Found out my great grandpa's anvil was made from a train axle

Ngl, I've been using an old anvil my dad gave me for like 5 years without thinking much about it. Last week I was cleaning off the rust on the side and spotted some faint stamping I never noticed before. Took a pic and looked it up, turns out it's a Fisher-Norris from 1910 that was forged from a salvaged railroad axle in their Trenton shop. Has anyone else stumbled onto something wild about their old gear just from looking closer?

2 comments

2 Comments

west.claire18d ago

Makes you wonder how many other everyday tools have secret histories just hiding under a layer of rust and grime. Railroad steel from that era was some of the highest quality stuff around because it had to handle years of heavy loads without cracking. Bet there's a lot more out there than just anvils hiding old railroad stories.

andrew_sanchez9418d ago

That Fisher stamp is cool but youre a little off on the timeline. Railroad axles were usually made from wrought iron before around 1910, not steel. The Fisher-Norris anvils were forged from wrought iron right up until the 1920s when they switched to steel. So yours is almost certainly iron, not steel, which actually makes it more interesting since the old wrought iron stuff holds up better for forging.