THE MCCONWAY & TORLEY PITTSBURGH FACILITY IS ALMOST AS OLD AS THE AMERICAN RAILROAD INDUSTRY ITSELF. 

In 1868, William McConway purchased the Eagle Gray Iron Foundry in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  This foundry became one of the railway industry’s first suppliers of steel castings.  John J. Torley joined McConway a year later when the first transcontinental railroad spurred the rapid growth of industry, McConway & Torley was born.

McConway & Torley soon became the exclusive manufacturer and patent-holder of the industry’s first automatic coupler, invented in 1873 by Eli H. Janney.  In 1887, the Master Car Builder Association (MCB) selected the Janney Coupler over 40 other designs as the industry standard and McConway & Torley’s railcar-coupler castings business became the mainstay of the company.

The foundry in Pittsburgh has an expansive history, one of more than 150 years.  From its incorporation until the 1940’s the company was confined to manufacturing and selling of automatic couplers to only one industry, the railroads.  During the 1940’s, the plant was equipped with machinery and the skilled personnel to produce alloy steel castings to be used by all types of industries.  Shortly after Pearl Harbor in 1942, the company was informed by the Army Department that it was expected to produce Ballistic Alloy tested armored castings for Army tanks.  We expanded our facility and from April 1942 to June 1944 continued to produce these castings.  This historic steel foundry began rebuilding in the late nineteen seventies, with upgrades in 1996 and our most recent phase of modernization completed in 2014.

Today, McConway & Torley continues to be the leading manufacturer of standard couplers and car-connecting systems in the world.

Here at the Pittsburgh facility, we boast about our dedicated and highly experienced workforce, one that has proven itself with the highest quality steel castings.

Our facility has both the ISO 9001 certification and the Association of American Railroad’s M-1003 certification.

McConway and Torley passes M-216 Knuckle Fatigue Test →