The Fall of Baldwin Locomotive Works | From the Leader in Steam to Defunct | History in the Dark
Vložit
- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Baldwin Locomotive Works had a humble beginning as a machine shop started by Matthias W. Baldwin in 1825. Stumbling into the growing railroad locomotive market, Baldwin would become the number one producer of steam locomotives over the following decades and well into the 20th century. However, a few key short-sighted decisions would lead to the companies swift and sudden collapse as diesels began to replace steam locomotives and left Baldwin with very little to offer.
0:00 - Intro
1:54 - Beginnings
5:19 - Success in the Market
8:54 - The Assumptions
14:42 - Ignorance and Complacency
20:13 - An Impossible Battle
25:48 - Dying Breaths
27:45 - Never Forgotten
"Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete when demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation."
🚂 Further reading 🚂
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin...
www.american-rails.com/baldwi...
🟢Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @historyinthedark
🟢Patreon - / darknessthecurse
🟣Discord - / discord
🔴Cameo - www.cameo.com/darknessthecurse
🔵Facebook - / history-in-the-dark-10...
🟢Donations - streamlabs.com/edgerabbit/tip
🔴Reddit - / historyinthedark
🔴Tiktok - / historyinthedark
🟣Instagram - / historyinthedark
🔵Twitter - / darkthecurse
🟣Merch - / @historyinthedark
🟣Twitch - / edgerabbit
Other channels:
🟢Prehistory in the Dark: / @prehistoryinthedark
🟣Gaming and Fanfic Readings: / @darknessthecurse
🟣History Stuff: / @historyinthedark
👔Merch: streamlabs.com/edgerabbit/merch
---
I WRITE BOOKS! YOU CAN FIND THEM HERE:
📚Abyss: www.amazon.com/Abyss-Books-Pr...
📚Pryde: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08...
📚Abyss on Audible: www.amazon.com/hz/audible/mlp...
#history #truestory #documentary
Another thing I love about Baldwin is that Matthias Baldwin was also an abolitionist. He was an outspoken supporter for the abolition of slavery in the United States, a position that was used against him and his firm by competitors eager to sell locomotives to railroads based in the slaveholding South. In 1835, he donated money to establish a school for African-American children in Philadelphia and continued to pay the teachers' salaries out of his own pocket for years thereafter. Baldwin was a member of the 1837 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention and emerged as a defender of voting rights for the state's black male citizens.
hell yeah!!!!
His statue was also defaced during the 2020 riots.
@@the101stdalmatian8 I know. Someone didn't do their research.
@@the101stdalmatian8 shows where the real racism is. They see an old white guy and immediately assume racist slave owner bs.
@vincentberkan605
They want to destroy. They really don't care who the statue is, or their history. It just a statue for them to deface.
My father was the industrial real estate broker who handled the sale of the Eddystone plant to Vertol, now Boeing Vertol. When the deal was done, he had to figure out what to with the life size statue of Matthais Baldwin. My mother refused to let him put it in our back garden. I think it was donated to county historical society.
Is it the one on the north side of Philadelphia City Hall?
Or is it the one in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg?
@@OldsVistaCruiser its not the one at City Hall. But since it is not now in the Delco Historical Society, it may very well be in Strasburg. I will take a look there sometime. Thanks
@danbernstein4694 - The one in Strasburg is at the northeast corner of the train hall and is slightly larger than life-size.
@@OldsVistaCruiser that sounds like the one that was at the plant!
i was really happy with how they handled things, no corruption, paying their workers properly, pioneering technology, until they stopped looking to the future
There were only few railroads that ordered more steam locomotives from ALCO than Baldwin, like Union Pacific and New York Central. Just shows how dominant Baldwin was in the golden age of steam
Pick up any paperback Western novel, and all they talk about is Baldwin locomotives any time there's a train scene.
The Rutland bought from Alco.
As someone who lives in an area where Budd and Baldwin both had their main presence, the stories of their downfall is always so frustrating.
Funny I feel the same living in the Detroit area. The Big 3 Legacy can't make a dime on electrics and are like Baldwin being so far behind. It's funny but it's not because all of us will pay the price. What if they just can never catch up?
My father started to work at the Eddystone plant before the war. He tried to enlist after Pearl Harbour and when he told them where he worked they told him to go back to work. Told me the made quite a lot of engines for Russia.
Yep. The "Russian Decapods".
He told me once when a couple of reps from Russia were inspecting the engines one of the other boilermakers took the oxy torch and made backfire, sounded like a gun. The Russians dropped to the floor of the shop. Their fur coats didn't look to good after that.
My father worked at Baldwin during WWII, and remembered building locomotives for the USSR, and also large artillery mounts.
@@brianferus9292 poor fellas, probably thought that the backfire was the sound of an arty round going off...
I wonder if your father knew my Grandfather ? My grandfather worked at Baldwin I’d say in the 1930’s to 1950’s era. His name was Edward Larkins.
SMS in New Jersey is famous for continuing to run Baldwin diesels. Growth and the normal issues of running museum pieces forced SMS to pick up some used EMDs as well.
They had the two former Copper Range DS-4-4-1000s at one point. Not sure if they still do or not.
Can't add much to the content except that it was informative and interesting. The steamers were all but gone by the time I arrived in 1956. Rode my first train in the 1st grade with my class on a 20 or so mile trip to a little town north of our town and rode a school bus on the newly constructed Interstate 75 back to our school. It is still a fond memory, and now I video trains for you tube. Still love trains! Come to a look.
Going to break my heart when you reach Lima Loco. They tore down the sheds in the 90s.
Thankfully Allen County Museum has dutifully preserved the blue prints for the engines. They are common visit spot for Lionel and other train hoppy companies.
They did???
Do they have blueprits for 4-8-6s and 2-10-6s?
@@vaclavmacgregor2464robably, I only briefly saw the archives when I volunteered at the museum during my college days as I worked with cleaning and recording object donations.
I do know that there is museum in California that also holds apart of the collection so they may also have the blueprints. What that museum name is unfortunately lost to sand of time in my memory.
In the museum stand a Shay locomotive and in the town there is 779 the last steam locomotive to come out of Lima. These are last two largest physical reminders of the towns train history past open to the public.
I know Lima built all but the first batch of GS 4-8-4 locomotives for Southern Pacific. Lima was an innovative steam locomotive builder, adding their own features to SP’s original design. While originally intended as fast power for SP’s Daylight and other streamlined trains, they were creditable freight locomotives too.
The way I recall hearing it from a locomotive salesman, Baldwin, ALCO, and Lima salesmen all got along, drank each other's whiskey and smoked their cigars. If they didn't get an order, they would get the next one. EMD was cutthroat. The railroads were told that if you want to ship automobiles, you need to do it behind EMD locomotives That is why so many steam locomotives in there prime met the torch. It wasn't that EMD locomotives were all that much better.
Keep in mind that EMD became a part of GM!
Please do h.k. porter and possibly davenport also
Sounds nice to me
Baldwin gave me and the rest of Pennsylvania Reading & Northern 425, my favorite steamer. That’s enough to make me happy.
Baldwin also made a lot of other products at Eddystone including ship propellers, hydraulic presses, and water turbines for power generation to name a few. Different company divisions all in the Eddystone plant.
Baldwin: Diesels aren't the future steam is!
EMD: HAHAHA watch this!
Baldwin is to the Ford motor company like ALCo is to General Motors
Well… I would not say that cause EMD
@@definitelynotakgbagent6612 no because ALCo was started by several companies merging together, sort of like GM
Not true, Ford still exists. Baldwin got a fat L.
@@ukaszwalczak1154 again, how they were founded is key. not if they exist or not.
I noticed that much of the footage depicting the manufacture of steam locomotives comes from a 1935 documentary titled “No. 6237 a Study in Steel” by the LMS. It’s a great documentary worth watching.
The fact that several dozen of their locomotives are not only in preservation but still in active service is a testament to Baldwin's build quality. They are honestly the Toyota of railroading.
The Baldwin story is so similar to that of the North British Locomotive works, they also were one of the largest locomotive builders, exporting many thousands of steam locomotives over the world, but they also were not successful in building diesel locomotives.
One of the license holders of BLH was the Cockerill company in Belgium, they produced some of the diesel engine types from Baldwin but also Hamilton, like the 608A, and used them in locomotives for the Belgium railways but also some export models for Argentina and countries in Africa.
The Belgian locomotives classes 51 and 59 powered by the 608A engine fared pretty well being withdrawn completely not earlier than 2001-2004 respectively.
"Steam would last until 1980..."
Sam Vauclain clearly underestimated EMD and the financial strength of GM. You know what happened next....
He wasn’t completely wrong. Steam lasted in freight service until the 1980s on two short lines/industrial railroads in Illinois, as well as past 1990 in India, Pakistan, and South Africa, and into the 2010s in Mainland China and the former Yugoslav Republics (mostly Bosnia and Kosovo) as well as on some sugar cane tramways in Indonesia.
@@JohnGeorgeBauerBuisHe was referring specifically to America 🇺🇸
Fun Fact:
The former Colony of New South Wales in Australia (Australia wasn't created until 1901) once had a Royal Commission over Baldwin engines (one small part of which revolved around possible politically interference in local politics).
Pretty similar to the controversy over Huawei...
Edit: plz read the reply.
Baldwin was exonerated.
And then the New South Wales Government Railways brings out the P Class ten-wheelers and the Standard Goods (2 - 8 - 0's), whose front ends seemed awfully similar to Baldwin .
I'm sure it was purely a co-incedence 😉
(The last engines the NSWGR bought off Baldwin were the D-59 class Mike's in 1952.
Baldwin had closed it's tender shop by then and got Lima to make their bob-tail tenders
Back in 2018 at the Goulburn Streamliner festival some yanks were standing on a rusted D-59 tender.
I went straight up to 2 guys and said
"Hey mate be careful on that tender, it was made by the blokes that made your GS-4's"
There eyes went as big as saucer's and they both jumped down and started taking pictures, completely forgetting about the Victorian Railways B Class on the turntable.
Best memory that day was the weather
38 F and snow flurries. Watching people from overseas complaining about the cold and snow still warms my heart)
Now do EMD’s downfall from number to its current status(even though it’s still around, just under a different owner).
But EMD is still around
@@markdebruyn1212 true. However, EMD went from being the leader in locomotive production to a very distant second. After the poorly received SD50 in the'80s, they lost market share to GE. GE now has 70% of the market for north American locomotive production.
@@jonathanng2390 I also thinks he is gonna only do companies that are no more
EMD is sill here, but it is no longer part of GM. It is a part of Progressive Rail, which is owned by Caterpillar.
@@markdebruyn1212 Obviously I knew that the moment I posted it, but just because I didn’t add any further description doesn’t mean it was necessary nor that I don’t know it.
Alco: Diesel is the future
EMD: Diesel is the future
Baldwin: LALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU LALALALA
“Not enough soot,” said Baldwin.
“Hold my Distillate,” said Alco.
I grew up in Delaware County where the Eddystone plant was located and I distinctly remember those now silent huge manufacturing sheds along Chester Pike.
- If I recall correctly, the Baldwin administrative building in Eddystone Delaware County was turned into office space in the 1980’s to 1990’s time frame.
A brilliant summary of the rise and fall of BLW - I like this content, Darkness; please keep it up!!!
The biggest railway locomotive factory for its time
Another grea documentary/video, I will continue to wait patiently for the Lima Locomotive Works video 🚂🚃🚃
I have developed into a jake-leg railroad theorist.
This is a lovely review of the Baldwin company's history.
If we pull back a bit, we see that Baldwin, Alco, and EMC
tended to be manufactured in the North.
What happened to the railroads in the South?
Corinth, Mississippi was captured in 1862.
Savannah, Georgia and its rail interests were taken in 1864.
The much vaunted transcontinental railroad from Iowa
to California was completed in 1869.
The Southern route would not be completed until 1881.
Sherman bent a lot of rails on the way to Baldwin's success.
The South wanted a railroad, but the Civil War got in the way.
i am from philly and drove as delivery down town i cannot believe that the baldwin was smack in the center of town across from the city hall. the city wanted a new city hall but it was built with enormous blocks i thing garnet so they found it would cost more to just tear down the city hall so it was cheaper to build auxiliary building on the Baldwin plot since they moved out
So Baldwin was the American equivalent of general British steam manufacturers of the 50’s and 60’s, when it came to diesels.
I really like Baldwin. I wish that they were still around. :(
Same bud, They built B&O no 5300 and that Jersey Central Pacific 833
Baldwin were also a big player in Steam locomotive exports. Baldwin engines were made in standard gauge and 60cm gauge for the British and French in the first world war, as did Alco.
Thank you. I learned so much from this video about The Baldwin Locomotive Works. Nice Video Sir.
To be fair the guy wasn't technically wrong because there was one place in America still using steam in 1980, North Western Steel and Wire but that along with the Crab Orchard and Egyptian the only two Oddities running steam in the 1980s and that quickly ended after about six years
Loved this video, the steam to diesel transition is an important topic of history.
As a Canadian Railfan, I could not help but notice that much of your steam footage came from the National Film Board movie, "End of the Line" It chronicles the end of stram in Canada, showing the "Dead Lines" as they awaited the scrappers torch.
Awesome Foundry Action at… 3:30 and after
Indeed, but also notice the lack of personal safety gear such as eye goggles, hard hats and gloves.
For the record both Alco and Fairbanks Morse diesel engines are still in service in the US on tugs and ships and parts are easy to get. You can even buy a whole engine 251 Alco or 38 Fairbanks if you need to as they are still listed.
My last ship now scrapped had Alco 251diesels, but Australia still runs sister ships coast guard cutters have alcos too still.
That is part of how Fairbanks-Morse are still in business, up in Wisconsin!
you have incorporated some great production video.....well done video in this old timers opinion, cheers, Paul in Florida
Interesting! Well done! Thank you.
Thank you Darkness! A great vídeo about my favorite locomotive builder
In college we had a BLH diesel running our Emergency generator on the ex USNS Barrett (T-AP-196) that was our training ship.
It was build around 1950. Parts were impossible to get. Ship ran to 1990.
Probably the oddest locomotive Baldwin built was a curious 0-2-0ST steam monorail locomotive for the Bradford & Foster Brook Railway in Pennsylvania.
They also built the first successful compressed air locomotives in America.
The first such locomotive being a streetcar engine in 1874.
The first industrial compressed air locomotive was built in 1877.
Named 'UNIQUE'' it was built for the Plymouth Cordage Co of Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Today it preserved along with another Baldwin compressed air locomotive also ex Plymouth Cordage in The Plymouth Cordage
Museum.
Between 1874 and 1923 Baldwin built eighty compressed air locomotives mainly for mining.
However it was decided to concentrate on electric/battery electric locomotives for the mining industry using Westinghouse equipment.
Probably the most extraordinary locomotives they ever built were the three gigantic steam turbine-electric locomotives for the C&0 RR These huge locomotives no's 500,501 & 502 proved unsuccessful.
However a fourth steam turbine-electric locomotive was built for the Norfolk & Western no 2300 known as "Jawn Henry" whilst it was more successful than the C&O locomotives it was over complicated and was withdrawn in 1958.
When it comes to Gasoline/Petrol and Diesel locomotives it should not be forgotten that Baldwin built vast numbers of such machines mainly under the Whitcombe brand.
Personally my favourite American Diesel locomotive is without doubt the Baldwin RF-16/RF-615E "Sharknose"!
The C&O units had a throttle with at least 11 notches, and were one of the early uses of the phrase ‘up to eleven’.
@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis Thank you for that.
Whilst there is a very good book on "Jawn Henry" I have never seen a book devoted to the three C&O locomotives. Whilst I do have a book on the rolling stock that was designed for the 'Chessie' service (Washington DC to Cincinnati) I have never seen anything on the locomotives themselves.
Apart from the strange La France rotary engines that General Roy Stone used in his monorail vehicles (The railcar demonstrated at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition and locomotive no 1 on the Bradford & Foster Brook Railway)
There were only seven steam turbine locomotives built in the USA
Six of which were Turbo-Electric machines.
1&2) The pair of General Electric locomotives that were used for a time on the Union Pacific after 1938 and later on the Great Northern before being returned to GE c.1943 and later dismantled. I did hear that one of the boilers rated to 100bar may still exist (They were the highest pressure boilers ever used on a steam locomotive. The only steam locomotives that operated at higher pressures were the fireless locomotives built to the designs of Dr Paul Roman Gilli in Austria and Germany. In some cases, the reservoir pressure was as high as 120bar with a solitary loco capable of being charged to 130bar. However, in these cases, the steam was drawn off a stationary source of high pressure steam and reduced to 17 bar or less prior to its use)
In the case of 20th century European high pressure compressed air mining locomotives, the primary charge could be as high as 200 to 235bar! Again the air would be reduced to 40bar or less before it was used)
3,4&5) The three C&O locomotives nos 500,501& 502.
6) The N&W "Jawn Henry"
The only other steam turbine locomotive was Pennsylvania Rail Road no 6200
The 6-8-6 direct drive (via gears) This locomotive was based on the LMSR Pacific no 202 designed by Sir William Stanier. Later being renumbered by British Railways as no 6202. Due to problems with her turbines
She was rebuilt in 1951 into a conventional steam locomotive.
Named 'Princess Anne'. In her rebuilt form she had a tragically short life. As on 8th October 1952 whilst being run in and was working a morning London to Liverpool service with 'The Windward Isles' Having reached the London suburbs and by now
travelling at high speed the train ploughed into the wreckage caused by 'City of Glasgow' running at least two red signals and hitting a stationary commuter train in Harrow & Wealdstone Station By far the worst railway accident in England with 112 people killed.
Former Santa Fe #3415 Baldwin 4-6-2 Pacific built in 1919 is fully restored and operating on the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad at Abilene Kansas. I’m long retired now but as General Manager I was involved in some of the early restoration before Y2K.
They all had their day. It seems like EMD is the only one that didn't screw up the diesel age.
Its because EMD defined the diesel age!
In the 1980s i did work piecework in a company in Western New York ! You woked at your own pace depending on how much you wanted to make!
13:59-14:07 Regarding the original CN 9000 & 9001. One of them actually had a fairly long life. Both were equipped with a Beardmore diesel engine. 9001 was retired in 1939 and scrapped in 1946.
9000, on the other hand, was reactivated in 1942 and re-engined with a 16 cylinder 567A and equipped with armored plate for an armored train that was to operate along the BC coast. Following the end of the armored Train operation in 1943, it was transferred to Montreal. By 1945, the armor plating was removed, and it was used in passenger service until 1946, when it was retired again and scrapped.
Both numbers got reused for EMD F3s in 1948.
Looks like at least 75% of the diesel locomotives you show are EMD or Alco. During World War 2 Baldwin and Alco were limited to producing steam locomotives and/or diesel switchers by the War Production Board, whereas EMC/EMD could only produce FT road freight diesels.
Baldwin supplied the US Army with knock-down locomotives in the first WW, that when unloaded in French ports, any part could be used to assemble a locomotive. As far as I am aware, the first example or truly "Mass-Manufactured", interchangeable components of a complex mechanism.
Nope!
Cadillac won the Dewar trophy much earlier back when the vehicle truly was the "standard of the world".
ALCO got the short end of the stick, Baldwin took the stick and beat themself over the head with it.
not really, if you think about it baldwin were more ahead of thier time. sure they hated diesels but thier electrics were ahead of thier time. so in a way they werent wrong, alot of countries are looking back on diesels like "why did we do that?" now that they have electric to do everything diesels did. its just america that is seemingly hell bent on restricting the advancement of electrics. and australia is proof you can electrify without fucking up the freight routes. some of our largest freight trains with double stacks and double height box cars run through electrified sections/cities without issue. sure they were wrong about companies continuing steam but they werent entirely wrong about diesels being left in the dust or people in general wishing for steam to come back.. seems they were just stuck in the wrong market
Once again nice video but i have to ask....what is that footage at the start? The front end ride down some tracks. I would like to know the story and where this was {and if it's still around}
Never knew about Baldwin until now. The drive wheels on my 1948 Lionel 726 locomotive have the tiniest letters that say "Baldwin discs". I needed 2 magnifying glasses to see that.
I think the reason is they made the s-2 turbine then and used the same 8 wheel chassis.The s-2 turbine was a very expensive locomotive to operate
Baldwin produced. It was very inefficient using horrendous amounts of water and coal. Only a few were made and didn’t last long. It was said the Lionel corporation produced more of them than the actual company and had a longer life in sales from Lionel! They actually were a great pulling engine in 0 and 027 then.
Is that assembly of inside cylinders at 6:50 ? If so that would be a four-cylinder locomotive, right? Pretty amazing.
One advantage that EMD had over the other locomotive companies is the access to GM's Styling and Marketing departments. I believe some of the first paint schemes GM put on it's new diesels were done by some of the same people designing GMs cars.
Yes, the Santa Fe and Rock Island ‘Warbonnet’ liveries were both designed by GM. Interestingly enough, the classic ‘grey and brown’ Canadian Pacific livery was directly from the Baldwin catalog, which is why the Copper Range in Michigan also used it even though they had no corporate ties to Canadian Pacific!
I hope someday the last two Baldwin RF-16 "Sharknose" locomotives will move under their own power again. It seems that, aside from an appearance two years ago, they've been kept hidden for forty years?
Larkin isn't getting any younger! I do hope something positive happens to/with them in the future.
- Whitesmith = tinsmith
- Piecework isn't necessarily bad, most small Mom & Pop manufacturers operate on piecework. Japan and China are eating our lunch through piecework
- I'll agree that Baldwin made some dumb moves with their diesels, but they all did, especially when it came to MU operations. The idea that locomotives could be operated as multiple units was weird and alien to the steam builders because steam locomotives don't work like that and EMC's FT locomotive was built around the concept of MU operations.
- Ok, we have MU capability, but why should my ALCO or BLW locomotive MU with an EMD? They didn't want the railroads to buy EMD locomotives so many were intentionally incompatible with other manufacturers, when the realization that this was a bad idea dawned it was way too late.
- I think BLW and ALCO were hoping brand loyalty would carry over to diesel sales and were shocked when that dried up very quickly
- I also think that EMD and GE snagged up all the engineers that could design a diesel locomotive leaving the steam builders utterly clueless when it came to designing a road switcher.
I would love to see your take on the Alaska Railroad and all the Railroads that made it.
The dutch 1200 series are also designed by Baldwin but built by by Werkspoor (Wich also does not exists anymore)
My grandparents grew up 15 minutes from where the Eddystone Shop was
Although steam locomotives have a certain magical quality, Diesel is much more efficient in fuel usage, and require much less maintenance. It is no wonder why Diesel won out over steam. EMD has a prime mover that is powerful ,easy to maintain,and fuel efficient. Multiple units could be used together, and a steam engineer’s license was not required.
I am very glad that the OLD steam units are being preserved, but I am afraid that their usefulness has come to an end.
Piece rate pay always works when it’s well managed, and never when it’s poorly managed. The two biggest arguments against it are 1. Poorly articulated complaints about management, and 2. Exploitation of workers by unions/racketeers.
John deere still uses a piece rate system today.
The "plus" headquarters at 13:12 is still standing in Eddystone, PA.
You should do more deep dive, compendium vids for trains and foundaries in the US
Kinda interesting watching this when we're seeing this in the automotive industry now, people either refusing to change or panic building things that people either don't want or that just don't work right
To see 1900s technology with an 1800s storyline is interesting, in that the factories, probably looked very similar - which is astounding, in that the Bessemer Process had yet to be invented! One has to ask, WHERE DID ALL THAT STEEL COME FROM? - before the Bessemer Process (1856)
I wonder if anyone here who knows someone who worked at Baldwin knew my Grandfather ? My grandfather worked at Baldwin I’d say in the 1930’s to 1950’s era. His name was Edward Larkins. I just know he worked for the company as I was too young to converse with him about his employment.
The giant that stumbled.....................................
(Read it for info)
Baldwin disappeared after their car broke down near a mailbox in the middle of nowhere labeled "Alfred E."
The M4 you showed was actually a Canadian tank built, ironically, by Chrysler.
I don’t know anything about his time there, but my Grandfather worked at Baldwin I’d say in the 1920’s to 1950’s ?
I wonder if there was any relation other than just the name from Baldwin's partner David Mason to William Mason. William founded the Mason Machine Works in Massachusetts and produced textiles and locomotives also. Most famously the "self-acting mule" and the Mason Bogie Locomotives.
It is interesting that Baldwin management thought diesel electric locos would not succeed because of unreliability. The Australian railroad WAGR when it decided to dieselize, decided to buy from the lowest price tenderer - a dodgy British heavy engineering company that had never made a diesel loco before. The said dodgy company chose a submarine diesel engine that did not produce enough power, so they hotted it up by running it at 140 RPM instead of the designed 90 RPM. The result, the X-class, was vibration so bad it ruined bearings and fittings, and had catastrophic faults like broken pistons. Black smoke that glugged up the exhaust system. Its unreliability was so bad the government held a major enquiry as passengers were arriving late for work too often.
Never the less, the WAGR found that, despite the very high fault rate, the X-Class was very much cheaper to run than a steam loco, due to:-
a) about three times better fuel efficiency - the cost of diesel fuel was way below the cost of coal;
b) a steam loco needs about 2 to 4 man-days per day maintenance labour. A diesel needs next to nothing in daily maintenance.
c) A crew needs to light up and get steaming a steam loco 3 to 4 hours before it can move. A diesel engine needs only a 10 minute warmup after a cold start.
Money counting always wins, so the WAGR just kept buying more X-Class so they could scrap steam. Eventually, over about 10 years, they figured out how to make the X-Class fairly reliable. Something like a dozen or more piston designs were tried until they got one that survived the stresses.
Only if you own a coal mine does it make sense to use steam. Most likely not even then. (other than nostalgic excursion trains).
In the 1950s my father took me to the Baldwin works to see the huge atomic cannon they were building for the U.S. Government.
great, can you make one about fairbanks morse?
You need to acknowledge that most if not all the manufacturing sequences are sourced from documentaries from the LMS railways of Britain.
Lima is a very prolific company as is Skoda.
baldwin wasnt all that wrong.... the day did come that we looked back on steam and realised how great it was.... but it was just decades after he thought it would happen, and it was the public not the companies who realised it.
I LOVE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS LOCOS!!!
What’s the difference between expected and actually expected?
Where I work we at a dam we still have 16 Baldwin Lima Hamilton hydro Kaplan style turbines running everyday.
They are well over 50 years old. Each is 212,000 HP. Not a typo.
I can find No history about this era when they made turbines in York PA. Large parts were made in Japan.
The factory still exists owned by Voith I think.
Chicago Great Western 114-A at 17:08!
Enjoy the railroad history. How did you come up with "Darkness the Curse"?
I love the video but you should know that George Westinghouse started the company by inventing air brakes for trains
Myy great great grandfather was Matthew Baird of BLW
Wait. That piece work pay rate you spoke of didnt last long? Asks the flat rate automotive painter.
It just can't be that hard to add a diesel genset to an electric locamotive.
Baldwin still makes pianos! 🎹
(Kidding, I know they are separate, unrelated companies)
I'd like to say that if the US Government didn't push for dieselification and raised the costs for running steam while reducing costs for diesel to artificially make diesel a more attractive option, Steam would have stuck around a lot longer because it was tried, true, and there were some major innovations in steam tech that would have made them better well into the future, there are many diesel locomotives today that cost more than it did to run steam back then (accounting for inflation as well), and don't even offer as much performance or power as steam could. there are only a handful of diesel electrics today that can compare to steam in their hayday.
You mentioned the drop in business between 1906 and 1908 at 11:06. You didn't mention the Panic of 1907.
Awesome documentary 👏 👍 🚂🚃🚃
Baldwin even built engines 3, 4 and 5 of the Disneyland railroad and all of the engines on the Disney world railroad, even the steam locomotives owned by Disney animator Ward Kimball
The war production board played the biggest part of their downfall. Their diesel switchers were excellent products. The use of air throttles limited the MU capability with other makers. The prohibition of research and technology by the WPB allowed EMC and ALCO to patent a lot of control equipment. Plus the short sightedness of management to try to build a single diesel unit as powerful as a steam locomotive instead of paying patents for MU control. Add to that the failure to partner with a reliable diesel engine manufacturer. With all this , you have failure.
There was a company you could order from anywhere in the us and they would deliver it to your house in days and everyone used . Amazon?
No Sears. ! Like Baldwin they did not make the leap.
This is a bit of an exaggeration but a steam loco is Basically a boiler on wheels .
No part of a diesel engine has anything to do with a diesel loco except the wheels.
Plus diesels, the actual engines, are hard to make well and the technology changed quickly during that era .
The electrical part of the diesel was also no part of a steam loco except perhaps the headlight !
So like Tesla beating the legacy companies in EV car production, starting from scratch can be an advantage as you don’t have sunk costs in boiler making equipment now useless.
hi, can you tell me why no one has ever talked about the huge gov tax breaks railroads got in the 50s for switching to diesels?
Please, please, please, do the massive boondoggle that was F.G.Smith, Alexander Newlands, the Highland Railway and the River Class. It's a wild ride; the only person coming out of it looking good is F.G Smith's successor, Christopher Cumming, although you will feel at least a little sorry for F.G Smith himself, as he was vindicated by history. An interesting note is that good old Chris Cumming went out of his way to befriend F.G. in order to forestall any unpleasantness. It worked with Chris and some of the Highland Railway board, but F.G. never forgave Alexander Newlands.
My fathers family is made up wickenden( m) and Norris (f)WilliamN started making st locos circ1825 / 30 and continued till 1865 and seems to have disapeared.wsgot his skills from Norris foundry of New Cross and Croydon London UK that the way it came to me .Please do one onNorris .I beleive the Norris familey live inCroydon TY
3:31 amazes me how much our society complains today while we live off the backs of men, giants like this. 😑
14:50
If only...
If only...
I wish I lived in that alternate universe!
Then again, perhaps I should count my blessings that I don't?
What happened to the Eddystone Plant? One comment says 'Boeing Vertol' owns it, but i don't even know what that is-
The Eddystone plant location is in Eddystone Delaware County Pennsylvania and the original manufacturing sheds were torn down. The original Baldwin administration building was turned into office space in the 1980’s or 1990’s if I recall correctly. And yes, Boeing took over some of the original land.
Samuel Vauclain's daughter married Franklin Abbott,a Pittsburgh architect.
It's an easy enough thing to get imagery of early Baldwin loco's and factories. Why spoil the early stuff with 20th century films?