Ralston Steel Car Company forge shop

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Title	Ralston Steel Car Company forge shop
Subject	Factories Freight cars Columbus (Ohio)--Industries Industries--Ohio—Columbus
Time Period	1930s 1940s
Place	Columbus (Ohio) Franklin County (Ohio)
Description	The photograph shows the interior of the Ralston Steel Car Company forge shop in Columbus, Ohio. Railroad tracks run down the center of the building with large machines and forges on either side. Joseph S. Ralston and Anton Becker founded the Ralston Steel Car Company in 1905 by purchasing the plant of the Rarig Engineering Company, located on Cassady Avenue, east of downtown Columbus, Ohio. Becker had just patented a drop-bottom gondola car which would allow the automatic unloading of coal and ballast cars. Prior to this invention, cars were unloaded by hand shoveling. They began by modifying wood freight cars to add steel underframes. Later the company manufactured their own line of all-steel rail cars. With the increase in power of steam locomotives, the old wood freight cars could not take the strain and demand for Ralston's all-steel cars exploded. By 1907 expansion of the facility began with the construction of a 1,400-foot (430 m) long Punch, Shear Fitting and Erection Shop. By 1910, a wide variety of cars were being produced. During the Great Depression, orders fell off sharply. However, the build-up to World War II in the late 30s revived the concern, and workers were called back to work. Employment reached 700 by the summer of 1940, and was producing 25-30 cars per day, with as many as 40 per day possible. After World War II, however, demand for new freight cars plunged since so many had been built during the war. Ralston was unable to ride out the slowdown and shut its doors in 1953.
Creator	Ohio Federal Writers' Project
Date of Original	ca. 1930-1940
Collection	Ohio Guide Photographs
Source	State Archives Series 1039 AV
Submitting Institution	Ohio Historical Society
Rights	Online access is provided for research purposes only. For rights and reproduction requests or more information, go to http://www.ohiohistory.org/images/information
Type	StillImage
File Name	SA1039AV_B07F07_005_1.tif
Image Height	4896
Image Width	6063
File Size	118300528 Bytes
Display File Type	image/jp2
Format	picture
Date created	2011-04-26
Date modified	2012-03-16

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Ralston Steel Car Company forge shop

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