On a recent visit to the Maritime Provinces, I visited TrentonWorks, one of the two largest producers of railway cars in Canada. Located in Trenton, Nova Scotia, this plant is the former Eastern Car Company and builder of the West Coast Railway 1929 Snowplough, C.N.R. 55365. (Acquired in 1991 having last seen service on the Clearwater Subdivision in the winter of 1990; see I Think I Can, West Coast Railway News, March 1993).

TrentonWorks is a Greenbrier Company, a leading supplier of rail cars in North America, headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon. The Trenton plant is a direct descendent of the Hope Iron Works founded in 1872 to produce ship fastenings and forged products. The company expanded its range of products and in 1876 railway car axles were being produced. As the demand for iron forgings expanded, the plant was built at Trenton in 1878. A small monument of a steel ingot and form of a blacksmith commemorates the first steel produced in Canada at Trenton. The Governor-General of Canada, the Right Honorable Vincent Massey, unveiled the monument in 1953.

The Eastern Car Company was formed in 1912 and produced its first boxcar for the Grand Trunk Railway in August 1913. Number 105000 was the first of a 2000 car order. The plant has produced more than 63,500 freight cars since. Among recent orders were deep well container cars for the TTX Corporation, 550 73-foot Centre Beam Lumber cars for CN and 600 high capacity, riser less lumber cars for the CPR. Freight cars are produced at a rate of 45 each week.

Early in WW I TrentonWorks branched out into shipbuilding, constructing six steam cargo ships and one sailing vessel. During WW II, part of the plant was taken over by the Federal Government for the production of gun mounts and shells. The present plant is about 750,000 square feet (17 acres) on 160 acres of land. 10 miles of track and several GE 45 Ton locomotives service the facilities. The main building consists of four bays, each ninety feet wide, three bays being 1,100 feet long and one being 1,300 feet long.

TrentonWorks employs a skilled workforce of 1,100 people. TrentonWorks has been awarded the TTX Excellent Supplier Award for seven years as a superior quality freight car producer. Among the freight cars TrentonWorks produces are high-capacity covered hoppers for grain, plastic pellets and other bulk shippers, boxcars, center partition lumber cars, 89-foot flatcars, double stack cars and various other general-purpose freight cars.