dik, I think it was a local issue. Dominion Bridge bought Robb Engineering in 1964 and I think the poor fabrication practices were isolated in the Amherst, NS shop. Reading about the history of these joists is interesting/scary. There were two roof failures in Newfoundland in the 90's the kicked off the investigation - it was revealed that the manufactures were aware of the issue since the late 70's. Government owned buildings were inspected and remediated as required back when the problem was first discovered, but in the Atlantic region you still come across some undiscovered Robb joist in privately owned buildings.