Who was Todco and what did they do?

[DavidH66]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hunter1828/5537203397/in/photostream/

Does anyone know who this "TODCO" railroad was? It appears they operated in Alcoa, TN with a lot of ex-Alcoa Terminal equipment.

 

Where they actually related to the the Alcoa Terminal (Which did switching for the Alcoa plant in town)

Where did they operate? Who did they serve? How long they last?

I'm curious as I love local Railroad History here and I wanna know more.

[Overmod]

Todco was not a railroad, they were a business, probably in lumber of some sort.  They occupied a property on North Wright Rd. in Alcoa that formerly belonged to the Babcock Lumber Co. (which became Bond-Woolf in 1934, making flooring, and Veach-May-Wilson in 1946; the latter giving its name to an industrial park probably on the site of the original mill that survives to this day).  Here is a painting of how the Babcock complex looked:

Todco acquired unit 8 from the Alcoa Terminal in 1985, and subsequently transferred it to Burruss Co. in 1987.  Burruss did not reletter it as late as 1993.

City of Alcoa can be reached at [phone]

The local paper (Blount County Daily Times) is probably the point of contact for people in the Alcoa community who remember these companies and how they relate to each other - [phone].  Alas! they are one of those papers that decided to monetize every story via a subscription paywall to read more than about 6 lines of any given story; in some cases refreshing your browser with the page loaded will allow you to read the story.  The linked artwork (in case it should disappear) is from this story:

https://www.thedailytimes.com/columns/dean_stone/bits-of-stone-for-oct/article_dd41798e-c8cd-5805-9234-64a059b40567.html 

[David1005]

The Todco I know is The Overhead Door  COmpany. In addition to making garage doors they made doors and sanwitch pannels for railroad and transit applications. They are probably into lots of other macturfacting applications. 

[Overmod]

David1005

The Todco I know is The Overhead Door Company.

The Todco that makes the truck doors is in Marion, Ohio, nowhere near Alcoa, Tennessee.

[DavidH66]

Thanks! I lived in Alcoa for a few years and I remember even as late as the late 00s seeing Lumber Cars on a siding near the southern Alcoa plant. I wonder if that was related.