Rolling stock were built in 1951. The Dutch railroad companies had provided crucial support for the founding of the new company in 1891. Their goal was that the new company would manufacture rolling stock. So the company started this trade, even though it had only one employee who still had experience with this from the previous company. Therefore the manufacturing of rolling stock was initially limited to railroad cars and the like. The
Netherlands–South African Railway Company ordered a big number of cargo cars at good prices, an order that was very helpful for the new company. In 1897 a big order by the Netherlands–South African Railway Company for 40 locomotives led to a breakthrough. It led to the construction of three big halls on Oostenburg designed by A.L. van Gendt, and the company producing locomotives in addition to wagons. In 1913, the manufacturing of railroad cars and steel constructions moved to industrial park Lage Weide in Zuilen, now a suburb of Utrecht. A new factory complex for up to 6,000 employees was built, and to house them the village Nieuw-Zuilen was founded, which is now the city quarters Elinkwijk and De Lessepsbuurt. In Utrecht, some famous bridges were built, as were the
Waalbrug in
Nijmegen and the Bommelse Brug near Zaltbommel. In the first years after
World War II there was a lot of work to repair the Dutch railroad and tramway stock. Werkspoor also built a lot of new locomotives and carriages for the Dutch railroads. Orders were often shared with
Beijnes in Haarlem and
Allan of Rotterdam. With the independence of Indonesia, Werkspoor lost a big market for its railway products. In 1951 this was temporarily compensated by a big order of 90 locomotives and 400 carriages from Argentina. It created work for seven years, and drove the number of employees to 5,000. By 1968 Werkspoor had so much work (e.g. plan V for the Dutch railways, and a big series of trams for Amsterdam), that it forwarded work to the German company
Duewag. Nevertheless, the long term perspective for the rolling stock division was not bright, because it only delivered to the Dutch market. In 1972 the division was closed.
Machinery In addition to producing rolling stock, Werkspoor also remained active in machinery, in particular ship engines. In its first years it built the machines for the protected cruisers
HNLMS Koningin Wilhelmina der Nederlanden,
HNLMS Holland (1896), and
HNLMS Utrecht (1898). In 1910, it produced the first
diesel engine for a sea-going ship, the
Vulcanus, for the
Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij. In the early 20th century, it also started to produce cooling machines in license from
Linde AG. In 1960, a new big factory hall was built on the
Amsterdam–Rhine Canal in Utrecht. It was to be used for the construction of large boilers and machines, the Apparatenhal, since 2013 known as Werkspoorkathedraal. In 1989, the engine division Stork-Werkspoor-Diesel (SWD) was bought by the Finnish company
Wärtsilä.
Aircraft Werkspoor was somewhat active in Dutch aeronautical industry. In 1925 it was involved in the construction of the first Dutch
helicopter by
Albert Gillis von Baumhauer. In 1930,
KLM executive
Albert Plesman ordered Werkspoor to create a cargoplane after a design by Joop Carley. The development of the
Werkspoor Jumbo in cooperation with
Pander & Son was plagued by the engine overheating. In 1931 the
Jumbo made its first flight. The only specimen flew two years as a cargo plane for the KLM, and then seven years as a trainer. At the start of World War II, the plane was lost in a bombardment. Werkspoor worked as a subcontractor for
Fokker in the late 1930s. By February 1939, 500 of the 2,000 employees working for Fokker were working at the Werkspoor location Zuilen. These were woodworkers that had been moved because there was not enough room for them in the rapidly expanding Fokker factory in Amsterdam. The wings of the Fokker
Fokker G.I, first flight 1937, were made of wood. While the wings of the first G.I. were not built in Zuilen, Werkspoor did built wing parts for the Fokker G.I. In the 1950s the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United States planned to build 460
Hawker Hunter fighter jets. In the context of a NATO plan, part of this would be financed by the United States. The engines would be built by FN in Belgium. For constructing the airplane a consortium was founded. • Fokker: principal contractor, also responsible for final assembly of the entire Dutch part and elements of the Belgian aircraft. Construction of the rear-part of the airframe. • Werkspoor: construction of central part of the airframe •
Aviolanda: construction of the front of the airframe • Société Anonyme Belge de Constructiona Aéronautiques (Sabca): construction of the wings and landing gear (license Dowty) • Avions-Fairey: final assembly of part of the Belgian planes
Busses -Werkspoor LE-WS bus of the NZHSTM Werkspoor built
busses before and after the Second World War. In the late 1940s, 195
Crossley busses were built for local public transport companies owned by the
Nederlandse Spoorwegen. After that, Werkspoor did not build any more busses, however, seven years later it re-entered the market by request of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen, that wanted to prevent the big coachbuilder Verheul from gaining a monopoly. Verheul was able to build busses with a self-supporting body, and Nederlandse Spoorwegen thought that Werkspoor should also be able to do so. From 1956-1962 Nederlandse Spoorwegen and its subsidiaries received 477
Leyland-Werkspoor
Bolramer busses. In 1962 Werkspoor sold the bus division to Hainje in
Heerenveen, now part of
VDL Groep.
Radio telescope In 1956, Werkspoor together with
Philips, the
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, and some Dutch universities built the
Dwingeloo Radio Observatory.
Hyperbaric chamber In 1959 Werkspoor used the first pressure chamber for
hyperbaric medicine for medical purposes. Customer was the Wilhelmina Gasthuis in Amsterdam. After the Wilhelmina Gasthuis became part of the
Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the chamber moved to the Meibergdreef, where it is still used.
Nuclear reactor and ultracentrifuges The first experiments with the use of
ultracentrifuges for enriching uranium were executed by the Dutch physicist Dr. Jacob Kistemaker in the basements of Werkspoor in Amsterdam. This finally led to founding the uranium enrichment plant
Urenco in Almelo in 1969. In the 1970s Werkspoor built the reactor pressure vessel for the KEMA Suspensie Test Reactor (KSTR), an experimental nuclear reactor used by
KEMA in Arnhem from 1974-1979 for studies. == Legacy ==