Anyone remember the Baldwin VO1000?

[jefelectric]

I am thinking of buying a Weaver O gauge model of the Baldwin VO1000 and noticed in the Weaver catalog that there are several versions of the exhaust stack arrangement. It looks like there are three versions with one stack just in front of the cab, long medium and short. There is another version (Rock Island) with three stacks in about the center of the hood and another version with four stacks in about the center of the hood. I assume Weaver is following the prototype for the individual railroad. Does anyone know the story behind these variations? I also notice that this diesel does not have handrails on the outside of the side walkways, only on the inside similar to those on a steam engine. I never saw a diesel with handrails like this. Is this unique to the VO1000 or did other early diesel share this type of handrail installation.

See the bottom of the page for VO1000 pictures.

http://www.weavermodels.com/s06pg32&33.htm

[West Coast S]

The end user could choose various exhaust manifold design options, hence the variations, Very few 1st gen switchers were equipped by the factory with outside handrails, hood mounted would have been standard with baldwin and others, new federal safety regulations in 1959 required roads to install outside mounted handrails on units not so equipped by 1962.

Hey, the coolest VO1000's were those employed on the Pacific Electric, equipped with road pilots, mu, oversize mars lights,eight stack exhaust, number boards and trolley poles to activate signals and crossings they were unique indeed to the annals of baldwin.

Dave

[jefelectric]

Thanks for the info. The Pacific Electric unit sounds interesting. Do you know of anywhere I might find a picture of it? I did a search of Pacific Electric but did not find anything on the VO1000. Did find a lot of other interesting stuff though.

[DSchmitt]

Heres a picture of a Southern Pacific VO1000 with trolley poles. I note that the paint around the road name is shinny. Maybe its a PE unit relettered for SP. I've seen similar pictures of both SP diesel locos and PE diesel locos with trolley poles in books on the PE.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/sp/sp1320.jpg

[Mark300]

Here are a couple of other sites showing VO1000 prototypes.....

http://home.bendbroadband.com/jacoxfamily/vo1000/vo-1000.html

and

http://yardlimit.railfan.net/baldwin/vo/index.html

I have an old one in brass in HO....neat engines for switching and small road work.

HTH

Mark

[West Coast S]

A hard critter to find a photo on, Some were relettered for the PE for a brief period upon delivery as a ploy to have SP avoid paying CA. sales tax on new purchases, most retained their orginal SP lettering but with PE sublettering. PE learned the hard way the importance of mars lights when running on congested trackage when one of the Baldwin's not equipped with thes extra lights, rammed and exploded a parked beer truck that had stopped to make a delivery during the wee hours of the morning.

Dave

[Mimbrogno]

Actually, the railroads had little to do with the variation. They occured because of the ongoing evolution of the VO series.

Initially, both models had one exhaust stack just in front of the cab, with a single muffler mounted above the generator. This continued until 1944, when it was found that the single muffler and exhaust created backpressure, restricting the flow of the exaust and retaining heat. The excess heat generated so close to the electrical system caused it to overheat and fail. This was addressed with a new exhaust manifold. This took the form of 2 seperate manifolds each with it's own stack, creating the dual stack variety. On the VO660, there were 3 cylinders per stack; On the VO1000, there were 4 cylinders per stack. While this removed the problem of overheating the electrical system, it still restricted the flow of the exhaust. Thus another change was made. On the VO660, this was done by simply adding another stack to each manifold to releave the pressure. On the VO1000, 4 sperate manifold sections were installed serving 2 cylinders each. This led to the 4 stack variety. The VO660 had 2 groups of 2 stacks spaced close together, but the VO 1000 had the four stacks spaced evenly apart.

No VO-660s were delivered with 3 stacks, but some were created by the railroads own shops. On roads that had both types of VOs, some 660s had their two 3 cylinder manifolds replaced with three 2 cylinder ones off the VO1000s. This is very rare however, as Baldwin was happy to supply replacement parts for engines with the older style exhausts.

Later, on the DS and S series switchers, Baldwin adopted the 3 stack setup as standard for the smaller normally asperated type, and a single stack for the bigger turbocharged units.

As a side note, 4 stacks was not the limit on the varieties. Some railroads gave their units a seperate stack for each cylinder, creating 6 and 8 stack models with a solid row of pipes above the engine. Baldwin called this practice "Hotrodding", in reference to the way people tricked out muscle cars.

There is one other oddball in the mix: Magma Arizona Railroad #9. This S-8 switcher was built for McCloud River RR as their #31. It was made as an S-8 that could be upgraded to an S-12 with the addition of a turbocharger. Thus, it had a single exhaust stack above the generator. When it was transfered to Magma, somehow the hood roof of another S-8 with 6 stacks was swapped out with it's original hood. These stacks are dummys, as the manifold is still routed to the single large stack. Thus, it is the only Baldwin switcher, or any other locomotive I know of for that matter, to have 7 smoke stacks!

I'm happy to see the growing interest in Baldwin diesels. If you'd like to see many pictures and a roster of surviving Baldwin diesel locomotives, check out the Baldwin Diesel Zone, at http://yardlimit.railfan.net/baldwindiesels

I am new around here, but if you have any questions about Baldwin diesels of all types, feel free to ask!!
Matthew Imbrogno
-Mechanical Volenteer, Arizona Railway Museum

[DigitalGriffin]

^----Yeah what he said. Very well researched.

BTW: Here's some more info on VO-1000 Baldwins. From what I was told, some of the first VO-1000s were put into service on the Patapsco and Back Water Rail Road (Sometimes called Patapsco and BLACK water rail road) They were used at Sparrows Point Steel plant in Baltimore Maryland.

These first locos were responsible for many of the revisions of upgrades issued for the VO-1000 series. Here are some photos:
http://yardlimit.railfan.net/baldwindiesels/pbr/index.html

The pictures you see here seem to have a rather enlarged radiator section on the top front of the hood. I'm thinking these are an added on at a later date because all early implementations of VO-1000's that I see don't have these.

[jefelectric]

Thanks again everyone. This has been very interesting reading and I got a wealth of infromation.

[TrainFreak409]

I have a picture of a Baldwin VO1000 that is preserved at the Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum. I wish I could give you more information on it though.