FOR OVER 100 years ALDON has been identified with railroad safety and maintenance products. The company was establiSHEd back in 1904 in a one-man office in Chicago’s Loop. Our first products were cast steel car replacers, painted black, and delivered by horse-drawn wagon to the nearby railroad yards. The name Aldon is said to have originated when a friend asked our founder, Emil W. K. Roe, if a new item was finished yet. “It’s all done,” replied Mr. Roe, and the name was born. Besides being original, it had the advantage of being at the head of the alphabetical listing in the telephone book.

In the early 1950s we developed a cast steel wheel chock with replaceable rail biting spurs and found a new market in the industrial firms the railroads served.  The advent of OSHA in 1970 increased the need for greater rail safety with the result that today most of our customers are the rail-using industries