Dieselization without EMD?

[espeefoamer]

What would the history of dieselization in America have been like if the Electro Motive Corporation had never entered the business?Other companies had been producing diesel switchers for some time,but EMC produced the first road diesel,the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr,then the EA and E1.

[FThunder11]

Well there is GE, but EMD did create locos like the sd40-2 and f40 and all those good locos. hmmm /it would be a crazy train world with out them, but im sure someone else woulda stepped in

[chad thomas]

Without EMD, I imagine we would probably have lots of Alco,Baldwin and Fairbanks Morse locos running around.

[oltmannd]

Alco? FM? Baldwin?

These guys made decent locomotives, just not up to EMD's stds.

It was the economics of the the new technology that drove dieselization, not EMD per se.

[TrainFreak409]

Honestly, I would love to see ALCos and Baldwins riding the rails today. Just think of what they might look like...That's some cool stuff there.[:D]

And FMs! That would be awesome! They would be a sight, especially if they stuck to the styling of their TrainMasters and C-Liners and Erie-Builts.[8D]

[gabe]

Did EMD build the first roadswitcher?

I could have swore I remembered reading something to the effect that ALCO built the first roadswitcher in the RS-1. EMD came along with the roadswitcher/Geep idea begrudgingly because it did not want to detract sales from its F-units. I am sure this will sound trite to those in the know, but EMD actually tried to build the Geep in an ugly manner to divert more sales to the F-units.

Aside from that qualification, to answer your question (Mark, if you read this, forgive me, I know how you hate these impossible-to-justify a-historical hypotheticals):

I think if there were no EMD there would be no GE. I think ALCO makes it without EMD around and GE does not get the bright idea to change from supplying ALCO to building its own locomotives. Presumably, a Baldwin, Lima, or Fairbanks manages to stick around as the second builder to get in under the ALCO umbrella.

However, as I am sure Mark would say, this is all impossible to prove as the changing of one historical event would remove the historical guideposts I am using to predict how history would have been different.

Interesting to think about though . . . .

Gabe

P.S. Without EMD, I think steam may have made it another 5-10 years.

[MP173]

Gabe:

Great to see you...hope things are going well with the family and work.

ed

[gabe]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MP173

Gabe:

Great to see you...hope things are going well with the family and work.

ed

Thanks Ed, and dito.

Things are reasonably well. Although, I wish I had more time to do things like this.

Gabe

[jeffhergert]

ALCO did make the first road switcher. The RI approached ALCO and they modified there switcher design. The first units were requestioned by the Army.

EMD did have the first road freight unit, the FT. I think also they were helped to stay in the lead by the production restrictions of WWII. By the time restrictions were ended, EMD was the standard to compare to.

Steam may well have lasted longer since most of the others were primarily steam locomotive builders.

Jeff

[UPJohn]

Well without EMD things would be VERY different, I think

[trainboyH16-44]

I think Baldwin would not be around today, F-M, maybe, ALCo, probably, but someone may have filled EMD's big shoes, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be GE.
Matthew

[M636C]

It is really difficult to say what would have happened if EMC hadn't been purchased by GM, who wanted a wider market for the diesels built by Winton who they also purchased.

It was the really extensive work on reliability carried out by GM that made the freight locomotives possible, and without the FT, the process would have been much slower. It is fairly clear that Alco were pushed by GM/EMD competition to produce main line units like the DL109.

Realistically, steam would probably lasted ten or more years longer as the development of diesels would have been slower. Look at what happened in the Soviet Union, when conversion to diesel only started in the 1960s, but even they were influenced by GM in the USA, even though they didn't ever buy any EMD units.

M636C

[Wdlgln005]

The corporate culture at GM must have been to be the dominant supplier for all modes of transportation. They were #1 in cars, trucks, buses & locos. Could EMC have been bought by Ford or Chrysler? how about Cat or others a leaders in the small diesel market?
The LaGrange location would be ideal for delivery to both east & western roads.

[edbenton]

Standarzation would not have happened so easy. Remember EMD said either take it or leave it and knew they had the industry by the gonads. remember until EMD/EMC was around any locomoive was designed for that specfic RR there was no standard parts on anything everything was one off.

[CShaveRR]

As long as we're speculating, it would have been interesting if EMC had fallen into the hands of Lima-Hamilton, making it a worthy competitor to Alco and Baldwin again.

Would we have had a lot more smoky four-stroke diesels if EMD hadn't been around?

[Anonymous]

Harley-Davidson would have stepped in . . .

It would have given an entire new meaning to the term "Hog".[:)]

Old Timer

[trainboyH16-44]

LAWLS!!!

[Anonymous]

According to the article in the special 9/01 Alco issue of Trains, Alco was pushing steam for mainline freight, and diesels for switching and passenger trains. Besides EMD's policy for standardization, the reliability was also much better and that forced the other builders to improve their products or perish. Without that competition, dieselization would have taken longer since many railroads had fairly new steam locos and the cost/benefit of the diesel wouldn't have been as attractive.

But how much of EMD's success was the result of government investment during the war? If that investment had not gone to EMD, it would have gone to someone else able to ramp up production quickly.

[tree68]

I'm sure that minus EMD, someone would have made the effort to increase reliability, but the standardization issue might have suffered, as the culture was pretty much individual railroads had individual locomotives. The railroads would have also pushed a certain level of standardization due to the MU capability of diesels. Railroads would probably also have leaned toward manufacturers with reliable equipment.

One thing not considered in other comments was the possibility of railroads constructing their own locomotives, as several did with their steam locomotives. Would have led to some interesting creations, witness some of the equipment produced by RR shops that re-engined diesel locomotives (like the "Dewitt Geeps").

[Anonymous]

By reliability, I was thinking of the Alco model 244 fiasco. It was pushed into production after the war without enough testing. Had all early diesels been that unreliable, acceptance by the railroads would have been slower, but not inevitable.

[Anonymous]

If Alco's mistakes with the 244 engine didn't deal a fatal blow to the company, then marketing three different prime movers for a time (539, 244, 251) didn't help things either.

Speaking of Alco's 251 prime mover, how well did it (or did not) compare to the engines in GE's and EMD's locomotives at the time?

[oltmannd]

The Alco 244 might not have looked all that bad if there wasn't a EMD 567 to compare it to! (ditto the FM OP)

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill

1. Dieselization would have occurred much later. What made it happen when it happened is the immense wealth of GM that enabled it to invest immense sums into EMD and tolerate a delayed payback. Smaller companies simply could not do that. You can immediately rule out Alco, Baldwin, and Lima, as well as F-M -- they had no large cash reserves; in fact, the steam builders were hanging on by a thread after the devastion wreaked on their cash flow by the Depression. Caterpillar was a very small company in 1939!

2. The suggestion of Ford and Chrysler is not a bad one -- it was the metallurgical, machining, and manufacturing skills of the automotive industry that made possible the lightweight, medium-speed diesel engine perfected by EMD. I would rule out Ford because their management structure and outlook was backward and behind the times in the late 1930s. Chrysler probably wasn't large enough to fund such a program.

3. If I had to guess, I would guess that the market would have been entered slowly by Alco and the other steam builders after World War II, along with some small and ambitious companies building upwards from light switchers toward heavy switchers toward road engines. The key piece of technology was *always* the diesel engine, so these new builders would have tried to leverage off small diesel engines developed for other applications. It would have been interesting, but the history we already have is interesting. I am thankful there was an EMD for the sake of railroading.

So, this is an interesting "what if". If steam hung on a bit longer and the RRs spent their post WWII bucks on steam instead of F units, the cash flow at Alco and Baldwin would have been pretty good. Alco, at least, seemed to have figured out that steam's days were numbered pretty early on. With a better cash flow, maybe they would have been able to invest more heavily in diesel manufacturing, and maybe the delay to dieselize would only have been a few years, not a decade. After all, the first one out with a good product wins the race. Nobody wins a prize for being the last steam loco manufacturer, after all!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill

Larry, UP829: I suggest you're focusing far too much on reliability and standardization as the key criteria. The key criteria is the diesel engine itself.

No question there - although they are still factors. I was assuming that a diesel would be developed, etc. And as UP829 alludes, the reliability of the engine is a key component. He mentions the 244. How about the GP/SD-50 growing pains?

Consider, too, that EMD produced a package. There is nothing to say that the individual components might not have still been developed. Integrating them is where EMDs success came from. A railroad could have successfully blended the components into a locomotive which would then have provided a template for other railroads, and manufacturers, to follow. Might have been interesting if, rather than moving into locomotives, EMC/Winton had speciallized in the diesel engines only, providing them to locomotive builders, much as Cat does today.

[MichaelSol]

It is true that EMD made claims for its products that other manufacturers had been unwilling to make, e.g.minimum economic service life of 20 years, cost per hp maintenance at 1/3 the cost of steam, etc. etc.

The claims of course, were substantially exagerated. EMD products turned out to have an economic service life of less than 14 years, and cost per hp maintenance 50% higher than steam after eight years of operation.

GM's claim to fame as a company was never in technology, but in marketing: Alfred Sloan's "model year" approach to sales. And, the model didn't necessarily have to be better, it simply had to be advertised as better.

As Class I railroads began to dieselize in earnest, 1945-1950, they were earning a 4% rate of return.

Railroads scrapped approximately $1 Billion in existing fixed assets associated wiith steam, and invested approxinmately $4 Billion for new facilities for diesel operation (aside from the locomotives themselves). Railroads incurred financing charges unprecedented in the history of the industry in order to achieve full dieselization.

At the statistical end of the process, 1960, Class I railroads were earning 2.0 %.

From a financial perspective, dieselization represented a net economic burden to American railroads compared to steam operation.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Valleyline]

Alco wasn't that far behind EMD in the development of road diesel power. The New Haven was successfully running New Haven-Boston freights at night behind DL109's during WW2. During the day they were used on passenger runs. The problem Alco had was trying to develop its diesel program while still being heavily involved with steam. EMD never had the problem or expense of converting steam locomotive production to diesel.

[jeaton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

It is true that EMD made claims for its products that other manufacturers had been unwilling to make, e.g.minimum economic service life of 20 years, cost per hp maintenance at 1/3 the cost of steam, etc. etc.

The claims of course, were substantially exagerated. EMD products turned out to have an economic service life of less than 14 years, and cost per hp maintenance 50% higher than steam after eight years of operation.

GM's claim to fame as a company was never in technology, but in marketing: Alfred Sloan's "model year" approach to sales. And, the model didn't necessarily have to be better, it simply had to be advertised as better.

As Class I railroads began to dieselize in earnest, 1945-1950, they were earning a 4% rate of return.

Railroads scrapped approximately $1 Billion in existing fixed assets associated wiith steam, and invested approxinmately $4 Billion for new facilities for diesel operation (aside from the locomotives themselves). Railroads incurred financing charges unprecedented in the history of the industry in order to achieve full dieselization.

At the statistical end of the process, 1960, Class I railroads were earning 2.0 %.

From a financial perspective, dieselization represented a net economic burden to American railroads compared to steam operation.

Best regards, Michael Sol

Huh???

Your implication that the conversion to diesel was the cause of the decline of railroad return from 4% to 2% is a little farfetched.

If you could find a "number cruncher" that would compare the actual financial results of a railroad, say the Illinois Central, with the result that probably would have occured had the same railroad stayed with steam power and show the latter to be superior, I'd buy the argument.

Jay

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton
Huh???

Your implication that the conversion to diesel was the cause of the decline of railroad return from 4% to 2% is a little farfetched.

If you could find a "number cruncher" that would compare the actual financial results of a railroad, say the Illinois Central, with the result that probably would have occured had the same railroad stayed with steam power and show the latter to be superior, I'd buy the argument.

Better than that: a study that looked at three U.S. railroads in detail, including the ATSF, with a thorough financial review of their operating and maintenance costs, interviews with mechanical officers, and a detailed econometric analysis of 15 years of purchases and operations.

Brown, H.F., "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

I don't recall now if this is in the paper, or Brown told me, but his Santa Fe experience was interesting. He was comparing the operating and maintenance costs from Santa Fe's own books, and said to the Chief Mechanical Officer, "you told me that the diesel-electrics are so much cheaper to operate, but your books show the exact opposite, that these locomotives are more expensive to maintain and operate than your comparable steam." The Mechanical Officer began to recite GM advertising claims, and Brown had to remind him "I'm sorry, but I'm a Professional Engineer, I don't care what the advertising says, your numbers show that either the advertising is wrong, or your numbers are wrong. If your numbers are wrong, you sit down here and show me how and where."

The findings of Brown's study are consistent, not inconsistent, with the drop in earnings from 4% to 2%, during the specific time frame of a conversion to a motive power type that was supposed to be an economic benefit to railroads, and yet there is no evidence that it was, that is, to the contrary, the effort damaged American railroads financially in the decade of the 1950s, resulting in restricted track maintenance during the 1960s, resulting in the national rail crisis of the 1970s.

An interesting exercise is to graph the net railway operating income as a % of assets, against the interest cost charges for locomotive acquisition during the period 1940-1980. The correlation resulting from a linear regression analysis is "suggestive".

If not that, what does explain the drop in profitability from 4% to 2%, and why would the alternative explanation be less far-fetched than the massive recapitalization of the national locomotive fleet relying almost totally on financing which was not the case in the industry previously?

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton
Huh???

Your implication that the conversion to diesel was the cause of the decline of railroad return from 4% to 2% is a little farfetched.

If you could find a "number cruncher" that would compare the actual financial results of a railroad, say the Illinois Central, with the result that probably would have occured had the same railroad stayed with steam power and show the latter to be superior, I'd buy the argument.

Better than that: a study that looked at three U.S. railroads in detail, including the ATSF, with a thorough financial review of their operating and maintenance costs, interviews with mechanical officers, and a detailed econometric analysis of 15 years of purchases and operations.

Brown, H.F., "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 175:5 (1961).

I don't recall now if this is in the paper, or Brown told me, but his Santa Fe experience was interesting. He was comparing the operating and maintenance costs from Santa Fe's own books, and said to the Chief Mechanical Officer, "you told me that the diesel-electrics are so much cheaper to operate, but your books show the exact opposite, that these locomotives are more expensive to maintain and operate than your comparable steam." The Mechanical Officer began to recite GM advertising claims, and Brown had to remind him "I'm sorry, but I'm a Professional Engineer, I don't care what the advertising says, your numbers show that either the advertising is wrong, or your numbers are wrong. If your numbers are wrong, you sit down here and show me how and where."

The findings of Brown's study are consistent, not inconsistent, with the drop in earnings from 4% to 2%, during the specific time frame of a conversion to a motive power type that was supposed to be an economic benefit to railroads, and yet there is no evidence that it was, that is, to the contrary, the effort damaged American railroads financially in the decade of the 1950s, resulting in restricted track maintenance during the 1960s, resulting in the national rail crisis of the 1970s.

An interesting exercise is to graph the net railway operating income as a % of assets, against the interest cost charges for locomotive acquisition during the period 1940-1980. The correlation resulting from a linear regression analysis is "suggestive".

If not that, what does explain the drop in profitability from 4% to 2%, and why would the alternative explanation be less far-fetched than the massive recapitalization of the national locomotive fleet relying almost totally on financing which was not the case in the industry previously?

Best regards, Michael Sol

Regarding "alternate" explanations for the profitability drop from 4% to 2%, isn't the popular explanation the advent of the Interstate Highway System and a subsequent drop in small lot and time sensitive deliveries for the railroads? It is interesting that you have found a documentable reason based on over-financing of dieselization, while the whole "competition from truckers" argument has less of a grounding in documentation. That's one reason I suspected the whole highway competition theories were more of a chicken and egg comparison, e.g. which came first, railroad debt loads from wholesale dieselization, or actual market loss to trucking competition? Is it possible that the railroad debt problems that arose from dieselization (and subsequent maintenance deferments) were the cause of railroads giving up on some commodity moves?

[jeaton]

I still find it hard to accept that so many railroad Boards, CEO' and CFO's could have made a mistake in moving to diesel power. It is my understanding that the N&W felt they had the best in steam power and had some motivation to buy fuel from their biggest customers. Still, they made the switch.

Never-the-less, I am going to Evanston tomorrow and will check out the paper at the NU Transportation Library. I am sure it is very interesting.

Jay