Baldwin 60000

[Ezekiel Tulagan]

Baldwin60000 is an experimental steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in 1926, during the height of the railroading industry. It received its number for being the 60,000th locomotive built by Baldwin.[2]

60000 was highly innovative, carrying unusual technology such as a water-tube firebox. This was intended to improve efficiency but the tubes were prone to burst inside the firebox. It is also a compound, expanding the steam once in the inside cylinder and then again in the two outside cylinders. Although compounding increases efficiency, it was an extra complication that the US railroads had mostly rejected by the middle twenties.[3] The weight and length of the engine were too much for all but the heaviest and straightest tracks.

This locomotive was experimental and was meant to be the model for future development. However, its demonstration runs never persuaded railroads to purchase more. In 1933, it was donated to the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[1] and remains there today.

After a series of brief test runs following construction, the 60000 was sent to the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona Test Plant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Placed on rollers without its tender, it was tested on the traction dynamometer to measure its performance, which included maximum drawbar horsepower.[4] Following tests at the Altoona Test Plant, the Pennsylvania Railroad placed the engine in freight service between Enola Yard near Harrisburg and Morrisville Yard via the Trenton Cutoff. During testing on the PRR, 60000 pulled a maximum of 7,700 tons.[5]

Following testing on the PRR, the 60000 was sent for additional testing on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Between November and December 1926, the 60000 was tested on the Cumberland Division between Brunswick and Keyser, Maryland, the Connellsville Division between Cumberland, Maryland, and Connellsville, Pennsylvania, and the Pittsburgh Division, which included the Sand Patch and Seventeen-Mile grades.[6]

In February 1927, the 60000 was sent to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Beardstown Division of Illinois. The 60000 was run in tandem with the CB&Q's own M2-A Class 2-10-2 number 6157, in order to compare coal and water consumption. Overall, the 60000 was superior in its coal and water consumption.[6]

On 24 February 1927, the 60000 was sent to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Testing was performed on the Pecos division between Clovis and Belen, New Mexico. As with the CB&Q, the AT&SF compared the performance of the 60000 with that of its own power in the form of two 3800-Class 2-10-2s. Once more the 60000 demonstrated superior fuel consumption than the locomotives of the host railroad.[6]

In the summer and fall of 1927, the 60000 was sent to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which overhauled the locomotive and converted it to an oil burner at its Sacramento Shops. Following its conversion, the 60000 was tested in both freight and passenger service on the Sacramento Division, during which the engine carried a Southern Pacific tender. Following tests on the SP, the 60000 was sent to the Great Northern Railway between Everett, Washington and Minot, North Dakota. Overall, the 60000 did not perform as well on oil as it did on coal.[6]

Converted back to coal, the 60000 was then returned to the Baldwin Locomotive Works and used as a stationary boiler before being donated to the Franklin Institute.[1] The locomotive was moved from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad tracks at 24th and Vine Street over temporary tracks to the museum building which was then still under construction.[7] The locomotive was placed in the building through an opening in the western wall.[8]

Now it appears the 60000 is destined to grab an even bigger spotlight. Last week, the Institute announced a $6 million grant from the Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, a major new Philadelphia-based charity whose stated mission is to support education. A member of the Hamilton family, S. Matthews V. Hamilton Jr., is the great-grandson of Baldwin scion Samuel M. Vauclain.

What Baldwin unveiled in March 1926 went in an entirely different direction. The already obsolete 4-10-2 wheel arrangement might have been surprising enough. But what really set the 60000 apart was its water-tube firebox, its extremely high boiler pressure of 350 psi, and its use of a two-stage, three-cylinder compound engine, with the middle cylinder powering the second set of drivers and providing low-pressure steam to the two outside cylinders.

Meanwhile, the 60000 still has the power to impress. I recall the first time I saw it, in the summer of 1965. I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Philadelphia and they arranged for a visit to the Franklin. I was all of 14 years old, a brand-new reader of Trains magazine, and eager to soak up every last little bit of railroading I could find.

Block and tackle were then fastened to a donkey on the level sreet for final delivery. I had a photo from my father who worked for Jerry Baldwin back then but it has been lost. I am intersted in finding the photo showing the donkey with block and tackle.

In other words, the spring/equalization is continous down each side of the locomotive from the lead driver, the trailer being equalized with the #5 drivers. The lead truck is not equalized with the drivers and there is no cross-equalizer between the front springs of the #1 drivers.

Typically, in a locomotive with a 2-wheel lead truck an equalizer from the lead truck was pivoted somewhere under the cylinder and linked to a cross-equalizer linking the front ends of the #1 driver springs. A locomotive such as a Mikado would have its equalization divided between the #2 and #3 drivers; in other words the springs of the #2 drivers were attached to the frame, as were the front ends of the springs of the #3 driver. The trailer was equalized with the last driver.

I've read various article on the 60000 an d one complaint about it which is always stated is the heavy axle loading of the engine. But when I've checked it is only an average of 68,000lbs/axle. Considering that there were locos with axle loadings over 80,000lb, 68,000lb doesn't sound so high. Were axle loadings back when the 60000 was built significantly lower back then?

It's more than the axle loading. No. 60000 is a HUGE locomotive. She would look big next to UP 844, SP GS-4 4449, or a NS Heritage Unit. Only Challenger 3985 would exceed her in sheer mass. Making her heavier than usual is her water-tube firebox wih two big horizontal drums on top and an array of pipes curved down each side to her mud ring. That firebox was necessary to sustain her 350# pressure. But it is much heavier than an ordinary firebox. She has a Duplex stoker, so that adds a few pounds. I always thought that her 2-wheel trailing truck was straining to support the whole thing. Another ponderous component is her massive Worthington feedwater heater on the fireman's side. Probably in operation her crews felt top heavy, especially in the mountains.

Her tender is kinda small, sufficient for test runs but not for regular service. It probably would have been replaced by something 3 to 6 feet longer - maybe not the size of a Pennsy "coast-to-coast" tender (on 4-8-2 6755 at The Railroad Museum of PA) but close. Put a long B&O Vanderbilt tender as featured in the current OGR behind her and THAT would be something to see!

It would make a neat model, but there'd be a lot of stuff for a model manufacturer to get right. Left hand lead, outside admission cylinders, the valve linkage on the left side to operate the link on the right side, the strange orientation of the eccentric crank on the right side to operate the link for the center cylinder . . .

When you consider that a lot of manufacturers have a load of trouble getting a simple Walschaerts or Baker valve gear right, you don't anticipate that the 60000 would have the necessary justice done to it . . .

Bob Heil, as you know is my East Coast Rep and pushes me (guides me) to do all sorts of interesting projects. When he told me he personally remembers standing near this engine when it was painted PURPLE, I thought, "This has to be done."

I would recommend not doing it - it's too much of an odd-ball, that didn't serve on a railroad for any appreciable time. There are so many more conventional steam locomotives crying for production! Very few people have any emotional investment in it.

This is a locomotive that still exists that you can visit today in The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. As far as being unusual Sunset did the PRR S1 and S2 which did not last very long on the PRR and there was one of each.

Scott - if you do this thing, shoot me an e-mail before you finalize the boiler taper. It is asymmetrical, like a lot of the big Baldwins of the era. My boiler was finished and purple before I realized the conical section was straight on the bottom.

FWIW, the book Southern Pacific Ten-Coupled Locomotives by Robert J. Church has a chapter set aside for this one. Some pictures of the boiler construction and of the locomotive at Baldwin. Probably not worth while buying the book just for that but if you could get it thru the library. Me, I collect books. Santa Fe Locomotive Development by Larry Brasher also has a couple pages about testing the locomotive. This was the 1st information I had ever encountered about the locomotive.

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