Corpet-Louvet was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Paris, France.
History Founded in 1855 as Anjubault, based in the Avenue Phillippe-Auguste in Paris, the firm was taken over by Lucien Corpet in 1868. Corpet's daughter Marguerite married Lucien Louvet, the engineer of the Compagnie Meusienne des Chemins de Fer, which used Corpet locomotives. Corpet died in 1889, and the management of the firm was taken over by Louvet. In 1912, the firm moved to new premises at La Corneuve, and a limited liability company, Corpet, Louvet et Compagnie was formed. The last steam locomotive was built in 1953, but the company is still in business, manufacturing "Caterpillar" earth moving equipment under licence.
Locomotives
The locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet had four different names on the worksplates.
Anjubault Works numbers 1 to 121 carried Anjubault worksplates. The first three locomotives were built for the Compagnie d'Orsay and were named L'Yvette, L'Orge and Le Florian. They were all standard gauge. Almost all Anjubault locomotives were four coupled locomotives, but works number 4 bis (a duplicate works number) was a six coupled locomotive built for the Compagnie Est-Landon in 1858. The majority of Anjubault locomotives were sold to contractors building new railway lines in France. A few locomotives are known to have been sold to India, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.
L Corpet Works numbers 122 to 565 carried L Corpet worksplates. In the 1870s and 1880s, Lucien Corpet continued to build four-coupled locomotives and also started to build six-coupled locomotives, including some designed to be able to be regauged. This design was introduced in 1880. The first metre gauge locomotives built for light railways were works numbers 314 and 315 built for the Chemin de Fer de Cambrésis in 1880 and 1881. Corpet introduced Brown valve gear on some of his locomotives in 1881. This system was popular with Swiss Locomotive Works at Winterthur, Switzerland. Works numbers 341-44 were the first Corpet locomotives with Brown valve gear.
Vve L Corpet & L Louvet
Works numbers 566 to 1415 carried Vve L Corpet & L Louvet works plates.Vve is short for Veuve, the French for widow. At the end of the 1880s and into the 1890s many light railways were built in France, many of them to metre gauge. Metre gauge six-coupled tank locomotives formed the bulk of Corpet-Louvet's production until the outbreak of the First World War. In the Ardennes, light railways were built to gauge. Corpet-Louvet supplied fourteen locomotives between 1895 and 1906. The line and locomotives were later converted to metre gauge. Corpet-Louvet also built Mallet locomotives, the first being 0-4-4-0s built in 1897 for the Tramways à Vapeur d'Ille et Vilaine. Works numbers 1409 - 13 were 0-6-6-0 Mallets built for the Chemin de Fer du Centre. These were the largest metre gauge locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet.
Corpet, Louvet & Compagnie
Works numbers 1416 to 1962 carried Corpet, Louvet & Compagnie worksplates. Production was severely hit by the First World War, with only three locomotives being outshopped in 1915 and none in 1916. During the 1920s, production was mainly metre gauge six-coupled tank engines. During the early 1930s, production was mainly 0-8-0ST and 2-10-2ST locomotives. The Depression hit the firm hard, with only two locomotives being delivered in 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1938. No new locomotives were delivered in 1937 or 1939. During the Second World War locomotives under construction when Paris fell were completed, but some could not be delivered to their intended customers and remained in France.
The largest locomotives built by Corpet-Louvet were ten 2-10-2T locomotives built for SNCF in 1940–42. These weighed . Six standard gauge 0-8-0ST locomotives were built for Krupp in 1944. It is thought these locomotives carried Krupp works plates. The first locomotive delivered after the liberation of Paris in August 1944 was works number 1875, a standard gauge 0-8-0T of similar design to those built for Krupp. The last locomotive built for a French light railway was works number 1926 built for the Chemin de Fer de Cambrésis in 1948. The last locomotive, works number 1962 was ordered by the Houillères du Bassin d'Auvergne but subsequently cancelled. However, a locomotive carrying works number 1962 was recorded in service with the company in 1955!
Preserved Corpet-Louvet locomotives Image Works number Year Type Gauge Identity Location 439 1887 Minas de Aller "2", Sociedad Hullera Española 2, Statfold Barn Railway 467 1888 Minas de Aller "3", Sociedad Hullera Española 3,Fitted with Works Plates of 542 Lousal Mines (Portugal) 493 1888 Loddington Ironstone Co., ex Chemin de fer du Cambrésis #5 Irchester Narrow Gauge Railway Museum 534 1890 SE Meuse #26 Bar-le-Duc, France 542 1891 Minas de Aller "5", Sociedad Hullera Española # 5 Museo del Ferrocaril de Asturias, Gijón (Spain) 691 1897 CF Drôme #14 Charente, France 710 1898 Enterprise Piketty Musée des tramways à vapeur et des chemins de fer secondaires français (MTVS), Butry-sur-Oise 1097 1906 Transports de l'Aisne #1 Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme 1087 1907 Chemins de Fer Nord-Pas de Calais Érezée, Belgium 1234 1909 Tramway d'Ille-et-Vilaine #75 Musée des tramways à vapeur et des chemins de fer secondaires français (MTVS), Butry-sur-Oise 1250 1909 CF Économiques des Charentes No. 52 Charente, France 1546 1918 0-4-0T #105, Forges de Fourchambault Musée Vivant du Train à Vapeur (AJECTA), Longueville, Paris 1589 1921 Enterprise Paul Frot #11 Train du Bas Berry (36) 1614 1923 Enterprise Paul Frot #22 Voie Férrées du Velay 1616 1923 Enterprise Paul Frot #24 Train du bas Berry (36) 1629 1924 TCDD 3511 class TCDD #3513 Kaklik station, Turkey 1634 1923 Cévennes Colliery CFT de la Sarthe, Connerre-Belle, France 1665 1925 Trois Rivières Distillery, Martinique. # unknown Martinique 1667 1925 Enterprise Paul Frot #15 Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme 1672 1927 Enterprise Paul Frot #25 Chemins de Fer de la Baie de Somme 1673 1927 Enterprise Paul Frot #26 MTVS, Butry-ur-Oise 1679 1927 Chemin de Fer des Côtes-du-Nord #36 MTVS, Butry-sur-Oise 1701 1925 Usine Sainte Marie, Martinique Location: St. James Sugar Cane Museum, Sainte-Marie, Martinique 1705 1926 TCDD 56911 class TCDD #56911 Nazilli station, Turkey 1706 1926 TCDD 56911 class TCDD #56912 Alaşehir, Turkey 1708 1929 TCDD 56911 class TCDD #56914 Çamlik, Turkey 1711 1926 TCDD 56911 class TCDD #56917 Çamlik, Turkey 1718 1926 Usina Rio Una #? Usina Barreiro #6 "Coronel Othon" Museu do Una in São José da Coroa Grande, PE (Brazil) 1816 1932 S.E, 3071 CFT des Landes de Gascogne 1908 1949 SNCF 232.U SNCF 232.U.1 Cité du train, Mulhouse, France 1933 1948 Cévennes Colliery #8 Ambert, France 1943 1950 Indian ZE Bengal Nagpur Railway 502, laterSouth Eastern Railway (India) #8 (all-India scheme) Nainpur station, India 1953 1951 Indian ZE Bengal Nagpur Railway 512, laterSouth Eastern Railway #18 (all-India scheme) Purulia, India 1957 1951 Indian ZB Western Railway (India) #304, Indian Railways #72 Godrha, India 1958 1951 Indian ZB Western Railway (India) #305, Indian Railways #73 Sanjay Gandhi Botanical Garden, Patna, India 1962 1951 Auvergne Collieries Le Cannet, France, last engine built
References
8. Stefan Hooß, Corpet, Louvet et Cie, Edition Shéhérazade Karlsruhe 2018
External links Preserved locomotives