Too bad about "Manitoba", but if a big antique like a ship can't earn it's keep anymore, or becomes too expensive to operate, or just ages out, well. you know the rest.
Fine looking ship just the same. It looks like it's been well taken care of.
She's actually safe thanks to always having owners that cared for it and have regularly reinvested in her (Not to mention she was idle for half a decade before her current owners bought her which saved a lot of wear & tear). So she should be around for quite a few more years for Boatnerds and railfans that also see the appeal in watching large impressive ships to enjoy while she continues to earn money for her owners.
It's the other three survivors of upwards of a dozen 1960's era Canadian freighters that had FM powerplants that have very questionable futures.
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/algorail.htm
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/algoway.htm
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/phoenixstar.htm
It's interesting to see that two of those boats were part of Algoma Central's fleet.
Well that's good news about "Manitoba." However those Algoma ships look like they need to strike up a serious relationship with a paint brush! Yikes!
Reminds me of an old mariners joke: "That ship must have gone through the grand-daddy of all hurricanes!" "How so?" "It's had all it's paint blown off!"
The Phoenix Star is a old Algoma ship as well. Many of the FM engined ships have been part of the Algoma Central fleet. And the Manitoba had a close sister ship that has been gone for a number of years now that was part of the Algoma fleet (Although the Manitoba never was).
The Algoway and the Algorail have been on their way out for a few years so they're not wasting effort in a proper repainting. Not much different than 1950's era steam. And they look far worse in the ballast tanks, cargo holds, and self-unloading tunnels so that's the least of their worries. Lots of salt cargoes and sailing in the lower St. Lawrence River above Montreal where it starts to turn into salt water are rotting them from the inside out.
Those two had two sisters. The recently scrapped Agawa Canyon (A name that should be familiar to anyone with an interest in the now gone railroad) and the Roy A. Jodrey that bottomed out on Pullman Shoal off Alexandria Bay NY when almost brand new 30 years ago and sunk in deep water where she still is today.
Reading down through this string, I see a number of things I can help shed some light on. I'd highly suggest those interested in the merger of Baldwin Locomotive Works and Lima-Hamilton Corporation track down John Kirkland's excellent books on the subject. The reasoning behind the merger is made quite clear. There is also a good bit of technical and historical information that would supplant / correct information that has been stated or implied in this message string so far. Using my memory of those books and my pile of BLW / L-H / BLH technical manuals I can just briefly point up a few corrections.
-The "Centipede" was available with dynamic brake as an option, at $19,000 per unit.
-The "Centipede" was available with standardized electric throttle as an option. (This would have been the Westinghouse type exactly as used in all Lima-Hamilton diesel locomotives, and in all of the Westinghouse-equipped Fairbanks-Morse C-Liners.) This was designed to allow multiple unit operation with other makes of locomotive.
-There is no evidence I've seen that Lima-Hamilton was about to overtake Baldwin Locomotive Works in sales. Where does that assumption come from? I'm aware of only one order that was on the books and which was transferred from Lima-Hamilton to BLH Eddystone, which was an order for 1200 HP road switchers for the New York Central.
-Statements in press by Lima-Hamilton's president at the time of introduction of its diesel locomotive line made it clear that Lima-Hamilton did not intend to pursue diesel-electric locomotives above the size of switchers. The quote was, I believe, "Above 1500 HP there just has to be a better way than diesel."
-There was no RF-15; this unofficial designation's origin is unknown, but the earliest appearance of it that I can find is in Al Staufer's "Pennsy Power II." These units, Pennsylvania Railroad 9700 through 9707 (both A and B) have their own operating manual, which is DF-105 and which refers to the units as model DR-4-4-1500/1 exactly as one would expect. They do indeed differ in some respects from the earlier units of the same type, but their official model designation did not change.
-If one wishes to research relatively unknown model numbers, however, he will find that manual update DF-106 of October 1950 when applied to the DF-105 manual changes the data page to reflect model DR-4-4-1600/1 which has never, to my knowledge, ever been printed anywhere except of course on my website. This is what was already apparently being called the RF-16 by sales and marketing .. and all operating manuals in the DF-107 series use that model designation.
-Cancellation of the 400 series engines, as has been mentioned attributed to Westing, appears not to have been due to any particular engine fault but rather due to cancellation of the Essl design program, which focused on rapidly changeable power packs which could be maintained as ready service spares and not as installed items - this according to Kirkland. I do have an interesting photograph in a Baldwin sales book which shows an engine that appears to have the same characteristics generally as the 408 (including identical valve covers) but which is a V-12 and which is twin-turbocharged, connected to a water brake at Eddystone.
-It is not true that Lima's staff was relegated to construction projects. According to Kirkland, after the Lima-Hamilton and Austin-Western mergers were completed, it was the original owners of those two companies that ended up with working control of the entire corporation. (This from his book on Baldwin.) In another instance (his volume on F-M and Lima-Hamilton) Kirkland points out that the actual decision to kill the Hamilton pattern T69SA / T89SA locomotive engines was made by Fred J. Geittman, who had originally designed the Hamilton engine in the first place and who now, through the merger, held high position at the merged Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.
If one wishes to take the time to find these books, and read both (as I have) the reasons for the BLH merger become quite clear. To briefly paraphrase -- the sellers' market for diesel locomotives was over, and there wasn't room for the number of builders that existed. Lima-Hamilton was merged to eliminate it as a locomotive builder and to allow it to convert manufacturing capacity to road construction equipment, or else sell it off. The merged corporation, with a "right sized" locomotive business and expanding road construction equipment business would theoretically have the right balance in its manufacturing facilities to see through the end of dieselization and the launch of the massive construction of roads and then the interstate highway system.
Another fallacy is pointed out by Kirkland -- Westinghouse "control" of Baldwin. Westinghouse only ever held 12% of Baldwin's stock. This is not control. It is a voting presence through having a seat or two on the board of directors (enough, as he says, to make sure Westinghouse didn't go to someone else for electrical equipment.. and who would be to say that the company couldn't have convinced Elliott, or Allis-Chalmers, or Brown-Boveri perhaps to go in?) but it isn't control of the company.
Someone mentioned the Westinghouse "Blue Goose" Gas turbine electric locomotive. I have an advertising and specification book for this locomotive which should clear up some questions. (I have covered this book on my site.)
-On the first page --- "Introduction. The information contained in this book describes the gas turbine locomotive which was built by Westinghouse Electric Corporation with the cooperation of the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation and first placed in road service in May, 1950...." This should clear up the question of who was in the project. It is no mistake, and not a deception, to have "Westinghouse - Baldwin" painted on the sides of the locomotive.
-The running gear design incorporated a Westinghouse patent roller carriage interposed between each truck and the carbody. On the gas turbine, the end trucks had 2.5 inch lateral motion with limitation by leaf springs, while the center trucks had 7.5 inch lateral motion with no restriction. This suspension was also used on the prototype B-B-B wheel arrangement ignitron rectifier electric locomotives built for use on the Pennsylvania Railroad. This design is particularly interesting, and adapted for locomotives intended to operate at relatively high speeds. The truck swivel action took place between each truck and its roller carriage; lateral side play took place between each roller carriage and the locomotive carbody.
I hope this helps those who are still trying to get to the truth on these topics.
-Will Davis
Railroad Locomotives - My Blog
There are plenty of photos of Seaboard's Centipedes operating in multiple with EMD and Alco locomotives, so I expect Seaboard spent the extra $19,000 per unit.
"There is no evidence I've seen that Lima-Hamilton was about to overtake Baldwin Locomotive Works in sales. Where does that assumption come from? I'm aware of only one order that was on the books and which was transferred from Lima-Hamilton to BLH Eddystone, which was an order for 1200 HP road switchers for the New York Central."
That "assumption" that Lima-Hamilton was about to overtake Baldwin Locomotives Works in sales comes from Jerry A. Pinkepank . Lima had picked up enough orders for 1951 that had they all been constructed, they would've surpassed Baldwin in sales that year. But many of those orders were cancelled as a result of the merger like a 60 unit order from Southern Pacific since few wanted to purchase locomotives that were guaranteed to be orphans. Furthermore, Lima produced locomotives well into 1951 with the last unit produced not being until September of 1951 when production of existing orders that hadn't been cancelled or transferred to Baldwin ended.
They had far more orders on the books than just a NYC order for additional LRS-1200's when merger happened the previous December. Instead, it appears that only 63 Lima designed locomotives were outshopped in 1951 with most cancelled or switched to Baldwin equivalents like PRR's order for RT-624's in place of additional Lima transfer units.
"It is not true that Lima's staff was relegated to construction projects. According to Kirkland, after the Lima-Hamilton and Austin-Western mergers were completed, it was the original owners of those two companies that ended up with working control of the entire corporation. (This from his book on Baldwin.) In another instance (his volume on F-M and Lima-Hamilton) Kirkland points out that the actual decision to kill the Hamilton pattern T69SA / T89SA locomotive engines was made by Fred J. Geittman, who had originally designed the Hamilton engine in the first place and who now, through the merger, held high position at the merged Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton."
I've seen it cited several times that the Lima design office was closed after 1951, that the engineering team was scattered to the winds with many leaving the company, and that they had very little say in the engineering future for the continuing line of Baldwin products despite the design team being assigned to that area after merger until it was dissolved. And the locomotive plant was even renamed the Construction Equipment Division of BLH.
Their future after this from everything I've ever read until your post clearly indicated that their life after September 11th 1951 for what was left was in the area of things like continued crane construction, other construction equipment, machine tools, and so on.
So I'll stand by that. As for the Hamilton engine itself, I don't believe it was ever particularly defended in this thread or that it was ever stated that not sticking with that after merger was a bad idea. I think the closest positive that was stated during this thread about the Hamilton engine was that it simply had more room for growth at the start of Lima diesel production than a mature design like the Alco 239 that wasn't able to follow Lima past the 1000 HP threshold did. It was a modern and promising design that never had all the issues engineered out of it and because of Lima's short stay in the diesel business, has a poor reputation today. But I don't think anyone necessarily thinks that it was a mistake not sticking with this for the merged company. Just that perhaps its reputation today would be more positive than it is had it continued to be developed.
"Statements in press by Lima-Hamilton's president at the time of introduction of its diesel locomotive line made it clear that Lima-Hamilton did not intend to pursue diesel-electric locomotives above the size of switchers. The quote was, I believe, "Above 1500 HP there just has to be a better way than diesel."
Yep, their trade advertisements explaining their thoughts on the future for locomotive production stated that "above 1500 horsepower, there must be a better way".
It's quite clear that Lima Hamilton's rail ambitions had three major goals at the start. Get what they could out of their steam investment with a belief that modern steam had a future (Presumably as interim road power until their free piston design arrived), prepare for a gas turbine free piston locomotive, and enter diesel switcher production. Their advertisement that they placed in publications after merger detailing their goals and the strengths of each company are quite clear on those three goals.
And I wasn't aware that anyone in this thread ever claimed otherwise. I think it was quite clear that there was a consensus that they were betting on free piston locomotives being the future in the late 1940's for road service that would kill off the rest of steam and start replacing diesel road locomotives. The only debate I remember several weeks ago was on just when that dream ended.
That said, their thoughts of strictly producing switchers for their diesel electric locomotive production only lasted until the April 1950 model lineup was introduced when road switchers were introduced and heavy work on going beyond 1200 HP was initiated with a 1600 HP road switcher actually being ready to be constructed when merger ended that plan. If that was a sign of diminishing hopes on the free piston concept or just a recognition that production was several years away in the future and they didn't want to miss out on lucrative road switcher production in the meantime, I don't know.
rcdrye There are plenty of photos of Seaboard's Centipedes operating in multiple with EMD and Alco locomotives, so I expect Seaboard spent the extra $19,000 per unit.
RIght you are! - I've seen this as well. The $19K was for dynamic brake; there would have been a different and separate charge for electric throttle. I'm not sure how much that would have been. (I have somewhere here an official sales proposal from B-L-H to L&N for road switchers, and although the date is somewhat later it would be interesting to know if they quoted a price for electric throttle. I'll look for that.)
I know for a fact that the first unit, SAL 4500 had an air throttle (Westinghouse CE-100) because it's clearly shown in trade materials and press releases of the day. But it's certainly true that the rest were either delivered with electric throttles or modified to incorporate them. It would be interesting to see if photos of 4500 in multiple with EMD's or ALCO's exist to see if it got modified as well, although I'd bet it did.
Seaboard rewired their fleet of Centipedes in the process of trying to cure their faults and to standardize their electrical systems. And the 4500 lasted into the 1960's until the Centipede era ended on the Seaboard and actually outlived several younger sisters by four years. So I imagine she too could MU with EMD's and Alco's.
I've found pictures of 4 or 5 of them leading a consist of locomotives from other manufacturers and presumably MU'ed to them after looking around. But of those that I could identify a number on, none of them were the 4500 and they were all higher numbered members of their class. I think the 4508 was the lowest numbered one I found a photo of MU'ed to EMD's and/or Alco's.
I dug out John Kirkland's excellent book "The Diesel Builders - Volume III, Baldwin Locomotive Works" and sure enough on page 139 there's a photo of SAL 4500 operating in MU with a pair of EMD FT units -- the set is A-B-A with 4500 leading 4108 and 4014. The date is not given; the photo is credited as being from Kirkland's collection.
Further searching turned up a curious item, repeated numerously on e-Bay which is a post card that shows 4501 coupled ahead of ALCO-GE road switchers. Can't say if these are just coupled sitting somewhere (dead steamers appear to be alongside) or if this is a working lashup, but it is of interest to our discussion here. I don't know what the policy here is for posting eBay links, but this post card is not hard to find.
Of even further interest is the fact that I turned up a photo or two of one of the SAL's 1500 HP BLW A1A-A1A units (2700 class) with a 27 point MU jumper on its nose, beside its headlight. Look here:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2384855
This, taken together, would have standardized the SAL's Baldwin fleet, since all of the RS-12 units were built with electric throttle.
Getting back to prices for options briefly...
Kirkland (in the same book) gives the price for dynamic brake on a Centipede as being $19,000. At that time, the price of one unit complete in standard condition was $287,250 (same book.) I include this for interest, to see how much this added to unit cost. Would the cost to add dynamic brake to a DR-4-4-1500/1 unit have been $9500? That would be a logical guess, but a guess only... perhaps decent for ballpark discussions but not quotable for history.
I don't have any price breakdowns for other options on that model. I do have price breakdown for AS-16 units in 1953 in a proposal (obviously never carried out) from BLH to the Louisville & Nashville. In that proposal, BLH is offering to sell L&N 53 AS-16 units at a price of $145,000 each. Dynamic brake isn't listed in the attachment labeled "Exhibit A" calling out modifications discussed or possibly of interest to the railroad since L&N still wasn't buying anything with that option. However, more to our point about electric throttle, there is a quotation for this as an offered modification.
"Item 1 - MU Control. To provide and install MU control both ends which will permit operation with BLH, EMD or ALCO units. ....Add per locomotive $2262.00"
So the cost of the electric throttle is wrapped up into the cost of multiple unit control, it would appear, since no other costs associated with control equipment are given and this is an actual sales proposal, not just a specification issuance. (Specification AS-16-4 with Revs through 1953 is bound into this proposal book; the proposal material is in front of it.) This means that all costs are included and spelled out.
Of course, the cost of the controller and wiring is not the only cost associated with setting the locomotives up for MU operation. If we look at the specification for these units, under Modifications (this means "options" to the general person) we find the following description for "Multiple Unit Control":
"At both ends, unless otherwise specified. Provides control of power circuits, braking circuits and sander circuits in multiple. Air compressors are synchronized. Gangway provided between units with illuminating light. All piping is provided with pipe connectors on either side of the coupler, but with one set of hose provided at each end. Hot water temperature switch is included with this installation."
(That last mentioned item may seem unusual. BLH units at this time still did not have, as standard equipment, an engine hot water shutdown. This is in fact an option, set to (according to the Modifications page) "reduce engine speed to idle if engine water temperature exceeds 200F." This was provided so that trailing units would be protected against engine overheat since their engine temperatures weren't known in the lead cab.)
I think that's about as much information as I can find here right now on pricing and optioning of dynamic brake and compatible throttle / MU for BLW / BLH units. But I'll keep looking around as I find the time.
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