The Timken Company keeps its bearings straight. The company makes bearings that find their way into products from consumer appliances to railroad cars. Timken also makes bearings, helicopter transmission systems, rotor-head assemblies, turbine engine components, gears, and housings for civil and military aircraft. Its customers include the makers of cars, light and heavy-duty trucks, railcars and locomotives, and heavy duty industrial vehicles as well as process customers in the energy, power transmission, and military markets. Timken traces its roots to its founding by carriage maker Henry Timken in 1899.