In a prior life, I worked with an attorney who began his career in transportation, prior to becoming an ERISA/employee benefits specialist. He began his career with the ICC, and moved on to the Southern, then briefly NS after the merger. When I had a fan mag on my desk detailing a special trip to Steamtown, I found out about his prior experience and that he did some kind of legal work related the "Big Johns".

As I understand it, he's still practicing law in the big apple.

As a postscript, whenever I think about single high horse power engines, I compare and contrast the Union Pacific and Baldwin. Arguably, the grandchild of the Centipede could be the EMD DDA40X and the failed experiments of Baldwin with applying what was then exclusively turbine marine technology being the forebear of Union Pacific's Big Blow. Their visions seemed to arrive ahead of the technologies used to successfully implement them decades later. This scenario reminds me of another involving my eighth grade science teacher who must have fallen under the spell of Mr Wizard with one notable exception. Time after time, he would stand before the class with some elaborate rig on a table to demonstrate basic principles only to have them backfire, fizzle out or implode.
In a perverse way, we looked forward to the hilarity of watching organised chaos. What will happen with this one? I guess the point if any, is that while his demonstrations failed, we knew the principles behind them were sound. It was his applications that went haywire much in the same way Baldwin's leaps fumbled.
None of this has to do with Baldwin"s managers not recognizing pride comes before a fall, but then again, they also played a high risk hand of cards hoping to trump standardisation with any number of misfired leaps in technology. Whether they could have been successful should any of these high risk gambits had paid off is a game for speculations. I think personally, the current of the Fordisation of the diesel era was such a perfect storm based on the then economic factors, it would be a hope against hope that even this fictional outcome would have saved them in the end.
Their significant patron, the PRR , who also went for single high horse power engines, turned the corner toward a future Conrail at that time having the benchmark of missing the wherewithal to even pay a dividend, while the the same debate went back and forth at PRR on betting the farm on Baldwin's willingness to experiment with stretching the lifespan of steam. What a flux. The conservative PRR also had a compulsion to one up the competition by playing with the technology in a kind of schizoid personality being the "Standard" railroad of the world. Again in both cases pride seemed to create a myopia as the stakes grew higher, and one would think after the duplex misfire with the T1, they would have thought twice about the Baldwin sales pitch.
The evolution of the Q is an interesting case, in terms of very late steam technology and high horsepower in terms of Baldwin and the PRR. While not a complete misfire, all the trending outside of both the PRR and Baldwin was a huge factor that has to be taken into account beyond the successes and misfires of Baldwin. I keep being reminded of LD Porta's comment, which paraphrased, is that the steam designers handed the knife to their adversaries but this seems to be an end run around history, while still being debatable.

We need a date here to continue to have an intelligent discussion about high HP locomotives, and I'm not finding it... the date of the labor agreement where the Brotherhoods conceded that multiple locomotives running MU were only ONE locomotive, and only required ONE crew. Remember, during the thirties little Tex-Mex was draw-baring boxcabs together to get more horsepower, while still satisfying the BLE that the result was only ONE locomotive, The early EMD FT's were built with drawbars for the same reason. At that point in time, one can't really fault the view that it's silly to couple a whole herd of little boxes together to get adequate HP, when both Baldwin and Westinghouse had long experiance putting large amounts of HP onto one articulated frame, as was done with both articulated steam and large electrics. I'm sure that was the thinking as the Centipede was on the drawing board late in the war, and while not terribly forward thinking, it was certainly a product of the times. EMD was caught up in the same to a certain extent, their eighteen hundred HP passenger locomotives were effectively two locomotives on one frame, Alco did them one better by squeezing that HP out of one prime mover.

Of course, once the multiple unit labor issue was resolved and all the units in a locomotive started arriving with couplers on each end, it slowly started to dawn on people that a 5400 HP locomotive could also be used as four 1350HP locomotives, if need be, if only all the units had cabs, and the "building block" concept of motive power management came into being. However, I don't think, in 1945, Baldwin was alone in not recognizing that concept.

What is interesting is (if I recall correctly) Watco came out with steam MU controls sometime in the 40's. Pneumatic MU controls such as used by Baldwin were applicable to steam as well and at that time labor costs were tied to a huge variety of pay scales for every type of steam ie:.weight of the engines ( higher pay for higher weight), use of a type not used on the applicable road, and on and on. A dizzying variety of variables based on the lack of a standardised engine philosophy.The building block concept for freight and passenger could arguably have been pioneered by the interurbans, many of which had less restrictive labor rules, etc. The MD motors on the CNS&M MU'ed to pull freights as an example or five stringed steeple cabs. Interestingly also to me was that Baldwin-Westinghouse was a purveyor of standardised models and got in that market in 1895 and many of their experiments alongside Westinghouse in heavy applications were very successful. It was if they could not put two and two together when an automotive manufacturer got it right via EMD.
I am no expert on RR labor laws and the BLE, and I hope someone has a date. There are so many separate agreements by type and by road, I hope theres a simple answer. A good question..

I know I participated in a discussion in the past that touched upon the concerns that the Brotherhoods were going to contest the practice of running multiple diesel locomotives with only one crew, and also the date of the General Agreement that conceded that MU'd locomotives were no different than electric MU commuter cars, and that opened the door to a change of thinking on how motive power would best be used. Unfortunately, I'm drawing a blank as to where the discussion was, or the elusive date.

Thinking further about the FT, that unit can be used to illustrate EMD's thinking as of 1939 or 40 when it was designed. The booster units were asymmetrical; the rear end had a long overhang to accommodate a draft gear, while the front end, and the rear end of the cab units, had a short overhang, and an abnormally wide carbody opening between units. It's pretty clear that they were intended to stay as drawbar connected pairs. Even more telling, they designed a different booster, the "short booster" for use in three unit sets that had the wide opening and short overhang at each end. No "building block" thinking there, beyond how the blocks were assembled at the factory. Of the three builders, EMD was the only one that was able to gain firsthand experience with these multiple unit locomotives between 1942 and 1945, and obviously by 1945 that thinking had changed, because all the post war F units came with adequate space for draft gear and a standard size diaphragm.

By the way, I don't think you'll find any photos of "five stringed steeple cabs" on the North Shore, since they only had three matching "pups". I don't think the battery locos were set up to train with the others. But, yes, photos of the three pups operating together are common.

Dennis
I grew up next to the Mundelein yard and you may be right but I recall more than three but that was a long time ago. It's tough recalling last week. I agree though with three being the usual number. I will never forget those flying switches as well as the ballet required of the trolley tender up on the deck.
From your comment, 1945 was a watershed year in more ways than one. The transition between drawbars and couplers and the origin of the changeover in design...could you flesh that out further? I assume it came from having maintenance issues with one unit out of a ABA set. I would think there was more to it than that. I have never read up on that aspect of multiple unit operation. Certainly an important aspect of diesel evolution. It brings to mind the relatively short life span of articulated passenger consists and their lack of flexibility, again an aspect of this thread being flexibility as well.

The way I look at it, the steam builders were doomed as soon as diesel-electrics became the rational railroader's lcomotive of choice. Baldwin, Alco, and Lima were basically metal fabricators at heart. Like most metal fabricators, they didn't understand, or care to understand, electricity. And the new-fangled "diesels" were actually electric locomotives which carried around their own generator instead of relying on overhead wires. Electric locomotives were nothing new, and Baldwin and Alco had bent the metal for most of them, but left the entire electric side to someone else. They refused to get into the electric side for diesels as well and ultimately failed.

The two successsful diesel builders, GE and EMD understood the need to take responsibility for all three elements: metal fabrication, diesel engines, and electric components.

The same exact thing happened in passenger car manufacturing. The old line builders like Pullman and Budd only did metal work. Amazingly even St. Louis car, which always specialized in electrically propelled rolling stock, never got into the electric side of things. All three are gone. Now the builders are the likes of Siemens, Alsthom, and Bombardier. All three are vertically integrated, good at systems, and can bend metal (or buy it from others), and not afraid of electricity.

Anyone interested in the War Production Board's policies and whether they helped EMD and hurt their competitors ought to read the article by Eugene L. Huddleston in the January 1986 Railfan & Railroad "The War Production Board and Diesels." The issue was WPB restricting Baldwin and ALCO production to just switchers while EMD had the road diesel market to itself.

[Huddleston concludes that it made little difference towards EMD's future success and the competitor's lack of it. The restrictions were actually in effect for a year and a half. Basically, considering what Baldwin and ALCO were offering, they were kept from markets for which they did not have adequate products.]

As a separate matter, here is one of the prototype Winton 201 engines from the Chicago World's Fair as shown on the 2nd page of this thread powering the demonstration Chevrolet assembly line. The 201 begat the 201A's that powered early EMC production. This one is on display at IRM.

Pete makes a good point. Baldwin's exit from the locomotive market coincides with the Westinghouse decision to stop supplying railway electrical equipment.

Alco ultimately met their demise when their prime supplier, GE, decided to enter the market in competition with them.

EMD early on seemed to favor GE equipment, but by 1939 they had taken over the manufacture of their own.

Churella came to the same conclusion.

I never knew that one of these old Winton 201 engines was at the IRM.

Thank you for pointing that out and the photo.

Now I have to make a visit this spring to the IRM and see it.

Steve

Churella's book is interesting and insightful in that it is a fairly dispassionate history. He doesn't have a dog in the fight, and it makes a better, more accurate story.

I'm currently wading through Voume I of his book on the Pennsylvania Railroad. So far, I'll give him credit, he is thorough.

David W.
Biblophilia, MO

I would like to get a copy of his Steam to Diesel but it is expensive. I just have to be content with the library loan system.

He did try to document his sources but his Whitcomb documentation and assumptions that I've looked up were in error.

Steve

I've been watching this with some interest, but this deserves comment:

> At that point in time, one can't really fault the view that it's silly
> to couple a whole herd of little boxes together to get adequate HP,
> when both Baldwin and Westinghouse had long experiance putting
> large amounts of HP onto one articulated frame, as was done with
> both articulated steam and large electrics. I'm sure that was the thinking
> as the Centipede was on the drawing board late in the war, and while
> not terribly forward thinking, it was certainly a product of the times.

Someone must not know their Baldwin history.

The Centipede started its life as a 6000 hp single-unit locomotive, and was intentionally designed to be stable at very high speed (note the design of the original engine trucks). While Baldwin did cling to the large-displacement, slow-speed school of engine design in general, and that was the product they chose to bring to the market postwar, they did conduct a few very interesting and forward-looking experiments -- what were they, the 412 and then 408 series of diesel engines? And the Centipede as designed reflected their advantage (as, a couple of decades later, Krauss-Maffei would demonstrate with high-speed diesel engines of better specific power...)

The premise of the Centipede was that each of the 8 drive axles in the high-speed articulated chassis would be driven by its own little 'genset', in a modular rack in the carbody. If one engine or generator failed, the locomotive would be reduced only 750hp (only slightly less than a back-to-back set of FTs in perfect working order!) and changing out the whole power unit was supposed to be a simple exercise.

No fuel tanks hanging down for FOD; no buff and draft through the carbody letting it be designed specifically to house the "power modules" --

I suspect the outcome for Baldwin would have been less than fortunate even if the 408 series hadn't worked out. Baldwin's problems largely involved carrying over 'acceptable' levels of quality for their steam locomotives -- which meant for example electrical wiring lying in a sea of engine oil or worse, and a Ground Fault Fiesta on Cinco de Mayo scale. There was also the implicit inability to upgrade a slow-speed engine design to take full advantage of reliable single-motor power increases. But that does not change the forward-looking character of the original locomotive concept.

Kiefer, in his 1947 report, notes that even at 3000 hp the Centipede was shorter than any of the 'building-block' MU alternatives of comparable hp, in overall length as applied to the train. That might translate into additional permitted train length at sidings, for instance. Seaboard specifically recognized this when they bought the 'remanufactured' demonstrator.

What you are really looking at is the grandfather of something very significant: the genset road locomotive. Even today, we can get a number of points of inspiration on how to build one from that old concept. That is not as true for the contemporary products of other makers, I think...

Wish I could edit these posts --

I meant, of course, that an engine or generator failure would reduce the power TO only slightly less than the four-unit FT consist would develop.

And this was all done in the relay-logic era!

Actually, I am generally aware of the origins of the Centipede as an eight engine machine. My point was, whether equipped with eight engines or only two, they chose to put them all on one massive articulated frame, because of perceived advantages in ride characteristics, length, or whatever. Conversely, EMD could not do the same, because there was not a lot of market for an articulated locomotive 190' long.

I think what is significant is at that point in timeneither Baldwin nor EMD were thinking of the "building block" concept of motive power, because that concept was not yet fully formed. EMD of course knew that they could assemble different numbers of units at the factory to provide different amounts of HP to fill the customer need, but because they were draw-bar connected, it was not for the customer to monkey with them. By the time they were supplying couplers on both ends of all units, Baldwin was effectively doing the same, with a catalog of like sized units. So, It would appear that the desire to sell high HP locomotives is not the reason why EMD was successful and Baldwin was ultimately not.