Tod Engine

The Tod Engine Heritage Park, when completed, will become a major cultural attraction for the Youngstown, Ohio area. Over the past fifteen years we have been collecting equipment and artifacts from the Valleys' steel industry, and am now assembling those artifacts and equipment into exhibits on one acre of property in the northeast corner of Youngstown. 

The inspiration for the Heritage Park stems from the discovery of the Tod Engine in 1995, and the realization that almost none of the steelmaking equipment used or built in the Valleys were being preserved.  We firmly believe that to properly understand the size and scale of the steel industry, a visitor must experience firsthand the immense equipment used in the manufacture of steel.  When completed, visitors entering our building will immediately see the 250 ton Tod Engine, built in downtown Youngstown and used at Youngstown Sheet and Tube for 65 years driving rolling mills.  The Tod Engine stands over 16 feet tall and is as large as a house.  Above the Tod will hang our 1892 Morgan overhead crane, built 25 miles southwest of Youngstown in Alliance, Ohio. Overhead cranes such as this one were an indispensable part of steelmaking and were used in just about every steel mill building.   Even our building will reflect the type of buildings used in industry, being patterned after the soaking pits building at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Brier Hill Works.

Outside of the engine house building at the front of the property will be displayed an 80 ton hot metal car.  Once used at the US Steel Ohio Works, this car carried molten iron from the blast furnaces to the open hearth shop. Other pieces of steelmaking equipment are sought for the Park including an ingot mold and ingot, ladles and related items.

Construction of the engine house building will begin in spring, 2008.