tons of steel ingots and 3,000 tons of steel castings per annum. The Works, which commenced production on March 1, 1884, was housed in a 160 x 114 foot building and employed a workforce of 70 hands. Heavy castings company In 1884, Roach, possibly due to his growing cash flow problems, relinquished majority control of the Standard Steel Casting Company to Robert Wetherill & Associates. The Works soon began making steel castings for the railroad industry, such as driving boxes and crossheads for locomotives. The company gradually acquired a reputation for itself as a manufacturer of heavy steel castings and as a pioneer in steel casting experimentation. In 1888, for example, the company accepted an experiment to build one of the largest steel-cast guns ever produced in the United States to that time, a six-inch rifled breech-loader weighing approximately 11,000 pounds. The weapon was manufactured using the company's open hearth process, while another company built a second weapon using the Bessemer process. In test firings, the Bessemer-produced gun failed after only the second round. The Thurlow-produced gun fired all ten of its test rounds without incident, but was finally failed after the barrel was found to have become slightly enlarged. The Thurlow Works management later had the gun mounted in its yard as testimony of "a courageous attempt to expand the uses of cast steel." Other large and difficult jobs taken on by Thurlow Works included castings for ship anchors, stern posts for battleships and large industrial housings. In 1893, the company became the first in the United States to manufacture a complete cast steel frame for a locomotive, built for the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Later history In 1892, Thurlow Works was merged with several other steel casting companies including the Solid Steel Company of Alliance, Ohio, to become the American Steel Casting Company. The new company was headed by a prominent executive in the steel industry, Dan Eagan. In 1902, the American Steel Casting Company was itself merged with several other large steelmaking firms across the country to become one of America's largest steel casting companies, American Steel Foundries, a specialist in the manufacture of railcar frames and couplings and other railcar parts. American Steel Foundries is known today as ASF-Keystone, Incorporated. Footnotes References Ashmead, Graham Henry (1884): History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, L. H. Everts & Co., Pennsylvania. Perry, Fred C. (1993): History of Baldt Anchor and Chain