As supervisor on the charging floor of the Tonawanda Foundry, I also had supervisory responsibility over the briquetting operation. We would receive train car loads of iron borings from the Tonawanda Motor Plant and run them through briquetting dies to make them suitable for re-melting in the cupolas. One day, we received a complete ZL1 engine buried in the borings! It turned out that the 3rd shift clean up crew at the motor plant was dumping ZL1s on top of the borings in the rail car and covering them up. Then - over in the switch yard (off of Chevrolet property) - they would dig them out and take them. The whole operation was stopped and some employees got fired after we reported what we found in the rail car. No telling how many ZL1 engines they stole before the operation was stopped. Rumors in the plant indicated that it was going on for months, but certainly not every night.
Not sure if these engines were stolen before they were counted in production totals or after. I did reach out to Fran to discuss this issue before he died, but he didn't have much interest in the subject. I'm not sure when Fran was PM at Tonawanda. I was at a lot of meetings at the motor plant, but don't recall Fran.
Just offered this tid-bit to add confusion to the production totals!
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07-01-2019, 10:23 PM
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