The Wason Manufacturing Company was a maker of railway

passenger coach A passenger railroad car or passenger car (United States), also called a passenger carriage, passenger coach (United Kingdom and International Union of Railways), or passenger bogie (India) is a railroad car that is designed to carry passen ...

es and

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

s during the 19th and early 20th century. The company was founded in 1845 in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...

by Charles Wason (1816-1888) and Thomas Wason (1811-1870).Mid-Continent Railway Museum. North Freedom, WI
"Wason Manufacturing Company."
''Builders of Wooden Railway Cars.'' Accessed 2011-01-18. Although the concept would later be popularized by the

Pullman Company The Pullman Company, founded by George Pullman, was a manufacturer of railroad cars in the mid-to-late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, during the boom of railroads in the United States. Through rapid late-19th century d ...

, Wason was the first to manufacture

sleeping car The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the American innovator of the sleeper car. ...

s in America. Wason's earliest clients included the Michigan Southern Railroad (1846–1855),

Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

Central Railroad of New Jersey The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...

, and

Boston and Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. Originally chartered in 1835, it became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970, B ...

, as well as foreign operators such as the State Railway of Chile, and

Egyptian National Railways Egyptian National Railways (ENR; ar, السكك الحديدية المصرية, Al-Sikak al-Ḥadīdiyyah al-Miṣriyyah) is the national railway of Egypt and managed by the parastatal Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA; ar, الهيئة الق� ...

, providing the latter with 161 cars as well as an ornate state carriage for

Sa'id of Egypt Mohamed Sa'id Pasha ( ar, محمد سعيد باشا, tr, Mehmed Said Paşa, March 17, 1822 – January 17, 1863) was the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan from 1854 until 1863, officially owing fealty to the Ottoman Sultan but in practice exercising vi ...

, the viceroy at that time. By 1867 the company had about 300 employees. The company made the first passenger coaches used on the

Transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

. One of these became the personal rail car of

Leland Stanford Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824June 21, 1893) was an American industrialist and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 8th governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented California in the United States Se ...

, President of the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...

. By 1868 the company had consolidated with the Springfield Machine Company, keeping the name Wason Manufacturing.[Query- "Wason Manufacturing Company"]
Massachusetts Corp. Card Search, Corporation Cards of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Commonwealth Around 1900 Wason concentrated on manufacturing streetcars and electrified railway cars. Clients included the Holyoke Street Railway Company and

Manhattan Railway Company The Manhattan Railway Company was an elevated railway company in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City, United States. It operated four lines: the Second Avenue Line, Third Avenue Line, Sixth Avenue Line, and Ninth Avenue Line. History 19 ...

. The company became a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

J. G. Brill and Company The J.G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for almos ...

in 1906. It continued to manufacture both streetcars and conventional railroad cars until 1932, when the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

forced Brill to close the plant. One of the only surviving examples of a Wason coach can be found at the

California State Railroad Museum The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, United States, interpreting the role of the "iron horse" in connecting California to the rest of the nation. It is located in Old Sacramento State Historic ...

's Railtown facility in

Jamestown, California Jamestown is a census-designated place (CDP) in Tuolumne County, California, United States. The population was 3,433 at the 2010 census, up from 3,017 at the 2000 census. Formerly a California Gold Rush town, Jamestown is now a California Hi ...

, located in the Sierra foothills. Wason streetcars on display at museums include 13 streetcars, interurban cars, and rapid transit cars at the

Seashore Trolley Museum Seashore Trolley Museum, located in Kennebunkport, Maine, United States, is the world's first and largest museum of mass transit vehicles. While the main focus of the collection is trolley cars (trams), it also includes rapid transit trains, ...

in Kennebunkport, ME; an 1896 model at the

Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum The Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum is a small railroad museum in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, United States. The museum (SFTM) is dedicated to preserving and operating car number 10 of the former Shelburne Falls and Colrain Street Railway. T ...

(Mass.) and a 1901 model at the

Connecticut Trolley Museum The Connecticut Trolley Museum, founded in October 1940, is the oldest incorporated museum dedicated to electric railroading in the United States. The museum is located in East Windsor, Connecticut and is open to the public April through December ...

. Wason was a prominent manufacturer of trolley plows and street cleaning equipment. Philadelphia and Western #10 was the last street railway plow still in operation was it was preserved by the Rock Hill Trolley Museum in Pennsylvania.

References

Defunct rolling stock manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Springfield, Massachusetts Manufacturing companies established in 1845 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1932 1845 establishments in Massachusetts 1932 disestablishments in Massachusetts 1906 mergers and acquisitions Defunct manufacturing companies based in Massachusetts {{Manufacturing-company-stub

See also

References