and tools from the Brooks carpentry shop; documents, letters, postcards and locomotive catalogs; a steam pressure gauge and Brooks builders plates; and other original artifacts.

From their first locomotives, the 4-4-0 American type to the 1926 4-12-2 Union Pacific, the longest wheelbase of a conventional steam locomotive ever operated in the United States, Brooks built a variety of engines for railroads across the United States, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, and Finland. Between November 1869 and March 1929 the plant built 13,245 steam locomotives, an average of 3 engines every working day. In its best year, 1901, the plant produced 382 locomotives.

By 1921, the company employed 4,500 workers in the city of Dunkirk, nearly 24% of the city’s population of 19,000. Brooks Works outlasted the six other smaller locomotive builders at ALCO, continuing to produce steam locomotives until 1929.

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