page_title: Reșița works
section_title: Beginnings and growth
hierarchical_section_title: Reșița works / History / Beginnings and growth
caption_attribution_description: English: Share of the Reșița works (UDR SA), issued June 1926 Deutsch: Aktie der Uzinele de Fier și Domeniile din Reșița (UDR SA) vom Juni 1926
context_page_description: The Reșița works are two companies, TMK Reșița and UCM Reșița, located in Reșița, in the Banat region of Romania. Founded in 1771 and operating under a single structure until 1948 and then from 1954 to 1962, during the Communist era they were known respectively as the Reșița Steel Works and as the Reșița Machine Building Plant, the latter renamed in 1973 as the Reșița Machine Building Enterprise. They have played a crucial role in the industrial development both of the region and of Romania as a whole, and their evolution has been largely synonymous with that of their host city.
context_section_description: The Habsburg Monarchy, which then ruled the Banat, was interested in developing extractive metallurgy in the province, and began building furnaces for iron ore smelting in Reșița in 1769, those at Bocşa proving inadequate for its industrial needs. The works trace their origins to July 3, 1771, when the first furnaces and forges were inaugurated, making it the oldest industrial factory in present-day Romania. At first, metalworking was the focus of activity, but machinery manufacturing gradually gained prominence, becoming the main occupation in the last quarter of the 19th century. For decades, the two complemented each other within the same integrated factory. Until 1855, the works belonged to the Treasury of what had become the Austrian Empire, which exercised control through the Banat Mining Directorate in Oraviţa. By 1815, they were producing cast iron pieces coming directly from the furnaces, rods forged from iron, hoops for cart wheels, tools, nails and utensils for agricultural and home use.
  In 1855, with the empire facing financial crisis and looking to sell, the works were bought by an international consortium, the Imperial Royal Privileged Austrian State Railway Company (K.u.K Oberprivillegierte Staatseisenbahn Gesellschaft or St.E.G.). Aside from the Reșița works, this company also owned land and mining, metalworking and railway properties in the Banat and Bohemia, a locomotive factory in Vienna and the concession for building and operating a railway network of some 5,000 km, and was financed by one French and two Austrian banks. A persistent legend holds that in the late 1880s, metal produced at Reșița was sent to France to be used in building the Eiffel Tower. However, there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. Since their opening, the development and fortunes of the works have been deeply entwined with the history of the city itself. An important element of their success was due to their relative self-sufficiency; over time, the works tended to use raw materials and energy sources produced on-site.
  Following the union of Transylvania with Romania, including the Banat, a 1920 royal decree transformed St.E.G.'s Romanian holdings into the Steel Works and Domains of Reșița (Uzinele de Fier și Domeniile Reșița; U.D.R. or U.D.R.I.N.) company. A "workshops directorate" belonging to the company was built on the left bank of the Bârzava River; this included the machine works, the old industrial platform of today's UCM Reșița, where the first St.E.G. workshops were also built between 1886 and 1891. By surface area, over 90% of the company properties were forests, but they also included iron, coal and copper mines; vineyards; roads; and limestone quarries.
  Starting in the 1920s, the works had the following divisions: blast furnaces; a coking plant; steelworks; rolling mills; a foundry; a forge; a factory for bridges and metal structures; a factory for mounted wheels; an old machine factory; a factory for petroleum extraction equipment; an armaments factory; a factory for electric machinery; and a locomotives factory with a capacity of 100 units per year. Among the main products generated were steam locomotives, including repairs; mounted wheels, including axles; wheel bandages, metal bridges, railroad switches and other rail equipment; metal frames for buildings and factories; moveable bridges; electric machinery and equipment such as motors, generators and transformers; petroleum extraction equipment, including pumpjacks, couplings, heavy drill bits, pump units, rotary engine parts, crown blocks and gear reducers; and armaments, such as artillery, gun carriages, 75 mm Vickers antitank and antiaircraft guns; coastal artillery; naval mines; and Brandt 60 and 120 mm LR Gun-mortars. In terms of revenue and number of employees, the company was the largest in Romania, with the latter figure reaching 22,892 in 1948. In 1939, following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi regime took over Československá Zbrojovka's one-tenth share in Reșița. Together with other incursions into Romanian industry, thi
caption: Share of the Reșița works (Uzinele de Fier și Domeniile Reșița), issued June 1926
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