Worst Locomotive Designer

[tatans]

Francis Webb (his incompetence) He improved his steam engines in such a way that they would not start at all, for example, His Teutonic class of locos had 2 pairs of driving wheels which were not connected and were capable of turning in opposite directions. The engine would remain motionless, puffing violently with the 2 pair of drivers spinning to no effect. To overcome this problem the LNWR had to use 2 engines, one of Webb's and another of a different design simply to get the engine started. -- - - - Say, I think I own an engine just like that after I tried to repair it myself. Keith

[pmsteamman]

Who ever designed the GE C30-7. To get in them you have to climb straight up the steps and try to fit in a cab door that was made for kids, and the horn on top of the cab, one crossing and you are deaf. Now lets walk back towards the rear and get sucked up buy the intakes and then if this beast is MUed to anything you have to step down to that unit (not a fun thing to do in winter). On the plus side they will pull anything tied to the drawbar.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I thought you were talking about GE's to begin with!

[AntonioFP45]

PMSteamman,

That's pretty cool that you're an engineer. Which road do you work for?

By the way. It's interesting that you mentioned the C30-7, of which was an upgrade of the old U-Boat series. So basically the U-Boats were not very high on your "favorite list" as far as design. I read similar comments from an engineer who couldn't stand the GE Dash 7s that he ran on the NS (I think). He was glad when they were retired!

[pmsteamman]

AntonioFP45...I worked for CSX until a month ago I now work for a shortline. About the GEs I do like the Dash8 40C and newer ones. I have had a AC4400 pull 157 cars (14,000 tons) all alone. We didnt go fast but we did get home.

[Anonymous]

Whoever at Baldwin that designed their diesels to not 'mu' with diesels from any other manufacturer. Was their thinking that all the railroads that purchased the thousands of steamers from them would remain loyal to Baldwin and not purchase new diesels from "upstart" (sic) electic motor companies like GE, or from their arch competitor, Alco, or from that little company called EMD which was only the largest manufacturer of internal combustion engined vehicles in the world and whose FTs proved their worth before WWII ?!?

Just think if the Baldwin Sharks could have been mu'd with other diesels-the world would have been a little less boring and a bit prettier to look at to boot.Instead that designer(s) and decision makers doomed a once very proud industrial giant.

BILL

[M636C]

While Francis Webb's Compounds were fairly bad, his smaller simple locomotives worked as well as average locomotives of the time. While seeming to be knocking the Brits here, I'd put Oliver Bullied up there with the real incompetents, even though his heart was in the right place. His Q-1 0-6-0s were strange but effective, but the Pacifics with their ineffective chain driven valve gear were a sink for maintenance funds, until rebuilt as conventional locomotives about ten years later. The "Leader" 0-6-6-0 started as a reasonable idea but got completely out of hand with fireboxes made up only of thermic syphons and firebricks, chain driven valve gear and sleeve valves, not to mention coupling chains.

Nigel Gresley's valve gear, actually designed by Harold Holcroft, was applied in a manner not recommended by Holcroft, and suffered from differential expansion of the valve rods. The hotter they got, the worse the valve settings became, quite apart from the wear at all the pins! Alco's advertising for three cylinder locomotives was basically a lie, in many respects! With (a lot of ) effort, they did work, however!

To avoid being described as (only) an Anglophobe, Chapelon's work had a good theoretical basis, but his compounds were abandoned in large numbers in favour of the Baldwin designed 141R, simply because the compounds' maintenance costs were unsupportable!

Peter

[BRAKIE]

That has to be the FM Trainmaster..I worked with these units on the PRR..Those steps was a real killer..After working with these units and hanging on those awful steps your legs felt like they was about to fall off..

[Anonymous]

hi
The engineers that had monumental[censored] ups!! that we know about cannot have been that bad as engineers.
Otherwise I would venture to say we would not know about them. they would have just been swept under the carpet along with the engineer.
regards John

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bill mathewson

Whoever at Baldwin that designed their diesels to not 'mu' with diesels from any other manufacturer. Was their thinking that all the railroads that purchased the thousands of steamers from them would remain loyal to Baldwin and not purchase new diesels from "upstart" (sic) electic motor companies like GE, or from their arch competitor, Alco, or from that little company called EMD which was only the largest manufacturer of internal combustion engined vehicles in the world and whose FTs proved their worth before WWII ?!?

Just think if the Baldwin Sharks could have been mu'd with other diesels-the world would have been a little less boring and a bit prettier to look at to boot.Instead that designer(s) and decision makers doomed a once very proud industrial giant.

BILL

I was puzzled why on earth Baldwin fitted non-standard MU equipment as well. Apparently standard MU equipment was an option, but why they offered any other setup in the first place is beyond me!

[Anonymous]

hey Railroading Brit- I'm not aware of any application of an optional mu setup on Baldwins, but I'd like to know of any if anyone has any specifics. I had the understanding that they used an air operated throttle, and it is conceivable that they could have reconfigured their controls to mu w/ other brands.

It's hard to imagine what they were thinking when they made the decision "to go it alone". Was that 'decision maker ' also responsible for Sony's "BetaMax"?

[Anonymous]

Here's another one I thought of--
The EMD designer that designed the utterly homely BL2 (and to think that they also did the exquisite E units, and the handsome F3s in the same time period).

[M636C]

But Bill, EMD stopped building the BLs pretty soon! They just had a mindset about the carbody structure, which is strange, since they had been building switchers for years. English Electric had incompatible MU arrangements, which came up against EMD in Queensland, Western Australia and New Zealand. EE used voltage regulator control, which controlled the diesel throttle from the electrical load. When you had a unit on the load bank (a set of resistors for testing a locomotive), you just left the "power lever" fully open and cranked up the resistance and the diesel throttled up to take the load. It worked the same way on a train. Just go to wide open and the train would accelerate as fast as the power allowed. The EMD eight notch throttle was devised to keep the engines away from speeds at which bad torsional vibrations occurred. EE (and GE) didn't have to worry about this, so U25s had sixteen notch throttles, giving finer control. GE gave that idea up. EE did build six locomotives for New Zealand with eight notch throttles, and I asked Stan Lyons, the dsigner of the EE Deltic loco why they didn't build all their locomotives that way. He said that he thought their system was better, but he'd do what the customer asked for! By the way, mentioning Stan here doesn't mean I put him in the "bad" category, let alone "worst". His truck designs were a bit odd, but they worked. The Deltics had traction motor blower ducting integral with the centre pivot, that took away the attaching and removing of the rubber bellows when you changed trucks! I thought that that was a good idea when it might be me climbing in to attach the ducting!

Peter

[philnrunt]

I was just thinking that you all make good points, but today if you had a chance to see any of the locos mentioned all of us would break ours necks to get a glimpse of 'em workin on the railroad!
And I would drive halfway across country to see a steamer(and I a'm a diesel fan) whose drivers go in different directions!!!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bill mathewson

hey Railroading Brit- I'm not aware of any application of an optional mu setup on Baldwins, but I'd like to know of any if anyone has any specifics. I had the understanding that they used an air operated throttle, and it is conceivable that they could have reconfigured their controls to mu w/ other brands.

It's hard to imagine what they were thinking when they made the decision "to go it alone". Was that 'decision maker ' also responsible for Sony's "BetaMax"?

I found a reference to this here: http://exotic.railfan.net/baldwinlocos.htm (Good web site for those of us who like the more unusual locos). Item 10 under "Technical Features" states that "Contrary to many reports, Baldwin diesels could be run in MU operation with diesels built by other makers if the units were ordered with the proper MU equipment from the Baldwin catalog".

[Anonymous]

I'll vote for whoever designed the Alco RS-11, I hope it looks better in 1:1 scale , than it does in N scale

[Anonymous]

Wow, I thought Alco's RS-11 was their nicest design for a diesel. that and the RS-1 are my favorite diesel Alcos. Oh, well to-each-his-own.

I'm uncertain of the validity of picking a favorite locomotive from a looks-only point of view. They are designed to pull tonnage and I would guess engineering put looks pretty far back in the criteria. Design for a specific purpose, safety of the crew, ease of maintenance, cost and ease of operation, longevity, interchangeability of parts and then, maybe, finally looks.

[Anonymous]

hey Railroading _Brit -- Thanks for ref. to that site. I wonder if any of the Baldwins, esp the Sharks, were ever ordered w/ mu capability? It is a widely held opinion, and I've seen it in print numerous times, that Baldwins couldn't be mu'd with other mfgrs' diesels. This is an important bit of info for me, because I am trying to justify running some ABA sets of Baldwin Sharks on a free-lanced portion of my new layout, and I may want to mix it up occasionaly w/ Alco and EMD units stuck in the middle of the lash up.

BILL

[Anonymous]

I too, like the RS1 thru RSD4/5 and esp the RS11 (although the RS11 would be too new for my railroad. They are an interesting departure from the more common EMD road switchers of the time.

Re: styling or the'look' of an engine was considered important during the days of the first generation road, road-switcher, and esp the passenger diesels, because the railroads were initialy sold a bill-of-goods by the industrial designers that streamlining equated to more efficient punching a hole thru the air, promising lower fuel costs and higher speed potential, and later because the public equated streamlined design as being chic and modern . Tremendous attention was paid to paint colors/schemes that complimented the shapes of the new diesels.

Railroads were on a public relations / fighting-for-their-lives campaign to attract the attention of both shippers and passengers away from highway and air travel after WW II . Locomotive builders responded with fresh designs to attract railroads to their products. That can be seen in Alco's switch from the DL109 to the PA, Baldwin from the Babyfaced cab unit to the Sharknose design, and the handsome EMD F & E units, as well as Alco's classic FA freight units. There 's a reason that EMD dumped the BL2 from their lineup after two short years. The same hold true for the DL109 and the "Babyfaced' Baldwin, both sold in small numbers, until rebodied by the maker..

Eventually it became apparent that the road-switcher was by far the nost useful, and if the long hood were run first, far safer for the crews in case of an accident. The road-switcher, compareed to the typical cab units, provided far superior visability when backing up,

[METRO]

Well as for brit locos, I was always fond of the Class 80 electric ; P (lets see if anyone can figure that one out)

As for the worst locomotive manufacturer of all time well that's a tie, I should think, between the BR Class 28 diesel, the Metroliner and the C-Liner. While I like the way the units look, they all exhibited some elementary flaw and the designers should have known better.

The Class 28 just had so many mechanical problems that it worked better as the world's largest paperweight.

As for the C-Liner, while they were handsome, whoever thought of putting a submarine engine in a locomotive really needs a mental checkup. I mean the pure difference in work profile between a navy ship with a dedicated and constant engineering crew, and a road locomotive which should, by design at least, go long distances without needing a qualified engine specialist to hover over it should be quite apperent.

The Metroliners were a well meaning enterprise, to be sure, but well their electrics were just a bit too fuzzy to work quite right. Amtrak eventually had to staff an electrician on board to make them hit their speeds. Also their intake location was far from ideal and when a snowstorm came by, as they often do in the NEC, it was more than common to see a GG1 pulling the cars that were supposed to be self-propelled.

I would have to give an full nod to the original GO Transit power cars as well though, as whatever designer that saw fit to pull a commuter train with a 300 bhp engine needs some re-education as well.

[METRO]

As for least-attractive unit I have ever seen, well that distinction goes to the JR's Shinkansen duckbill MAX trains. I truly don't care how aerodynamic they are, I would expect more from a line that had something as beautiful as the Nozomi.

[philnrunt]

The Baldwin Centipede always reminded me of an engine designed by a 5 year old that liked the clickety clack noise. I've read that they were a bear to maintain and pretty rough on curved trackage.Probably not the worst, but still far from the best.

[Anonymous]

The Centipedes had 3000 hp, or twice what was available elsewhere when introduced. They could really haul when they ran, but were beset w/ all kinds of mechanical woes. They have been referred to as a plummer's worst nightmare. I suspect that their huge size was deemed infexible and a railroad could have better flexibility w/ two smaller diesels w/ their combined power rating equal to the Centipede's.