In the summer of 1869, four partners left the Ipswich company, Ransomes, Sims and Head, to establish a new company manufacturing railway components, Ransomes and Rapier, on a site on the west bank of the River Orwell, which they appropriately named Waterside Works. This title describes its story.

By 1874, a steam locomotive had been built for use in construction work on the Shanghai and Woosung Railway, and it was the first locomotive to run in China. Subsequent developments were in turntables, traversers, locomotive hoists, hydraulic buffer stops and the various types of cranes, including steam and, later diesel breakdown cranes, some with lifting capacities of more than 100 tons. The company made the first ever mobile hydraulic crane and became a leader in crane technology.