American Car and Foundry Company

American Car and Foundry (often abbreviated as ACF) is an American manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. One of its subsidiaries was once (1925–54) a manufacturer of motor coaches and trolley coaches under the brand names of (first) ACF and (later) ACF-Brill. Today, ACF is known as ACF Industries LLC and is based in St. Charles, Missouri.[1] It is owned by investor Carl Icahn.

ACF Industries LLC
Founded1900 
Headquarters
St. Charles 
,
United States of America 
OwnerCarl Icahn
Websitehttp://acfindustries.com/
A 1907 postcard depicting the ACF plant at St. Charles, Missouri
A refrigerator car built by ACF in 1911.

History

American Car and Foundry was formed and incorporated in New Jersey in 1899 as the result of the merger of thirteen smaller railroad car manufacturers. The company was made up of:

CompanyFoundedLocation
Buffalo Car Manufacturing Company1872Buffalo, New York
Ensign Manufacturing Company[2]1872Huntington, West Virginia
Jackson and Woodin Manufacturing Company1861Berwick, Pennsylvania
Michigan-Peninsular Car Company1892Detroit, Michigan
Minerva Car Works1882Minerva, Ohio
Missouri Car and Foundry Company1865St. Louis, Missouri
Murray, Dougal and Company1864Milton, Pennsylvania
Niagara Car Wheel CompanyBuffalo, New York
Ohio Falls Car Company1876Jeffersonville, Indiana
St. Charles Car Company1873St. Charles, Missouri
Terre Haute Car and Manufacturing CompanyTerre Haute, Indiana
Union Car CompanyDepew, New York
Wells and French Company1869Chicago, Illinois

Later in 1899 ACF acquired Bloomsburg Car Manufacturing Company (of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania). Two years later, ACF acquired Jackson and Sharp Company (founded 1863 in Wilmington, Delaware), and the Common Sense Bolster Company (of Chicago, Illinois). The unified company made a great investment in the former Jackson & Woodin plant in Pennsylvania, spending about $3 million. It was at this plant that ACF built the first all-steel passenger car in the world in 1904. The car was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit system of New York City, the first of 300 such cars ordered by that system. In 1903 the Company was operating overseas in Trafford Park Manchester UK and was featured on a Triumphal Arch built for the Royal Visit of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandrain 1903. The factory buildings were later used by Ford cars who began manufacturing in Trafford Park in 1911.

1904 and 1905 saw ACF build several motor cars and trailers for the London Underground.[3] In those two years, ACF also acquired Southern Car and Foundry (founded 1899 in Memphis, Tennessee), Indianapolis Car and Foundry and Indianapolis Car Company.

During World War I ACF produced artillery gun mounts and ammunition, submarine chasers and other boats, railway cars, and other equipment to support the Allies.[3] ACF ranked 36th among United States corporations in the value of World War II production contracts.[4]

Timeline
  • 1899: American Car & Foundry is formed from the merger of 13 smaller companies.
  • 1899: ACF acquires Bloomsburg Car Manufacturing Company
  • 1901: ACF acquires Jackson and Sharp Company and Common Sense Bolster Company
  • 1904: ACF builds the first all-steel passenger car in the world for the Interborough Rapid Transit
  • 1904: ACF acquires Southern Car and Foundry of Memphis, Tennessee
  • 1905: ACF acquires Indianapolis Car and Foundry and Indianapolis Car Company
  • 1922: ACF diversifies into the automotive industry with the acquisition of Carter Carburetor Corporation[3]
  • March 31, 1924: ACF acquires Pacific Car and Foundry from William Pigott
  • October 31, 1925: ACF forms "American Car and Foundry Securities Corporation" (A wholly owned subsidiary holding company) for the purpose of acquiring Fageol Motors Company of Ohio and Hall-Scott Motor Car Company[3] Fageol Motors Company of California was included but was not approved by the shareholders.[5]
  • 1926: ACF acquires J. G. Brill Company[3]
  • 1927: ACF acquires Shippers Car Line[3]
  • 1934: Paul Pigott reinstates a controlling interest of Pacific Car and Foundry
  • 1935: ACF builds lightweight Rebel streamline trains for the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad
  • 1939: ACF's Berwick plant switches to construction of military tanks.
  • August 2, 1941: ACF's 1,000th military tank is completed for the United States military effort of World War II
  • 1954: The company officially changes its name to ACF Industries, Inc.[3]
  • 1954: ACF purchases Engineering and Research Corporation.[6]
  • 1954–1955: ACF delivers 35 "Astra Dome" dome cars to the Union Pacific Railroad
  • January 1961: ACF delivers its last passenger car, (NYCT IRT R28[7][8] IRT car), Berwick plant closed, sold, to later re-open as Berwick Forge & Fabricating Corporation.
  • 1977: Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) came up with the idea of the first double-stack intermodal car in 1977.[9] SP then designed the first car with ACF Industries that same year.[10][11]
  • 1984: ACF is purchased by Carl Icahn
  • 1997: ACF reaches leasing agreement with GE Capital Railcar for 35,000 of its 46,000 railcars, mostly on 16-year leases with optional purchase agreements.[12][13]
  • 2003: ACF Industries LLC became a successor to ACF Industries, Incorporated on May 1, 2003.[3]

Products
External-braced wooden boxcar built for sugar service in Cuba by ACF. ca. 1922

In the past ACF built passenger and freight cars, including covered hopper cars for hauling such cargo as corn and other grains. One of the largest customers was the Union Pacific Railroad, whose armour-yellow carbon-steel lightweight passenger rolling stock was mostly built by ACF. The famous dome-observation car Native Son was an ACF product.

Another important ACF railroad production were the passenger cars of the Missouri River "Eagle", a Missouri Pacific streamliner put in service on march 1940. This train, in its original shape, consisted of six cars including one baggage, one baggage-mail, two coaches one food and beverage car and finally the observation lounge-parlor car. All the passenger equipment was styled by industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

Today the U.S. passenger car market is erratic in production and is mostly handled by specialty manufacturers and foreign corporations. Competitors Budd, Pullman-Standard, Rohr Industries, and the St. Louis Car Company have all either left the market or gone out of business.

An M300 operated by the California Western Railroad at Willits Jct., CA in 1970

The manufacturing facility in Milton, Pennsylvania, is served by the Norfolk Southern Railway and is capable of manufacturing railcars and all related railcar components. The plant is capable of producing pressure vessels in sizes 18,000–61,000 gwc, including propane tanks, compressed gas storage, LPG storage, and all related components, including heads. The plant, covering 48 acres, provides 500,000 square feet of covered work area and seven miles of storage tracks. The Huntington, West Virginia, production site ceased production in late 2009. The site continues only as a repair facility.[1]

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gollark: Being able to program microcontrollers is mildly cool, but it also means I have to wait for an electronics assembler, they can't interact with external components, and they're very irritating to debug (apparently *deliberately?!*). CC computers boot fairly quickly anyway.
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gollark: I play on servers. I can't just edit the recipes.

See also

References
  1. ACF Industries, St. Charles, MO. "About ACF." Archived 2012-01-17 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2011-12-18.
  2. White, John H. Jr. (1993). The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car Era to the Coming of Steel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 142. ISBN 0-8018-4404-5. OCLC 26130632.
  3. ACF Industries. "History." Archived 2012-01-18 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2011-11-18.
  4. Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p.619
  5. Reports of the Tax Court of the Unite States, Volume 14. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1950. p. 267.
  6. S Oliver Goodwin (26 August 1956). "Saving Pilots and Planes Is Erco's Main Business: ACF Division Has 75 Pct. of Output In Simulators". The Washington Post.
  7. "IRT SMEE delivery dates", R36 Preservation, Inc. http://www.coronayard.com/r36preservation/irtsmeedelivery.html
  8. "R26/R28/R29". NYCSubway.org. 2005. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
  9. Chronological History Archived 2006-08-10 at the Wayback Machine - Union Pacific Railroad Company
  10. Kaminski, Edward S. (1999). - American Car & Foundry Company: A Centennial History, 1899-1999. - Wilton, California: Signature Press. - ISBN 0963379100
  11. "A new fleet shapes up. (High-Tech Railroading)". - Railway Age. - (c/o HighBeam Research). - September 1, 1990
  12. Carey, Christopher (11 March 1997). "ACF Leases 35,500 Railcars to Rival: GE Capital Is Given Option to Purchase". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016 – via business.highbeam.com.
  13. "ACF Industries Enters Into Railcar Lease With GE Capital Railcar". PRNewswire. ACF Industries, Incorporated. 10 March 1997 – via thefreelibrary.com.
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