Recently, at work, I picked up a tool, and noticed it was made by "H.K. Porter"
After a bit of research, it seems that yes, this was the same company that built industrial size locomotives.

I work at Vapor Bus (now part of WABTEC), a corporate descendant of Vapor Car Heating, so even my own employer has quite a bit of a RR supply history (and we still make relays and contactors for EMD, GE, MPI, and others, over in a small area on the other side of the plant)

This has me wondering, how many other companies are still out there, with railroad products in their history?

Jeff

ERICO, in Solon, Ohio. Originally, the Electric Railway Improvement Company. Started out making rail bonds for traction companies. They are still in the rail bond business. However, their primary business is electrical grounding products such as ground rods and connectors.

some thoughts, not exactly train related, some yes..

Checker made the Checker cars, but ended the car business, they are still doing metal work.

Tyco, the model train maker, still in the plastics works... making hangers for clothes, I see it all the time at work.

http://www.ernstmfg.com/

tho making tool stuff, made regear kits for Athearn HO locos, some said they were out of business, nope. I asked them, yep, they made those. Perhaps they still make them on demand.

At the Pullman Library I seem to recall a lot of wood car drawings and passenger car drawings specifiying "Vapor Car Heating Co", also a fair number of Pullman's coal fired boilers for car heating. It is a happy circumstance to hear that the name has lingered and I imagine a bit of the history!
Now only if Safety Car Heating & Lighting (name? I am out of town) had saved their drawings for our gas - electric wall sconces that we plan to reproduce for a 1906 car - oh well!
Keep the history alive! Ted Anderson

Well, Fairbanks-Morse is still alive......

http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/

Adams & Westlake is STILL making kerosene lanterns and replacement passenger car hardware; has anyone been issued a kero lantern on a non-heritage railroad in the past 50 years?:

http://www.adlake.com/

Some portion of Coach and Car Equipment is still around, but not supporting the older railroad designs. General Fireproofing is in the same boat. Leslie still makes horns, but that is just a small portion of their business now.

Penn Central bought them, sold them through their mail order catalog, and other posts said that they were issued at Elkart, Ind. yard before electricity became universal for caboose markers. Until 2018, PC will have only existed !

Thomas-Built buses started as the Perley Thomas Car Company (building street cars).

And Paccar (builders of Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks) started as the Pacific Car Foundry.

Whenever you see an Austin Western crane or forklift, you're seeing what became of Baldwin Locomotive Works.

One of Baldwin's other lines of business was material testing machines (tension and compression testers). They built them for their own use, and for sales to others. The large precision castings and forgings used in testing machines were a natural type of business for them to enter.

The Baldwin line went through several ownerships, and is now part of SATEC.

Ingersoll-Rand is still with us. They built a lot of early diesel engines, used by both GE and Alco. CNJ 1000 and similar units were a joint venture by the three companies.

Also, Mack Trucks. Two of their gas-electric locomotives ase still with us here in New Jersey. They also built gas-electric railcars, and the FCDs for the New Haven.

etalcos, where can I find info about the modern descendant of General Fireproofiing?

H. K. Porter Co. sold ONLY their locomotive business to Davenport Loco. Works in late 1950. All the other businesses in which Porter was active remained active under that name and do so to this day. The last locomotives left the Porter plant in Pittsburgh during the last few days of October 1950. Apparently no one at Porter took the bother to record shipment dates for the last 3 or 4 serials. I do have a confirmed date for the last diesel only because a Westinghouse field service engineer was present at the Porter plant for the final tests before shipment. The b/n was 8274 and the date was 10/27/50. If anyone has ever seen dates for 8273 or 8275, kindly elucidate us all.

I found it somewhere else on the web (http://www.railroadiana.org/lanterns/pgLanterns_AWKeroTwo.php) but the Washington Terminal Company was one of the last railroads to still buy and furnish keosene lanterns. Reportedly into the early '70's.

Steve

The part of Vapor that makes steam equipment seems to be separate from Vapor Bus.

http://www.vaporpower.com/

Steve