Trinity Industries Inc. is a company that owns a variety of market-leading businesses which provide product and services to the industrial, energy, transportation and construction sectors.

Now, the company has five business groups which are Rail Group, Construction Products Group, Inland Barge Group, Energy Equipment Group and Railcar Leasing & Management Services Group.

Founding

The company, first known as Trinity Steel, was founded by C. J. Bender in Dallas in 1933. W. Ray Wallace, an engineering graduate of Louisiana Tech, worked for Dallas's Austin Bridge Company in 1944 before joining the company in 1946 as its seventeenth employee. At the time Trinity Steel manufactured butane tanks in a Dallas County mule barn. In 1958 Trinity Steel merged with Dallas Tank Company, which was also founded in 1933, and Ray Wallace became the new firm's president and first chief executive officer. At the time Trinity had revenues reaching $2.5 million and employed 200 workers. While some employees of the firm in other states eventually unionized, Texas workers never formed a union. For a time the company profited by producing larger tanks that enabled it to enter the petroleum business and do steel fabrication for refineries. In addition, to free up capital, it established an investment company to buy trucks and lease them back to the firm. Nonetheless, by 1957 Trinity faced competition and declines in the petroleum industry. Dallas Tank, Trinity Steel, and Bender-Wallace Development Company merged in 1958 to form Trinity Industries, Incorporated, and went public.

1970s

In 1970 Trinity diversified with the acquisition of 153 acre (0.61916958 km²) of land adjacent to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and in 1971 established its first real estate subsidiary. Acquisition of Mosher Steel in 1973, after initially contracting work out to them, enhanced the company's structural business. Among projects completed by the firm's structural division were the Texas Stadium, New York's World Trade Center, the Balboa Bridge in Panama, the Pennzoil Building, and two buildings in Moscow.

1980s

By the 1980s two subsidiaries, Gamble's Incorporated of Alabama and Mosher Steel of Texas, manufactured structural products including materials for drilling platforms, highway bridge components, commercial-high-rise buildings, and other girders and beams. The firm's marine subsidiary, Equitable Shipyards, produced LASH or Lighter Aboard Ship barges, riverboats for use by Hilton Hotels, and other craft for industrial uses. Hackney, Incorporated, its metal components subsidiary, produced materials for piping systems. Trinity produced completed railcars, including tank cars, hoppers, and gondolas to transport chemicals, coal, and other substances, at locations in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Longview, Texas, and held two railcar leasing subsidiaries. The company also produced containers for fertilizer, liquified petroleum gas, and nuclear fuel and waste. In 1981 the company acquired a metal fabrication firm at Channelview, Texas, and Babcock and Wilcox plants in Elkhart, Indiana, and Koppel, Pennsylvania, and in 1983 it acquired Halter Marine. In 1984 Trinirt acquired the railcar designs from Pullman Company

Pullman Company

The Pullman Palace Car Company, founded by George Pullman, manufactured railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Pullman developed the sleeping car which carried his name into the 1980s...

.

1990s

In the 1990s expansion continued with the acquisition of the Transit Mix Concrete and Materials Company of Beaumont, Texas, Beiard Industries, Syro Steel, and Stearns of Fort Worth, Texas, a major producer of airport equipment. By 1993 revenues exceeded $1.5 billion, and the firm employed 13,000 people.

August 2006

The company sold its European Rail business to International Railway Systems S.A.

December 2006

During the year ended December 31, 2006, it made two acquisitions in the Construction Products Group.

April 2007

The company's subsidiary, Transit Mix Concrete & Materials Company, acquired a combined group of East Texas asphalt, ready mix concrete and aggregates businesses operating under the name Armor Materials.

Rail Group

The group manufactures and sells railroad car

Railroad car

A railroad car or railway vehicle , also known as a bogie in Indian English, is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives...

s (hopper car

Hopper car

A hopper car is a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, track ballast, and the like. The name originated from the coke manufacturing industry which is part of the steel industry ....

s, gondolas

Gondola (rail)

In railroad terminology, a gondola is an open-top type of rolling stock that is used for carrying loose bulk materials. Because of its low side walls, gondolas are used to carry either very dense material, such as steel plates or coils, or bulky items such as prefabricated pieces of rail...

, flat cars, roll cars, intermodal cars, tank car

Tank car

A tank car is a type of railroad rolling stock designed to transport liquid and gaseous commodities.-Timeline:...

s, etc.) and component parts. Its customers include railroads, leasing companies and shippers of products.

Construction Products Group

The group produces concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

, aggregate

Construction Aggregate

Construction aggregate, or simply "aggregate", is a broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined material in the world...

s, highway products, beams

Beam (structure)

A beam is a horizontal structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending. The bending force induced into the material of the beam as a result of the external loads, own weight, span and external reactions to these loads is called a bending moment.- Overview...

 and girder

Girder

A girder is a support beam used in construction. Girders often have an I-beam cross section for strength, but may also have a box shape, Z shape or other forms. Girder is the term used to denote the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams...

s used in highway

Highway

A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...

 bridge

Bridge

A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...

 construction. Its customers include contractors and subcontractors in the construction and foundation industry.

Energy Equipment Group

The group manufactures tank containers and tank heads for pressure vessels, propane tanks and structural wind towers.

Railcar Leasing and Management Services Group

The group provides fleet management, maintenance and leasing services.

External links

• Official website
• www.marketwatch.com Analyst Estimates
• EDGAR Online SEC Filings
• moneycentral.msn.com Business data
• morningstar.com Business data