Dofasco!

Monday, August 3rd, 2020

I was taking a picture, a closeup picture. Enhance!

A detailed picture of, literally, big iron. Well, to be even more specific, the wheel assembly of a train, the part that holds the wheels, which has its own cool name, a bogie.

But what the heck was a Dofasco? Turns out, like the township of Germfask, Michigan, Dofasco’s name, actually once a nickname, was an amalgam of Dominion Foundries and Steel Company. Nowadays, with mergers and so on, the Hamilton, Ontario steel producer is formally known as ArcelorMittal Dofasco.

Amusing (maybe only to me) that I called it (maybe erroneously) an amalgam, I guess, although that is yet another word I needed help with. I thought it simply meant “alloy” of any kind, but turns out it has to have mercury as a component for it to be an amalgam.

And let’s now zoom out and do the opposite of ‘enhance’ and you can see the locomotive these wheels support: