Known for their graders, it also manufactured rollers, cranes, asphalt millers and even riding squeegees among other machines.
In its early years, the Galion produced a wide range of road-building and other construction equipment, such as drag scrapers, plows, wagons, stone unloaders, rock crushers, and a variety of other "experimental machines".
Popular throughout the 1920s and 1930s, these huge machines were pulled by the largest traction engines and crawler tractors.
Called the Galion Grade-O-Matic drive, it utilized a torque converter, output shaft governor and power-shift transmission, providing simple two-lever control of speed and direction.
It featured a distinctively sloped rear engine hood and was identified as the A-series for "Articulated".
That same year, Galion became part of the Komatsu Dresser Company (KDC) joint venture.
From 1995, the three basic Galion graders were badged and renumbered to fit into Komatsu's GD series, and featured modified specifications.
Galion grader
Galion was known for its huge pull-type graders, some of the largest ever built, designed to be pulled behind the largest tractors. The No 14 shown here is equipped with scarifier, steerable tongue, 14-foot blade and hand-operated controls. This heavy-duty unit weighed 15,000 pounds.
Galion developed one of the first hydraulic power grader systems in the 1920s. By the early 1930s hydraulics were standard on all motor graders. An example of a 1922 "Galion Patrol" is shown here.
Early 70s Galion Model 118, abandoned in a North Carolina clay mine
In 1979, Galion added the first three articulated graders to its line. The mid-sized A-550, with a 29,100 pound operating weight, is shown here. These graders were of completely new design, with a distinctive sloping engine hood. Other models of the same design were introduced until all Galion's rigid-frame machines were replaced by the mid-1980s.
Dresser 830 grader grading a bank. The 27,800-pound grader was formerly the Galion A-450E, but was renumbered when its parent company
Dresser Industries
temporarily dropped the Galion name in 1986.
