Re: PTO Generators

[Tom Harais <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

Actually Howard, I do not.

But, I do know the retired plant engineer that I worked for and he
worked there for thirty years or so and would certainly remember the
brand.

I've got to tell you, after I posted that, I really got to thinking.

I last worked out there in 1978. The plant has traded hands a few times
since then and is basically closed these days (Steve Larson tells me).
Antioch was a factory town at the confluence of the Sacramento and San
Joaquin Rivers until about 15 years ago. Now almost all the old plants
on the waterfront are closed, except for the PG&E power generating
station. The cannery, the gypsum board plant, the paper mill, the glass
factory, all shut down. Now, Antioch is what we call a "bedroom
community". 75,000 souls who live in acres of tract houses but leave
town every day for work in other cities. People just come back to sleep
here and night and then leave again the next day.

There were lot's of old vehicles around that plant when I went to work
there. The place was built in '47 and everything got thrown out to the
back "scrap heap" if it wasn't being used. In fact, one of my "summer
labor jobs" was cleaning up that scrap heap, which meant using a cutting

torch and 3' pipe wrenches to cut and disassemble scrap metal and load
into a bin that a metal recycler picked up.

There were however, certain items that myself and my buddy that worked
with me refused to cut up. Things we knew had fantastic intrinsic value
but little dollar value. If we could just let the right person know they

were there. And, we weren't beyond making a "midnight run" down to the
plant to save some beautifull old piece of history from the scrapper.
Hey, we had the plant engineers blessing and there was no security
guards back then. If an older freind was building a 52 Ford F-100 and
wanted a flathead V-8 for posterity, so much the better that it
shouldn't end up in the scrap heap.

The factory had even sponsered NASCAR vehicles in the past. There was an

old Buick straight 8 out there that my boss had raced at the Antioch
dirt track in the early sixties. It had an Offenhauser intake on it. The

only other place I'd ever seen the Offenhauser name was on indy race
cars at that time. I was impressed!

There were other fabulous things such as three Ford flathead V-8s that
had been in old plant trucks. There was also various cab and chassis
parts for a fleet of 50's Chevy pickups and heavy haulers that had
worked in the plant at one time. I'm sure there were probably some IH
parts around too, although at the time, they made little difference to
me.

And, like I said, after I posted that I got to thinking. I wonder if
that old mule got sold off for scrap. It ran when I left in '78 and
lived in an old outside lean to. It was kept around just for emergencies

and fools like me to use. The thing was painted the original industrial
yellow and had seen some 30 years of use at the factory. The "chariot"
part where you stood to drive the thing had to be three hundred pounds
of cast iron itself. It surrounded you almost to the armpits with what
I'm sure was being used to counterweight to the loads you might put on
the fork tines rather than protect the driver. I remember that it was a
1939 or a 1937 model.

I sure hope someone donated that thing to a museum or something. I sure
hope it didn't get scrapped.

Tom H.