![]() Tanks that survived the Great War were antiquated. When word of the bid reached Wall Street during trading hours, according to the Berwick Enterprise of September 29, 1939, ACF stock went up “in a day of general recession in the market.” A special Planning and Estimating Department was set up in Berwick using 2,663 drawings to help prepare the estimate. War Department had opened bids for 329 heavy armored tanks and ACF came in lowest (ultimately $6 million). By the end of September, the Germans had subjugated the Poles, and Berwick ACF workers found out that they were going to be building tanks for the U.S. In the same month, ACF also received an order to build 90 Good Humor ice cream trucks. and 500 boxcars for the Erie Railroad Co. They were preparing to build 500 steel hopper cars for the Delaware & Hudson Railroad Co. When German troops attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, Berwick ACF workers were completing five streamlined dining cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The ability to adapt the machinery to a variety of needs allowed the Berwick plant to progress into different areas of production. During World War I, an average of about 5,000 Berwick ACF workers produced gun carriages, artillery repair trucks, and 3-inch shells in addition to the company’s mainstay, railroad equipment. In 1904 the Berwick plant delivered the first all-steel car to the New York City subway system. ![]() At this time, the Berwick plant was the largest car building facility in the eastern United States, employing between 2,000 and 2,500 workers. From these humble beginnings grew a larger company that by the turn of the century joined 12 railroad equipment-manufacturing firms (in six other states) and became the American Car & Foundry (ACF). One hundred years before Adolf Hitler’s troops invaded Poland, Mordecai William Jackson and George Mack established a foundry in Berwick, in Pennsylvania’s Columbia County, to manufacture farm implements. ACF tanks advance down Berwick’s Front Street in the 1,000th Tank Parade, 1941. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |