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Sterling1 - The Fairbanks-Morse diesel was called the "Opposed Piston" engine, and had two crankshafts, one in the normal position and an upper crankshaft (it was an inline engine). The upper crankshaft had rods and pistons just like normal except they worked in the same cylinder bore as the lower pistons. The two pistons came together at the same stroke, and the fuel charge explosion forced both pistons away from each other. The crankshafts were timed so that the major job of the upper piston was to help with compression of the fuel/air mixture; the lower piston (and therefore the lower crankshaft) produced 80% of the power. These engines were prominent in marine use; their long, high, narrow configuration adapted well to everything from tugboats to submarines. FM made a pretty good diesel locomotive, but the maintenance requirements of the opposed piston engine with its plethora of moving parts (would you rather maintain a couple of camshafts and their valves, or a whole "nother" crankshaft and set of pistons?) meant that it would never compete favorably with EMD's 567 engine of the era. One problem was that they used GE's governor, which made them idle somewhat like early Alcos. The Virginian Railway was so displeased with this aspect of its first order of FMs that it specified EMD-style Woodward governers on its subsequent orders. FM balked at first, but VGN threatened to buy somebody else's diesels, so they came with the Woodwards. VGN retrofitted its first order with Woodwards. FMs had a nice sound when working, too. Old Timer
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