Fairbanks Morse Research

Nova55 · **Joined:** Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:09 pm **Posts:** 597

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck with Fairbanks in terms of historical research? I have seen quite a few books/articles over the years with them being listed as sources, however when I tried going through them a few week ago, I got a very standardized form letter response. "Go here, here and here for information on FM Z/Hit and Miss engines", etc., completely avoiding my initial question on WWII engines.

PCook · **Joined:** Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 am **Posts:** 2127

It seemed to me that their situation was a lot like EMD. The people who started working there in the 1960s and 1970s knew and learned from some of the ones who had worked there in the 1940s, so you had at least some continuity in the passing of knowledge and history from one generation of employees to the next. Asking questions thirty or forty years ago you had at least a small chance of finding somebody who knew about the history of the company and its products.

For the folks working there now, there is no interface at all with the events of the 1940s, and even the 1970s employees are few left and far between. Probably nobody there now even knew an employee from the 1940s, unless they were a relative. No continuity in the passing of the corporate history to the new crew.

PC

CREEPING DEATH · **Joined:** Sun Oct 24, 2010 6:22 pm **Posts:** 275

Nova55 wrote:

Just wondering if anyone has had any luck with Fairbanks in terms of historical research? I have seen quite a few books/articles over the years with them being listed as sources, however when I tried going through them a few week ago, I got a very standardized form letter response. "Go here, here and here for information on FM Z/Hit and Miss engines", etc., completely avoiding my initial question on WWII engines.

Going from memory, there have been several (re-)incarnations of F-M, and several different companies called F-M. I believe the current engine manufacturer is a spin-off from the 'real' F-M, which ceased to exist years ago.

CD

mldeets · **Joined:** Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:06 am **Posts:** 411

What are you looking for? The Lake States Rwy. Hist. Assn. ( http://lsrha.org/ ) has a pretty fair F-M archive.

mld

wrg113 · **Joined:** Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:52 pm **Posts:** 112

Up until a couple years ago, they maintained a store on their website wherein you could buy modern day Fairbanks Morse and Alco merchandise. This included everything from pens and mugs to t-shirts and hats. I got an FM-Alco hat that I was fond of until I left it behind at a Hampton Inn. Anyway, the best item they had was a book that gave a comprehensive company history. It was pretty cheap back then but now appears to have escalated in value. Here is a link I found for used copies.

https://www.abebooks.com/9780615567372/ ... 567371/plp

wrg113 · **Joined:** Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:52 pm **Posts:** 112

I did some digging and found this...

https://www.four51.com/UI/Customer.aspx ... 4342704827

..and the book...

https://www.four51.com/UI/Customer.aspx ... f0f6119d46

ebtrr · **Posted:** Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:25 am

CREEPING DEATH wrote:

Going from memory, there have been several (re-)incarnations of F-M, and several different companies called F-M. I believe the current engine manufacturer is a spin-off from the 'real' F-M, which ceased to exist years ago.

CD

Correct. I did some research on the disposition of FM some years ago and ended up integrating what I found out into the Wikipedia article on FM. Quoted below:

Quote:

Fairbanks Morse and Company merged with Penn-Texas Corporation in 1958 to form Fairbanks Whitney Corporation. Fairbanks Whitney was reorganized as Colt Industries in 1964, taking the name from Colt Manufacturing, the maker of firearms and an asset of Penn-Texas. In 1988, the Fairbanks Morse Pump division was sold off to private investors to become Fairbanks Morse Pump. It was subsequently purchased by Pentair as part of an acquisition of General Signal Pump Group in 1997. In 1988, the scale business was sold off by Colt Industries and became Fairbanks Scales, still an independent company.

In 1990, Colt Industries sold its firearms business to C.F. Holdings Corp as Colt's Manufacturing Company, Inc. and became Coltec Industries. Coltec merged with BFGoodrich corporation in 1999 and retained the BFGoodrich name. In 2002, as part of a series of divestitures of non-aerospace divisions, BFGoodrich spun off its engineered industrial products division as EnPro Industries, Inc. and became Goodrich Corporation. EnPro is now the parent company of Fairbanks Morse Engine.

As a result, there are now three companies using either the Fairbanks or Fairbanks Morse trademarks, with lineage to the original Fairbanks Morse and Company. Fairbanks Scale and Fairbanks Morse Pump claim lineage back to E & T Fairbanks Company.

Despite what they may or may not have you think, none of the three existing Fairbanks/FM spin off companies are the original FM. FM was long since absorbed into what is today Goodrich Corporation.