Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) was a Canadian railway locomotive manufacturer which existed under several names from 1883 to 1985, producing both steam and diesel locomotives. For a number of years it was a subsidiary of the American Locomotive Company. MLW's headquarters and manufacturing facilities were in Montreal, Quebec.
Early history
The Locomotive and Machine Company of Montreal Limited was created in 1883, producing primarily for the growing domestic market—notably the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Grand Trunk Railway, the Intercolonial Railway and, after 1922, the Canadian National Railway.
Purchase by Alco
In 1901, the American Locomotive Company (Alco) headquartered in Schenectady, New York, was formed by the merger of several struggling locomotive manufacturers. Alco purchased the Locomotive & Machine Company of Montreal in 1904 to tap into the Canadian market with its emerging designs. The Montreal subsidiary was renamed Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) several years later.
MLW became an exclusive Alco design shop and acquired a substantial portion of the Canadian steam locomotive market. The period of railway expansion between 1900 and 1915 was unprecedented in Canada, with many new orders for locomotives from various domestic manufacturers. Protective customs tariffs also discouraged Canadian railways from purchasing American-built locomotives for use in Canada. Several bankrupt private systems, including the Grand Trunk and Canadian Northern, were nationalized in the years 1918–1922. Merged with the federally owned Intercolonial, they formed the federal Crown corporation Canadian National Railways. The federal government mandated that the new, larger public company purchase locomotives from all Canadian manufacturers to discourage domination of the market by any one manufacturer.
Between 1918 and the period after the Second World War, Canadian National modernized its steam locomotive fleet by replacing many of the units it received from its constituent railways. MLW was a major beneficiary of these purchases, along with the Canadian Locomotive Company of Kingston, Ontario. MLW grew substantially during the Second World War when its plant facilities were converted primarily to fabricating matériel for the Commonwealth/Allied war effort (largely by a female workforce), including the Ram tank and the Sexton self-propelled gun.
Post-war diesel competition
Following World War II, MLW and other locomotive builders reverted to building locomotives. MLW continued to benefit from Canada's restrictive trade policies which prevented a flood of U.S. imports. However, the switch from steam to diesel-electric locomotive production opened the door to new competitors. In 1949, the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors established a Canadian subsidiary named General Motors Diesel Division (GMDD) in London, Ontario. MLW's long-established steam locomotive competitor, the Canadian Locomotive Company (CLC), had also entered into a partnership with Baldwin and imported and produced the designs of Baldwin and its subsidiary Whitcomb. Westinghouse was the main supplier of Baldwin's electrical transmission components. After Baldwin folded, CLC became a licensee of Fairbanks-Morse and manufactured a number of F-M designs for the Canadian market, including the famous Train Master. CLC was also responsible for building General Electric industrial switchers. General Electric did not enter the road diesel-electric market in the United States until the late 1950s, a move it took after dissolving its partnership with Alco in 1953.
Mass transit
In 1960, MLW was awarded the contract to build 36 new subway cars for the Toronto Transit Commission. The M1 Series Subway Cars were notable for being the first ever rapid transit vehicles to be designed and built in Canada. They were also an improvement over the previous rolling stock, being lighter and faster, despite also being considerably larger. MLW's venture into rapid transit would be short lived, as the Toronto Transit Commission opted for Hawker Siddeley Canada vehicles from the mid-1960s onwards to 1980s.
Diesel-electric production
In 1949, MLW began to introduce its first Alco-GE-derived diesel designs in response to GMD, mostly switchers, some of which were given different names and slight modifications to distinguish between MLW and ALCO-GE versions. In 1951, MLW began to build Alco-GE cab-units for freight and passenger service.