Industry | rail transport |
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Founded | 1909Fairmont, Minnesota, United States | in
Founder | Frank E. Wade |
Defunct | 1979 |
Successor | Harsco Track Technologies |
Products | railway speeders |
In 1909 Frank E. Wade founded Fairmont Railway Motors of Fairmont, Minnesota (Fairmont Gas Engine and Railway Motor Car Company in 1915), was a manufacturer of rail vehicles formed from the Fairmont Machine Company. [1] In 1928 the company acquired Mudge and Company [1] and in 1955, the railcar interests of the Fairbanks-Morse company (which had purchased the Sheffield company in the 1920s). [2] Fairmont merged with Harsco Corporation in 1979 to become part of Harsco Track Technologies (Harsco Rail in 2009). [1] Fairmont products included:
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platform car at the Denver Federal Center museum | |
image of plant buildings | |
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Wooden motorcar with 2-stroke engine |
Fairmont can refer to:
Fairmont is a city in and the county seat of Martin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 10,438 at the 2020 census.
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A speeder is a small railcar formerly used around the world by track inspectors and work crews to move quickly to and from work sites. Although slow compared to a train or car, it is called speeder because it is faster than a human-powered vehicle such as a handcar. Motorised inspection cars date back to at least 1896, when it was reported that the U.S. Daimler Motor Company created a gasoline-powered rail inspection car capable of 15 mph (24 km/h).
Fairbanks, Morse and Company was an American manufacturing company in the late 19th and early 20th century. Originally a weighing scale manufacturer, it later diversified into pumps, engines, windmills, coffee grinders, radios, farm tractors, feed mills, locomotives, and industrial supplies until it was purchased by Penn Texas in 1958.
General Motors Diesel was a railway diesel locomotive manufacturer located in London, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1949 as the Canadian subsidiary of the Electro-Motive Diesel division of General Motors (EMD). In 1969 it was re-organized as the "Diesel Division of General Motors of Canada, Ltd." The plant was re-purposed to include manufacture of other diesel-powered General Motors vehicles such as buses. Following the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement in 1989, all of EMD's locomotives were built at the London facility. In 2005 new owners of EMD renamed the Canadian subsidiary "Electro-Motive Canada". The plant was closed by EMD's new owner Progress Rail in 2012, with EMD's production remaining in LaGrange, Illinois and Muncie, Indiana.
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Sperry Rail Service is a rail inspection company founded in 1928 by Elmer Ambrose Sperry. The company was the first in the world to offer nondestructive testing of railroad track. Since its formation, Sperry has been contracted by most of the major railroads in North America to inspect rail. To accomplish this task, the company operates a fleet of rail service vehicles that travel along railroads to detect defects.
The Museum of the American Railroad, formerly known as the Age of Steam Railroad Museum, is a railroad museum in Frisco, Texas. The museum has a large collection of steam, diesel, passenger, and freight railroad equipment, and is noted for allowing guests to walk through some of the equipment on guided tours. The President and CEO is Bob LaPrelle who has worked there for over 30 years now. It was established in 1963 for the Texas State Fair as the Southwest Railroad Historical Society. The collection accounts for over 70 trains; also in the collection are multiple historic structures.
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The Roger Williams was a streamlined, six car, lightweight, DMU passenger train, built by the Budd Company in 1956 for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. The train was based on Budd's successful RDC DMU cars. The end two cars were equipped with streamlined locomotive style cabs and noses, resembling those on the Fairbanks-Morse P-12-42 Diesel locomotives. The four intermediate cars lacked operating controls and cabs.