Calbrandt was founded in 1979.  It started as a panel shop in my basement, building control panels for scrap iron bailers and shears. After a short time I rented a building where we designed and built electro-hydraulic systems for various applications.  Early in the 1980’s we were presented with a opportunity in the grain industry for a simple railcar gate opener which was a hydraulic motor on a PTO shaft mounted on an I-beam to open railcar bottom hopper gates. That led to hearing from the Industry on how dangerous cable winches were for moving railcars. That sparked the idea of coming up with a way to move railcars without the use of cables and winches. We followed that lead and over many years have developed a complete line of Patented Railcar Movers and Railcar Gate Openers that made us the leader in this industry. For example, Calbrandt is the only company that offers a Patented Automated Vision Guided System for opening and closing railcar hopper slide gates “on the fly”. In 1997 we built a manufacturing facility in Delano MN, where we are located today.