Grading through history

A name now confined to the history books, Galion provided a number of innovations during the early development of the motor grader, along with a number of massive machines.   BY RICHARD CAMPBELL

Back in 1907 The Galion Iron Works was established in, appropriately, Galion, Ohio, USA. Originally a foundry making castings for all manner of applications, the decision was made in 1911 to venture into the construction field.

Initial products included horse-drawn maintenance graders and ‘Fresno’ type drag scrapers. Later on the horse would be replaced by crawler tractors of the period.

Galion was responsible for some of the largest, if not the largest, towed graders ever offered for use during the 1920s and 30s, and a towed ‘patrol’ type grader was still in their catalogue well into the 1940s.

A self-propelled road roller powered by a Waukesha petrol engine was also produced and was very well regarded by county and municipal contractors.

Galion’s development and marketing of a range of road rollers would continue right through until 1973.

Spurred on by its early successes, Galion set about the redesign of one of its towed graders so it would accept a power plant, thus making it fully self contained. This experimental machine was powered by a gasoline engine and appeared in 1922.

Galion was one of the very first grader manufacturers to realise the potential of the machine and market a “motor grader” as such (the first self propelled grader was made by Russell in 1919).

Company slogan: “Galion – Miles Ahead”

As a company, Galion was responsible for quite a few other innovations in the motor grader industry that the reader may be unaware of:

• 1925: First with hydraulic blade controls (although the circle drive was still operated by mechanical worm gears);
• 1932: First with hydraulically operated scarifier;
• 1946: Hydraulically boosted steering;
• 1955: First with powershift transmission in a motor grader (Galion “Grade-O-Matic” system).

Galion also pushed the boundaries when it came to machine size and, for a number of years during the 1950s, held the honor of building the industry’s largest motor grader – the model T-700, which weighed almost 20 tons.

General information

Galion motor graders were of conventional design, with an arched box-section frame and roller chain drive to the tandem rear axles. The front axle was equipped with a steering booster and, in most models, could be leaned 30 degrees to the left or right to assist in steering with a heavy blade load.

Diesel engines were usually supplied by International Harvester or Buda, although Cummins and Detroit Diesel engines were also employed.

The transmissions were Galion’s own up until the introduction of the powershift machines. From that point either Twin Disc or Allison provided the transmission.

Standard blades (moldboards) varied from nine feet to 14 feet, and a wide range of optional equipment could be fitted including snow plows, windrow reducers, scarifiers and rippers. All blade controls were power boosted for reduced operator effort but surprisingly, cabs were optional equipment up until 1967.

The machines were usually sold through the International Harvester dealer network (International not having a grader of their own design).

In 1968, Galion’s sales worldwide for motor graders and road rollers was US$40 million, which gives a good indication of how well received its products were.

In 1973 Galion became a division of Dresser Industries and in 1979 introduced its first articulated steer machine, following industry trends towards this style of motor grader.

Although Dresser/Galion was not the first in the articulated grader marketplace, its range of machines were well liked by operators and maintenance personnel.

Dresser sold the Galion division to Komatsu in 1995 and although the brand name no longer exists, its heritage lives on in Komatsu’s ‘GD’ series motor graders.

The New Zealand connection

Several models of Galion motor graders were imported into New Zealand by the franchise holders International Harvester Co of New Zealand. These included the models 102, 104, 106, 116, 118 and 160.

These machines could be found New Zealand wide, and worked for the Ministry of Works, regional councils, county councils and private sector contractors in all manner of road maintenance and site work.

Due to very strict (and very short sighted) import restriction legislation in force during the 1960s and 70s, very few motor graders of American origin were permitted into New Zealand, which is why the Galion name is perhaps not as well known as it should be.

As the last known machine to be imported (a model 118 for the Ministry of Works) came into the country in 1962, it is quite unlikely that any are left in active service today.

However, New Zealand is a haven for older machines and if any reader knows of a Galion grader which is still operational, your writer would be keen to hear about it.