Baldwin Locomotive Works

“ Upon making the first trip to Germantown with a passenger train with the Ironsides, one of the drivers slipped upon the axle, causing the wheels to track less than the gauge of the road and drop in between the rails. It was also discovered that the valve arrangement of the pumps was defective, and they failed to supply the boiler with water. The shifting of the driving wheel upon the axle fastened the eccentric, so that it would not operate in backward motion. These mishaps caused delay, and prevented the engine from reaching its destination, to the great disappointment of all concerned. ”

“ In the hard coal burner the fire-box is made longer and shallower; the rear drivers are brought farther forward, and the three pairs of drivers are arranged so that the distance between centres of rear and main drivers is the same as the distance between centres of main and front drivers. The point of suspension of the back part of the engine being thus brought forward, a greater proportion of the total weight is carried on the drivers and rendered available for adhesion, and the tractive power of the hard coal burner is accordingly somewhat greater than that of the soft coal engine. ”

“ Baldwin's locomotive practice. The geared engine had not proved a success. It was unsatisfactory, as well to its designer as to the railroad community. The problem of utilizing more or all of the weight of the engine for adhesion remained, in Mr. Baldwin's view, yet to be solved. The plan of coupling four or six wheels had long before been adopted in England, but on the short curves prevalent on American railroads, he felt that something more was necessary. The wheels must not only be coupled, but at the same time must be free to adapt themselves to a curve. ”

“ Such and so vast a class of skilled mechanics is therefore available from which to recruit the forces of the establishment when necessary. Under their command are special tools, which have been created from time to time with reference to every detail of locomotive-manufacture; and an organized system of production, perfected by long years of experience, governs the operation of all. ”

“ When there are three or more cars in the train, the brakes on the cars, of course, command the train so much the more easily.
"But the safety of the train is not dependent on the brakes of the cars. There is also a valve or air-cock in the steam-chest, under the control of the engineer. This air-cock forms an independent brake, exclusively at the command of the engineer, and which can always be applied when the engine itself is in working order. ”

“ The officers of the road were not slow to avail themselves of the public interest to increase their passenger receipts, and the following advertisement from Poulson's American Daily Advertiser of Nov. 26, 1832, will show that as yet they regarded the new machine rather as a curiosity and a bait to allure travel than as a practical, every-day servant:
"Notice.—The locomotive engine (built by M. W. Baldwin, of this city) will depart daily, when the weather is fair, with a train of passenger cars. On rainy days horses will be attached." ”

“ Baldwin and Mr. David Clark, Master Mechanic of the Mine Hill Railroad, took out conjointly a patent for a feed-water heater, placed at the base of a locomotive chimney, and consisting of one large vertical flue, surrounded by a number of smaller ones. The exhaust steam was discharged from the nozzles through the large central flue, creating a draft of the products of combustion through the smaller surrounding flues. The pumps forced the feed-water into the chamber around these flues, whence it passed to the boiler by a pipe from the back of the stack. ”

“ Utilizing, as it does, nearly the entire weight of the engine for adhesion, the main and back pairs of drivers being equalized together, as also the front drivers and the pony-wheels, and the construction of the engine with swing-truck and one pair of drivers without flanges allowing it to pass short curves without difficulty, the "Mogul" is generally accepted as a type of engine especially adapted to the economical working of heavy freight traffic. ”

“ The history of the Baldwin Locomotive Works has thus been traced from its inception to the present time. Over twenty-six hundred locomotives have been built in the establishment since the completion of the "Old Ironsides," in 1832. Its capacity is now equal to the production of over four hundred locomotives annually, and it has attained the rank of the largest locomotive works in the world. It owes this position not only to the character of the work it has turned out, but largely also to the peculiar facilities for manufacture which it possesses. ”

“ Baldwin's engines with all six or eight wheels connected, and the (p. 31) two front pairs combined by the parallel beams into a flexible truck, had been so marked that it was natural that he should oppose any other plan for freight service. The ten-wheeled engine, with six drivers connected, had, however, now become a competitor. This plan of engine was first patented by Septimus Norris, of Philadelphia, in 1846, and the original design was apparently to produce an engine which should have equal tractive power with the Baldwin six-wheels-connected machine. ”

“ I consider these engines as near perfection, in the arrangement of their parts, and their general efficiency, as the present improvements in machinery and the locomotive engine will admit of. They are saving us thirty per cent, in every trip, on the former cost of motive or engine power. ”

“ On the one hundred and thirty-sixth locomotive, completed October 18, 1839, for the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad, the old pattern of wooden frame was abandoned, and no outside frame whatever was employed,—the machinery, as well as the truck and the pedestals of the driving-axles, being attached directly to the naked boiler. The wooden frame thenceforward disappeared gradually, and an iron frame took its place. Another innovation was the adoption of eight-wheeled tenders, the first of which was built at about this period. ”

“ The regular daily service of each of the engines is to make four trips, of eight miles, over the mountain, drawing one eight-wheel baggage car, together with two eight-wheel passenger cars, in each direction.
"In conveying freight, the regular train on the mountain is three of the eight-wheel house-cars, fully loaded, or four of them when empty or partly loaded.
"These three cars, when full, weigh, with their loads, from forty to forty-three tons. Sometimes, though rarely, when the business has been unusually heavy, the loads have exceeded fifty tons. ”

“ Situated close to the great iron and coal region of the country, the principal materials required for its work are readily available. It numbers among its managers and workmen men who have had the training of a lifetime in the various specialties of locomotive-manufacture, and whose experience has embraced the successive stages of American locomotive progress. Its location, in the largest manufacturing city of the country, is an advantage of no ordinary importance. ”

“ The arrangement of the wheels is such as to permit the engine to traverse curves with nearly as much facility as an engine of the ordinary type with only four drivers. The leading wheels having a swing bolster, and the front and main drivers having no flanges, the engine is guided on the rails by the leading wheels and by the flanges of the rear and second pairs of drivers. ”

“ The connecting-rods took hold of "half-cranks" inside of the driving-wheels. The object of placing the cylinders at the middle of the boiler was to lessen or obviate the lateral motion of the (p. 30) engine, produced when the cylinders were attached to the smoke-arch. The bearings on the two rear axles were so contrived that, by means of a lever, a part of the weight of the engine usually carried on the wheels in front of the fire-box could be transferred to the driving-axle. ”

“ Frames are planed and slotted to gauges, and drilled to steel bushed templets. Cylinders are bored and planed, and steam-ports, with valves and steam-chests, finished and fitted, to gauges. Tires are bored, centres turned, axles finished, and crossheads, guides, guide-bearers, pistons, connecting- and parallel-rods planed, slotted, or finished, by the same method. Every bolt about the engine is made to a gauge, and every hole drilled and reamed to a templet. ”

“ In 1867, on a number of eight-wheeled four-coupled engines, for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the four-wheeled swing-bolster-truck was first applied, and thereafter nearly all the engines built in the establishment with a two- or four-wheeled truck in front have been so constructed. ”

“ Baldwin, and grew naturally out of his original method of construction. Mr. Baldwin was the first American builder to use an outside cylinder, and he made it for his early engines with a circular flange cast to it, by which it could be bolted to the boiler. The cylinders were gradually brought lower, and at a less angle, and the flanges prolonged and enlarged. In 1852, three six-wheels-connected engines, for the Mine Hill Railroad Company, were built with the cylinder flanges brought around under the smoke-box until they nearly met, the space between them being filled with a spark-box. ”

“ Since the use of the oil was introduced, the difficulty of turning the curves has been so far diminished, that it is no longer possible to determine whether grades of two hundred and thirty-seven and six-tenths feet per mile on curves of three hundred feet radius, or grades of two hundred and ninety-six feet per mile on straight lines, are traversed most rapidly by the engine.
"When the track is in good condition, the brakes of only two of the cars possess sufficient power to control and regulate the movement of the train,—that is to say, they will hold back the two cars and the engine. ”

“ J. Edgar Thomson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, invited proposals for a number of freight locomotives of fifty-six thousand pounds weight each. They were to be adapted to burn bituminous coal, and to have six wheels connected and a truck in front, which might be either of two or four wheels. Mr. Baldwin secured the contract, and built twelve engines of the prescribed dimensions, viz., cylinders eighteen by twenty-two; drivers forty-four inches diameter, with chilled tires. ”

“ In 1870, Philadelphia, with a total population of nearly seven hundred thousand souls, gave employment in its manufactures to over one hundred and twenty thousand persons. In other words, more than one-sixth of its population is concerned in (p. 45) production. The extent of territory covered by the city, embracing one hundred and twenty-seven square miles, with unsurpassed facilities for ready intercommunication by street railways, renders possible separate comfortable homes for the working population, and thus tends to elevate their condition and increase their efficiency. ”

“ The adoption of the plan of six-wheels-connected engines opened the way at once to increasing their size. The weight being almost evenly distributed on six points, heavier machines were admissible, the weight on any one pair of drivers being little, if any, greater than had been the practice with the old plan of engine having a single pair of drivers ”

“ An improvement in the manner of constructing the iron frames of locomotives, by making the pedestals in one piece with, and constituting part of, the frames.
5. The employment of spiral springs in connection with cylindrical pedestals and boxes. A single spiral was at first used, but, not proving sufficiently strong, a combination or nest of spirals curving alternately in opposite directions was afterward employed. Each spiral had its bearing in a spiral recess in the pedestal.
In the specification of this patent a change in the method of making cylindrical pedestals and boxes is noted. ”

“ This method of making driving-wheels was followed for several years.
The improvement in locomotive tubes consisted in driving a copper ferrule or thimble on the outside of the end of the tube, and soldering it in place, instead (p. 15) of driving a ferrule into the tube, as had previously been the practice. The object of the latter method had been to make a tight joint with the tube-sheet; but, by putting the ferrule on the outside of the tube, not only was the joint made as tight as before, but the tube was strengthened, and left unobstructed throughout to the full extent of its diameter. ”

“ The government itself became a large purchaser of locomotives, and it is noticeable, as indicating the increase of travel and freight transportation, that heavier machines than had ever before been built became the rule. ”

“ The original templets are kept as "standards," and are never used on the work itself, but from them exact duplicates are made, which are issued to the foremen of the various departments, and to which all work is required to conform. The working gauges are compared with the standards at regular intervals, and absolute uniformity is thus maintained. The system is carried into every possible important detail. ”