There is a rare Ingersoll Rand 8 cylinder diesel engine available for sale in a scrap yard in New Jersey. It supposedly was the prototype engine for the engines used in the IR boxcabs. It is mounted on a trailer and used to be taken to engine shows before somehow ending up in the scrap yard. Originally it was installed in the Phillipsburg plant as a test engine.

Does anyone have information about this engine and its historic significance?

I'd be surprised if nobody over at the Smokstak engine forums didn't know the answer.

IOW, I've got nothing. Would be neat to keep--but reckon the scrap value is pretty up there, unless the yard operator is preservation minded.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Is that a turbocharger at the RH end of the engine? Kinda looks like the serpentine housing of a turbo. That's something none of the 1920s/30s era I-R powered locos ever had. This might be something of later design.

I have been doing a bit of research into the early IR diesels that were used in the boxcabs, and all were 6 cylinder with half circle shaped crankcase covers and more primitive looking cylinders with exposed push rods. This engine certainly looks newer in design and the turbo certainly is not 1920s technology. It supposedly was a test bed engine, with engine improvements being fitted to it for testing, but I did not know that IR even built diesel engines of this type after they gave up on building locomotives. It certainly is rare though, whatever it is.

I've seen this engine operate at a couple different antique engine shows here in the NJ/Northeast PA area. The most recent time was probably 8 to 10 years ago at the Jacktown Show near Bangor, PA.. I even have some VHS video of it running somewhere around home. Yes, it's turbocharged. Mounted on the back end of the lowboy (that the IR diesel is mounted on) is a pony engine used to start the big diesel. It is/was a pretty neat set up and drew a crowd when it was fired up. I remember the IR diesel running very smooth and quiet. I recall the man that owned it saying that it was a test bed engine for a possible future locomotive prime mover. I don't recall its vintage, but I BELIEVE I remember him saying it was rated at 1000 HP.

I wonder what happened to have it wind up in a scrap yard. Hopefully it will be saved.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

I-R did have a few locomotive applications after 1937, but very few. One that I am aware of is a group of dual-power mine locos for Phelps-Dodge Copper built by the Westinghouse-Baldwin (by then BLH) combine in 1951. These ran on DC trolley most of the time but had I-R diesel power for off-the-wire operations. The engines were of relatively modest HP, suggesting that virtually all operations involving any heavy loading were under the wire.