LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY * & MRS. FRANCIS SEDGWICK in memory of CHARLES NOYES DE FOREST HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 1831 TO 1902 PHILADELPHIA THE EDGELL COMPANY 1903 1503 THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 1831 MATTHIAS W. BALDWIN 1839 BALDWIN, VAIL & HUFTY iLowiN* GEORGE VAIL* GEORGE W. HUFTY* 1842-45 BALDWIN & WHITNEY M. W. BALDWIN* ASA WHITNEY* 1846-53 M. W. BALDWIN 1854 M. W. BALDWIN & CO. M. W. BALDWIN* MATTHEW BAIRD* 1867 M. BAIRD & CO. MATTHEW BAIRD* GEORGE BURNHAM CHARLES T. PARRY* 1870 M. BAIRD & CO. MATTHEW BAIRD* GEORGE BURNHAM CHARLES T. PARRY* EDWARD H. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM P. HENSZEY EDWARD LONGSTRETH 1873 BURNHAM, PARRY, WILLIAMS & CO. GEORGE BURNHAM CHARLES T. PARRY* EDWARD H. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM P. HENSZEY EDWARD LONGSTRETH JOHN H. CONVERSE 1886 BURNHAM, PARRY, WILLIAMS & CO. GEORGE BURNHAM CHARLES T. PARRY* EDWARD H. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM P. HENSZEY JOHN H. CONVERSE WILLIAM C. STROUD* WILLIAM H. MORROW* WILLIAM L. AUSTIN 1891 BURNHAM, WILLIAMS & CO. GEORGE BURNHAM EDWARD H. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM P. HENSZEY JOHN H. CONVERSE WILLIAM C. STROUD* WILLIAM L. AUSTIN 1896 BURNHAM, WILLIAMS & CO. GEORGE BURNHAM EDWARD H. WILLIAMS* WILLIAM P". HENSZEY JOHN H. CONVERSE WILLIAM L. AUSTIN SAMUEL M. VAUCLAIN ALBA B. JOHNSON GEORGE BURNHAM, JR. 1901 BURNHAM, WILLIAMS & CO. GEORGE BURNHAM WILLIAM P. HENSZEY JOHN H. CONVERSE WILLIAM L. AUSTIN SAMUEL M. VAUCLAIN ALBA B. JOHNSON GEORGE BURNHAM, JR. *NOW DECEASED. SPRING GARDEN BUTTONWOOD STREET 1- Flue Department & 4- Truck & Brake Work - Ash Pans HAMILTON PHILADELPHIA & READING THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS occupies over seven city blocks in the heart of Philadelphia. The principal shops are situated in the rectangle bounded on the north by Spring Garden Street, on the east by Broad Street, on the south by the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Subway which gives the Works track facilities and on the west by Eighteenth Street. Finishing and repair shops are also located at Twenty-Eighth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. The plan above shows the area occupied, sixteen acres in all. The Works dates its origin from the inception of steam rail- roads in America. Called into existence by the early require- ments of the railroad interests of the country, it has grown with their growth and kept pace with their progress. It has reflected in its career the successive stages of American railroad practice, and has itself contributed largely to the development of the locomotive as it exists to-day. A history of the Baldwin Loco- motive Works, therefore, is in a great measure, a record of the STREET 1 oor ng Shop Ef c \ RAILWAY SUBWAY progress of locomotive engineering in this country, and as such cannot fail to be of interest to those who are concerned in this important element of our material progress. MATTHIAS W. BALDWIN, the founder of the establishment, learned the trade of a jeweler, and entered the service of Fletcher & Gardiner, Jewelers and Silversmiths, Philadelphia, in 1817. Two years later he opened a small shop, in the same line of business, on his own account. The demand for articles of this character falling off, however, he formed a partnership, in 1825, with David Mason, a machinist, in the manufacture of book- binders' tools and cylinders for calico printing. Their shop was in a small alley which runs north from Walnut Street, above Fourth. They afterwards removed to Minor Street, below Sixth. The business was so successful that steam power became neces- sary in carrying on their manufactures, and an engine was bought for the purpose. This proving unsatisfactory, Mr. Baldwin decided to design and construct one which should be specially HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS adapted to the requirements of his shop. One of these require- ments was that it should occupy the least possible space, and this was met by the construction of an upright engine on a novel and ingenious plan. On a bed-plate about five feet square an upright cylinder was placed ; the piston rod con- nected to a cross-bar having two legs, turned downward, and sliding in grooves on the sides of the cylinder, which thus formed the guides. To the sides of these legs, at their lower ends, was con- nected by pivots an inverted U-shaped frame, prolonged at the arch into a single rod, which took hold of the crank of a fly wheel carried by upright stand- ards on the bed-plate. It will be seen that the length of the ordinary separate guide-bars was thus saved, and the whole engine was brought within the smallest possible compass. The design of the machine was not only unique, but its workmanship was so excellent, and its efficiency so great, as readily to procure for Mr. Baldwin orders for additional stationary engines. His atten- tion was thus turned to steam engineering, and the way was prepared for his grappling with the problem of the locomotive when the time should arrive. This original stationary engine, constructed prior to 1830, is still in good order and carefully preserved at the Works. It has successively supplied the power in six different departments as they have been opened, from time to time, in the growth of the business. The manufacture of stationary steam engines thus took a prominent place in the establishment, and Mr. Mason shortly afterward withdrew from the partnership. In 1829-30 the use of steam as a motive power on railroads had begun to engage the attention of American engineers. A few locomotives had been imported from England, and one (which, however, was not successful) had been constructed at the West Point Foundry, in New York City. To gratify the HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 9 public interest in the new motor, Mr. Franklin Peale, then proprietor of the Philadelphia Museum, applied to Mr. Baldwin to construct a miniature locomotive for exhibition in his establish- ment. With the aid only of the imperfect published descriptions and sketches of the locomotives which had taken part in the Rainhill competition in England, Mr. Baldwin undertook the work, and on the 25th of April, 1831, the miniature locomotive was put in motion on a circular track made of pine boards covered with hoop iron, in the rooms of the Museum. Two small cars, containing seats for four passengers, were attached to it, and the novel spectacle attracted crowds of admiring spectators. Both anthracite and pine-knot coal were used as fuel, and the exhaust steam was discharged into the chimney, thus utilizing it to increase the draught. The success of the model was such that, in the same year, Mr. Baldwin received an order for a locomotive from the Phila- delphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad Company, whose short line of six miles to Germantown was operated by horse power. The Camden and Amboy Railroad Company had shortly before imported a locomotive from England, which was stored in a shed at Bordentown. It had not yet been put together; but Mr. Baldwin, in company with his friend, Mr. Peale, visited the spot, inspected the detached parts, and made a few memoranda of some of its principal dimensions. Guided by these figures and his experience with the Peale model, Mr. Baldwin commenced the task. The difficulties to be overcome in filling the order can hardly be appreciated at this day. There were few mechanics competent to do any part of the work on a locomotive. Suitable tools were with difficulty obtainable. Cylinders were bored by a chisel fixed in a block of wood and turned by hand. Blacksmiths able to weld a bar of iron exceed- ing one and one-quarter inches in thickness were few, or not to be had. It was necessary for Mr. Baldwin to do much of the work with his own hands, to educate the workmen who assisted him, and to improvise tools for the various processes. The work was prosecuted, nevertheless, under all these difficulties, and the locomotive was fully completed, christened "Old Ironsides," and tried on the road, November 23, 1832. 10 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS The circumstances of the trial are fully preserved, and are given, farther on, in the extracts from the journals of the day. Despite some imperfections, naturally occurring in a first effort, and which were afterward to a great extent remedied, the engine was, for that early day, a marked and gratify ing 'success. It was put at once into service, as appears from the company's advertise- ment three days after the trial, and did duty on the German town road and others for over a score of years. The " Ironsides " was a four-wheeled engine, modeled essen- tially on the English practice of that day, as shown in the "Planet" class, and weighed, in running order, something over five tons. The rear or driving wheels were fifty-four inches in THE "OLD IK diameter on a crank axle placed in front of the firebox. The cranks were thirty-nine inches from center to center. The front wheels, which were simply carrying wheels, were forty -five inches in diameter, on an axle placed just back of the cylinders. The cylinders were nine and one-half inches in diameter by eighteen inches stroke, and were attached horizontally to the outside of the smokebox, which was D-shaped, with the sides receding inwardly, so as to bring the center line of each cylinder in line with the center of the crank. The wheels were made with heavy cast-iron hubs, wooden spokes and rims, and wrought-iron tires. The frame was of wood, placed outside the wheels. The boiler HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 1 1 was thirty inches in diameter, and contained seventy-two copper flues, one and one-half inches in diameter and seven feet long. The tender was a four-wheeled platform, with wooden sides and back, carrying an iron box for a water tank, inclosed in a wooden casing, and with a space for fuel in front. The engine had no cab. The valve motion was at first given by a single loose eccentric for each cylinder, placed on the axle between the crank and the hub of the wheel. On the inside of the eccentric was a half-circular slot, running half way around. A stop was fastened to the axle at the arm of the crank, terminating in a pin which projected into the slot. The engine was reversed by changing the position of the eccentric on the axle by a lever operated from the footboard. This form of valve motion was, however, shortly afterwards changed, and a single fixed eccentric for each cylinder substituted. The rock shafts, which were under the footboard, had arms above and below 7 , and the eccentric straps had each a forked rod, with a hook, or an upper and lower latch or pin, at their extremities, to engage with the upper or lower arm of the rock shaft. The eccentric rods \vere raised or lowered by a double treadle, so as to connect with the upper or lower arm of the rock shaft, according as forward or backward gear \vas desired. A peculiarity in the exhaust of the ' ' Ironsides ' ' was that there was only a single straight pipe running across from one cylinder to the other, with an opening in the upper side of the pipe, midway between the cylinders, to which was attached at right angles the perpendicular pipe into the chimney. The cylinders, therefore, exhausted against each other; and it was found, after the engine had been put in use, that this was a serious objection. This defect was afterward remedied by turning each exhaust pipe upward into the chimney, substantially as it is now done. The steam joints were made with canvas and red lead, as was the practice in English locomo- tives, and in consequence much trouble was caused, from time to time, by leaking. The price of the engine was to have been $4000, but some difficulty was found in procuring a settlement. The company claimed that the engine did not perform according to contract ; and objection was also made to some of the defects alluded to. 12 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS After these had been corrected as far as possible, however, Mr. Baldwin finally succeeded in effecting a compromise settlement, and received from the Company $3500 for the machine. The results of the trial and the impression produced by it on the public mind may be gathered from the following extracts from the newspapers of the day : The United States Gazette, of November 24, 1832, remarks: ' ' A most gratifying experiment was made yesterday afternoon on the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad. The beautiful loco- motive engine and tender, built by Mr. Baldwin, of this city, whose repu- tation as an ingenious machinist is well known, were for the first time placed on the road. The engine traveled about six miles, working with perfect accuracy and ease in all its parts, and with great velocity." The Chronicle of the same date noticed the trial more at length, as follows : "It gives us pleasure to state that the locomotive engine built by our townsman, M. W. Baldwin, has proved highly successful. In the presence of several gentlemen of science and information on such subjects, the engine was yesterday placed upon the road for the first time. All her parts had been previously highly finished and fitted together in Mr. Baldwin's factory. She was taken apart on Tuesday, and removed to the Company's depot, and yesterday morning she was completely together, ready for travel. After the regular passenger cars had arrived from Germantown in the afternoon, the tracks being clear, preparation was made for her starting. The placing fire in the furnace and raising steam occupied twenty minutes. The engine (with her tender) moved from the depot in beautiful style, working with great ease and uniformity. She proceeded about half a mile beyond the Union Tavern, at the township line, and returned immediately, a distance of six miles, at a speed of about twenty-eight miles to the hour, her speed having been slackened at all the road crossings, and it being after dark, but a portion of her power was used. It is needless to say that the spectators were delighted. From this experiment there is every reason to believe this engine will draw thirty tons gross, at an average speed of forty miles an hour, on a level road. The principal superiority of the engine over any of the English ones known consists in the light weight, which is but between four and five tons, her small bulk, and the sim- plicity of her working machinery. We rejoice at the result of this experi- ment, as it Conclusively shows that Philadelphia, always famous for the skill of her mechanics, is enabled to produce steam engines for railroads combining so many superior qualities as to warrant the belief that her mechanics will hereafter supply nearly all the public works of this descrip- tion in the country." HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 13 On subsequent trials, the "Ironsides" attained a speed of thirty miles per hour, with its usual train attached. So great were the wonder and curiosity which attached to such a prodigy, that people flocked to see the marvel, and eagerly bought the privilege of riding after the strange monster. The officers of the road were not slow to avail themselves of the public interest to increase their passenger receipts, and the following advertisement from Paulson's American Daily Advertiser, of November 26, 1832, will show that as yet they regarded the new machine rather as a curiosity and a bait to allure travel than as a practical every- day servant. PHILADELPHIA, ORRMANTOWN, AND NORHISTOWN HAIL-ROAD. IiOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. SOTICE. The Locomotive Engine, (built bv M. W. Baldwin, of tii 3 city.) will depart ;LY, when the.weavher is fair, with a TBAIN OF PASSESBBU CABS, commencing ou Mondav the26ih inst. s at the following hours, viz: . FROM Fmi.AIMKI.Pai A. | IKOM GERMASTpWS. At i-1 o'clock, A, M. I At 12 o'clock, M, j" I o'clock, H. M. S o'clock, P. M. 3 o'clock, P. M. I 4 o'clock, P. M. The Cars drawn by horses, wil! alto depart ss usual, frora Philadelphia at 9 o'clock, A. M., and from Gerraantown &t 10 o'clock, A. M., and at the 'above mentioned hours when the weather i not fair. The points ot starting, are from the Depot, at ihe- corner of Green and Ninth street, Philadelphia? m} from the Maia street, n?r the centre, of German* town. 'Whole Cars can be t,ke. Tickets, 25 cents. nov 243t (. This announcement did not mean that in wet weather horses would be attached to the locomotive to aid it in drawing the train, but that the usual horse cars would be employed in making the trips upon the road without the engine. Upon making the first trip to Germantown with a passenger train with ; the " Ironsides," one of the drivers slipped upon the axle, causing the wheels to track less than the gauge of the road and drop in '.between the rails. It was also discovered that the 14 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS valve arrangement of the pumps was defective, and they failed to supply the boiler with water. The shifting of the driving wheel upon the axle fastened the eccentric, so that it would not operate in backward motion. These mishaps caused delay, and prevented the engine from reaching its destination, to the great disappointment of all concerned. They were corrected in a few days, and the machine was used in experimenting upon its efficiency, making occasional trips with trains to Germantown. The road had an ascending grade, nearly uniform, of thirty-two feet per mile, and for the last half mile of forty-five feet per mile, and it was found that the engine was too light for the business of the road upon these grades. Such was Mr. Baldwin's first locomotive; and it is related of him that his discouragement at the difficulties which he had undergone in building it, and in finally procuring a settlement for it, was such that he remarked to one of his friends, with much decision, " That is our last locomotive." It was some time before he received an order for another, but meanwhile the subject had become singularly fascinating to him, and occupied his mind so fully that he was eager to work out his new ideas in a tangible form. Shortly after the " Ironsides " had been placed on the Ger- mantown road, Mr. E. L. Miller, of Charleston, S. C., came to Philadelphia and made a careful examination of the machine. Mr. Miller had, in 1830, contracted to furnish a locomotive to the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad Company, and accordingly the engine ' ' Best Friend ' ' had been built under his direction at the West Point Foundry, New York. After inspecting the " Ironsides," he sug- gested to Mr. Baldwin to visit the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, and examine an English loco- motive which had been placed on that road in July, 1831, by Messrs. Robert Stephenson & Co., of Newcastle, England. It was originally a four- HALF-CRANK wheeled engine of the " Planet " type, with hori- zontal cylinders and crank axle. The front wheels of this engine were removed about a year after the machine was put at work, HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS and a four-wheeled swiveling or " bogie " truck substituted. The result of Mr. Baldwin's investigations was the adoption of this design, but with some important improvements. Among these was the " half-crank," which he devised on his return from this trip, and which he patented September 10, 1834. In this form of crank, the outer arm is omitted, and the wrist is fixed in a spoke of the wheel. In other words, the wheel itself formed one arm of the crank. The result sought and gained was that the cranks were strengthened, and, being at the extremities of the axle, the boiler could be made larger in diameter and placed lower. The driving axle could also be placed back of the fire- box; the connecting rods passing by the sides of the firebox and taking hold inside of the wheels. This arrangement of the crank also involved the placing of the cylinders outside the smokebox, as was done on the "Ironsides." By the time the order for the second locomotive was received, Mr. Baldwin had matured this device and was prepared to embody it in practical form. The order came from Mr. E. L,. Miller, in behalf of the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad Company, and the engine bore his name, and was completed February 18, 1834. It was on six wheels ; one pair being drivers, four and a half feet in diameter, with half-crank axle placed back of the firebox 'as above described , and the four front wheels combined in a swiv- eling truck. The driving wheels, it should be observed, were cast in solid bell metal. The combined wood and iron wheels used on the "Ironsides" had proved objectionable, and Mr. Baldwin, in his endeavors to find a satisfactory substitute, had recourse to brass. June 29, 1833, he took out a patent for a cast-brass wheel, his idea being that by varying the hardness of the metal the adhesion of the drivers on the rails could be in- creased or diminished at will. The brass wheels on the " Miller," BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE, 1 6 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS however, soon wore out, and the experiment with this metal was not repeated. The " E. L,. Miller" had cylinders ten inches in diameter; stroke of piston, sixteen inches; and weighed, with water in the boiler, seven tons eight hundred- weight. The boiler had a high dome over the firebox ; and this form of con- struction, it may be noted, was followed, with a few exceptions, for many years. The valve motion was given by a single fixed eccentric for each cylinder. Each eccentric strap had two arms attached to it, one above and the other below, and, as the driving axle was back of the firebox, these arms were prolonged backward under the footboard, with a hook on the inner side of the end of each. The rock shaft had arms above and below its axis, and the hooks of the two rods of each eccentric were moved by hand levers so as to engage with either arm, thus producing backward or forward gear. This form of single eccentric, peculiar to Mr. Baldwin, was in the interest of simplicity in the working parts, and was adhered to for some years. It gave rise to an animated controversy among mechanics as to whether, with its use, it was possible to get a lead on the valve in both directions. Many maintained that this was impracticable; but Mr. Baldwin demon- strated by actual experience that the reverse was the case. Meanwhile the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had given Mr. Baldwin an order for a locomotive for the State Road, as it was then called, from Philadelphia to Columbia, which, up to that time, had been worked by horses. This engine, called the " Lan- caster," was completed in June, 1834. It was similar to the "Miller," and weighed seventeen thousand pounds. After it was placed in service, the records show that it hauled at one time nineteen loaded burden cars over the highest grades between Philadelphia and Columbia. This was characterized at the time by the officers of the road as an " unprecedented performance. ' ' The success of the machine on its trial trips was such that the Legislature decided to adopt steam power for working the road, and Mr. Baldwin received orders for several additional locomo- tives. Two others were accordingly delivered to the State in September and November respectively of that year, and one was also built and delivered to the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 17 Company during the same season. This latter engine, which was put in service October 21, 1834, averaged twenty-one thousand miles per year to September 15, 1840. Five locomotives were thus completed in 1834, and the new business was fairly under way. The building in Lodge Alley, to which Mr. Baldwin had removed from Minor Street, and where these engines were constructed, began to be found too contracted, and another removal was decided upon. A location on Broad and Hamilton Streets (the site, in part, of the present works) was selected, and a three-story L-shaped brick building, fronting on both streets, erected. This was completed and the business removed to it during the following year (1835). The original 1 8 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS building was partially destroyed by fire in 1884, and was replaced by a four-story brick structure. These early locomotives, built in 1834, were the types of Mr. Baldwin's practice for some years. All, or nearly all of them, embraced several important devices, which were the results of his study and experiments up to that time. The devices referred to were patented September 10, 1834, and the same patent covered the following four inventions, viz. : 1. The half-crank, and method of attaching it to the driving wheel. (This has already been described.) 2. A new mode of constructing the wheels of locomotive engines and cars. In this the hub and spokes were of cast iron, cast together. The spokes were cast without a rim, and ter- minated in segment flanges, each spoke having a separate flange disconnected from its neighbors. By this means, it was claimed, the injurious effect of the unequal expansion of the materials composing the wheels was lessened or altogether prevented. The flanges bore against wooden felloes, made in two thicknesses, and put together so as to break joints. Tenons or pins pro- jected from the flanges into openings made in the wooden fel- loes, to keep them in place. Around the whole the tire was passed and secured by bolts. The sketch on page 17 shows the device. 3. A new mode of forming the joints of steam and other tubes. This was Mr. Baldwin's invention of ground joints for steam pipes, which was a very valuable improvement over pre- vious methods of making joints with red-lead packing, and which rendered it possible to carry a much higher pressure of steam. 4. A new mode of forming the joints and other parts of the supply pump, and of locating the pump itself. This invention consisted in making' the single guide bar hollow and using it for the pump barrel. The pump plunger was attached to the piston rod at a socket or sleeve formed for the purpose, and the hol- low guide bar terminated in the vertical pump chamber. This chamber was made in two pieces, joined about midway between the induction and eduction pipes. This joint was ground steam- tight, as were also the joints of the induction pipe with the HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS bottom of the lower chamber, and the flange of the eduction pipe with the top of the upper chamber. All these parts were held together by a stirrup with a set-screw in its arched top, and the arrangement was such that by simply unscrewing this set-screw the different sections of the chamber, with all the valves, could be taken apart for cleaning or adjusting. The cut below illus- trates the device. It is probable that the five engines built during 1834 embodied all, or nearly all, these devices. They all had the half-crank, the ground joints for steam pipes (which were first made by him PUMP AND STIRRUP in 1833), and the pump formed in the guide bar, and all had the four-wheeled truck in front, and a single pair of drivers back of the firebox. On this position of the driving wheels Mr. Baldwin laid great stress, as it made a more even distribution of the weight, throwing about one-half on the drivers and one-half on the four-wheeled truck. It also extended the wheel base, making the engine much steadier and less damaging to the track. Mr. William Norris, who had established a locomotive works in Philadelphia in 1832, was at this time building a six-wheeled engine with a truck in front and the driving wheels placed in 20 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN I.OCOMOTIVK WORKS front of the firebox. Considerable rivalry naturally existed be- tween the two manufacturers as to the comparative merits of their respective plans. In Mr. Norris' engine, the position of the driving axle in front of the firebox threw on it more of the weight of the engine, and thus increased the adhesion and the tractive power. Mr. Baldwin, however, maintained the supe- riority of his plan, as giving a better distribution of the weight and a longer wheel base, and consequently rendering the machine less destructive to the track. As the iron rails then in use were generally light, and much of the track was of wood, this feature was of some importance. To the use of the ground joint for steam pipes, however, much of the success of his early engines was due. The English builders were making locomotives with canvas and red-lead joints, permitting a steam pressure of only sixty pounds per inch to be carried, while Mr. Baldwin's machines were worked at one hundred and twenty pounds with ease. Several locomotives im- ported from England at about this period by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the State Road (three of which were made by Stephenson) had canvas and red-lead joints, and their efficiency was so much less than that of the Baldwin engines, on account of this and other features of construction, that they were soon laid aside or sold. In June, 1834, a patent was issued to Mr. E. L,. Miller, by whom Mr. Baldwin's second engine was ordered, for a method of increasing the adhesion of a locomotive by throwing a part of the weight of the tender on the rear of the engine, thus increasing the weight on the drivers. Mr. Baldwin adopted this device on an engine built for the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Company, May, 1835, and thereafter used it largely, paying one hundred dollars royalty for each engine. Eventually ( May 6, 1839,) he bought the patent for nine thousand dollars, evidently considering that the device was especially valuable, if not indis- pensable, in order to render his engine as powerful, when required, as other patterns having the driving wheels in front of the firebox, and therefore utilizing more of the weight of the engine for adhesion. In making the truck and tender wheels of these early locomo- HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS tives, the hubs were cast in three pieces and afterwards banded with wrought iron, the interstices being filled with spelter. This method of construction was adopted on account of the difficulty then found in casting a chilled wheel in one solid piece. Early in 1835, the new shop on Broad Street was completed and occupied. Mr. Baldwin's attention was thenceforward given to locomotive building exclusively, except that a stationary engine was occasionally constructed. In May, 1835, his eleventh locomotive, the "Black Hawk," was delivered to the Philadelphia and Trenton Railroad Com- pany. This was the first outside-connected engine of his build. It was also the first engine on which the Miller device of attach- ing part of the weight of the tender to the engine was employed. On the eighteenth engine, the "Brandywine," built for the Phila- delphia and Columbia Railroad Company, brass tires were used on the driving wheels, for the purpose of obtaining more adhe- sion ; but they wore out rapidly and were replaced with iron . April 3, 1835, Mr. Baldwin took out a patent for certain im- provements in the wheels and tubes of locomotive engines. That relating to the wheels provided for casting the hub and spokes together, and having the spokes terminate in segments of a rim; as described in his patent of September 10, 1834. Between the ends of the spokes and the tires, wood was interposed, and the tire might be either of wrought iron or of chilled cast iron . The intention was expressed of making the tire usually of cast iron chilled. The main object, however, was declared to be the inter- position between the spokes and the rim of a layer of wood or other substance possessing some degree of elasticity. This method of making driving \vheels was followed for several years, the tires being made with a shoulder. See illustration on page 22. The improvement in locomotive tubes consisted in driving a copper ferrule or thimble on the outside of the end of the tube, and soldering it in place, instead of driving a ferrule into the tube as had previously been the practice. The object of the latter method had been to make a tight joint with the tube sheet ; but by putting the ferrule on the outside of the tube, not only was the joint made as tight as before, but the tube was strengthened, and left unobstructed throughout to the full extent of its 22 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS diameter. This method of setting flues has been generally fol- lowed in the works from that date to the present, the only difference being that, at this time, with iron tubes, the end is swedged down, the copper ferrule brazed on, and the iron end turned or riveted over against the copper thimble and the flue sheet to make the joint perfect. E 1 DRIVING WHEELS, PATENTED SEPTEMBER, 1834 Fourteen engines were constructed in 1835 ; forty in 1836 ; forty in 1837; twenty-three in 1838; twenty-six in 1839; and nine in 1840. During all these years the general design con- tinued the same ; but, in compliance with the demand for more power, three sizes were furnished, as follows : First class. Cylinders, 12^ X 16 ; weight loaded, 26,000 pounds. Second class. " 12 X 16 ; " " 23,000 " Third class. " io)4 X 16 ; " " 20,000 " The first-class engine he fully believed, in 1838, was as heavy as would be called for, and he declared that it was as large as he intended to make. Most of the engines were built with the half- HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 23 crank, but occasionally an outside-connected machine was turned out. These latter, however, failed to give as complete satisfac- tion as the half-crank machine. The drivers were generally four and a half feet in diameter. A patent was issued to Mr. Baldwin, August 17, 1835, for his device of cylindrical pedestals. In this method of con- struction, the pedestal was of cast iron, and was bored in a lathe so as to form two concave jaws. The boxes were also turned in a lathe so that their vertical ends were cylindrical, and they were thus fitted in the pedestals. This method of fitting up pedestals and boxes was cheap and effective, and was used for some years for the driving and tender wheels. As showing the estimation in which these early engines were held , it may not be out of place to refer to the opinions of some of the railroad managers of that period. Mr. L,. A. Sykes, engineer of the New Jersey Transportation Company, under date of June 12, 1838, wrote that he could draw with his engines twenty four-wheeled cars with twenty-six passengers each, at a speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour, over grades of twenty-six feet per mile. "As to simplicity of construction," he adds "small liability to get out of order, economy of repairs, and ease to the road, I fully believe Mr. Baldwin's engines stand unrivalled. I consider the simplicity of the engine, the arrangement of the working parts, and the distri- bution of the weight, far superior to any engine I have ever seen, either of American or English manufacture, and I have not the least hesitation in saying that Mr. Baldwin's engine will do the same amount of work with much less repairs, either to the engine or the track, than any other engine in use." L,. G. Cannon, President of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Rail- road Company, writes : " Your engines will, in performance and cost of repairs, bear comparison with any other engine made in this or any other country." Some of Mr. Baldwin's engines on the State Road, in 1837, cost, for repairs, only from one and two-tenths to one and six- tenths cents per mile. It is noted that the engine "West Chester," on the same road, weighing twenty thousand seven hundred and thirty-five pounds (ten thousand four hundred and 24 HISTORY OK THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS seventy-five on drivers), drew fifty-one cars (four-wheeled), weighing two hundred and eighty-nine net tons, over the road, some of the track being of wood covered with strap-rail. The financial difficulties of 1836, and 1837, which brought ruin upon so many, did not leave Mr. Baldwin unscathed. His embarrassments became so great that he was unable to proceed, and was forced to call his creditors together for a settlement. After offering to surrender all his property, his shop, tools, house and everything, if they so desired, all of which would realixe only about twenty-five per cent, of their claims, he proposed to them that they should permit him to go on with the business, and in three years he would pay the full amount of all claims, principal and interest. This was finally acceded to, and the promise was in effect fulfilled, although not without an extension of two years beyond the time originally proposed. In May, 1837, the number of hands employed was three hundred, but this number was reducing weekly, owing to the falling off in the demand for engines. These financial troubles had their effect on the demand for locomotives, as will be seen in the decrease in the number built in 1838, 1839, and 1840 ; and this result was furthered by the establishment of several other locomotive works, and the intro- duction of other patterns of engines. The changes and improvements in details made during these years may be summed up as follows : The subject of burning anthracite coal had engaged much attention. In October, 1836, Mr. Baldwin secured a patent for a grate or fireplace which could be detached from the engine at pleasure, and a new one with a fresh coal fire substituted. The intention was to have the grate with freshly-ignited coal all ready for the engine on its arrival at a station, and placed between the rails over suitable levers, by which it could be attached quickly to the firebox. It is needless to say that this was never prac- ticed. In January, 1838, however, Mr. Baldwin was experiment- ing with the consumption of coal on the Gerniantown road, and in July of the same year the records show that he was making a locomotive to burn coal, part of the arrangement being to blow the fire with a fan. HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 25 Up to 1838, Mr. Baldwin had made both driving and truck wheels with wrought tires, but during that year chilled wheels for engine and tender trucks were adopted. His tires were furnished by Messrs. S. Vail & Son, Morristown, N. J., who made the only tires then obtainable in America. They were very thin, being only one inch to one and a half inches thick ; and Mr. Baldwin, in importing some tires from England at that time, insisted on their being made double the ordinary thickness. The manufacturers at first objected and ridiculed the idea, the practice being to use two tires when extra thickness was wanted, but finally they consented to meet his requirements. All his engines thus far had the single eccentric for each valve, but at about this period double eccentrics were adopted, each terminating in a straight hook, and reversed by hand levers. At this early period, Mr. Baldwin had begun to feel the necessity of making all like parts of locomotives of the same class in such manner as to be absolutely interchangeable. Steps were taken in this direction, but it was not until many years after- wards that the system of standard gauges was perfected, which has since grown to be a distinguishing feature in the establishment. In March, 1839, Mr. Baldwin's records show that he was building a number of outside-connected engines, and had suc- ceeded in making them strong and durable. He was also making a new chilled wheel, and one which he thought would not break. On the one hundred and thirty-sixth locomotive, completed October 18, 1839, for the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norris- town Railroad, the old pattern of wooden frame was abandoned, and no outside frame whatever was employed, the machinery, as well as the truck and the pedestals of the driving axles, being attached directly to the naked boiler. The wooden frame thence- forward disappeared gradually, and an iron frame took its place. Another innovation was the adoption of eight-wheeled tenders, the first of which was built at about this period. April 8, 1839, Mr. Baldwin associated with himseli Messrs, Vail & Hufty, and the business was conducted under the firm name of Baldwin, Vail & Hufty until 1841, when Mr. Hufty withdrew, and Baldwin & Vail continued the copartnership until 1842. 26 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS The time had now arrived when the increase of business on railroads demanded more powerful locomotives. It had for some years been felt that for freight traffic the engine with one pair of drivers was insufficient. Mr. Baldwin's engine had the single pair of drivers placed back of the firebox ; that made by Mr. Xorris, one pair in front of the firebox. An engine with two pairs of drivers, one pair in front and one pair behind the firebox, was the next logical step, and Mr. Henry R. Campbell, of Phila- delphia, was the first to carry this design into execution. Mr. Campbell, as has been noted, was the Chief Engineer of the Germantown Railroad when the ' ' Ironsides ' ' was placed on that line, and had since given much attention to the subject of loco- motive construction. February 5, 1836, Mr. Campbell secured a patent for an eight- wheeled engine with four drivers connected, and a four-wheeled truck in front ; and subsequently contracted with James Brooks, of Philadelphia, to build for him such a machine. The work was begun March 16, 1836, and the engine was completed May 8, 1837, This was the first eight-wheeled engine of this type, and from it the standard American locomotive of to-day takes its origin. The engine lacked, however, one essential feature; there were no equalizing beams between the drivers, and nothing but the ordinary steel springs over each journal of the driving axles to equalize the weight upon them. It remained for Messrs. Eastwick & Harrison to supply this deficiency ; and in 1837 that firm constructed at their shop in Philadelphia, a locomotive on this plan, but with the driving axles running in a separate square frame, connected to the main frame above it by a single central bearing on each side. This engine had cylinders twelve by eighteen, four coupled driving wheels, forty-four inches in diameter, carrying eight of the twelve tons constituting the total weight. Subsequently, Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of the same firm, substituted " equalizing beams" on engines of this plan afterwards constructed by them, sub- stantially in the same manner as since generally employed. In the American Railroad Journal of July 30, 1836, a wood- cut showing Mr. Campbell's engine, together with an elaborate calculation of the effective power of an engine on this plan, by William J. L,ewis, Esq., Civil Engineer, was published, with a HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 27 * table showing its performance upon grades ranging from a dead level to a rise of one hundred feet per mile. Mr. Campbell stated that his experience at that time (1835-36) convinced him that grades of one hundred feet rise per mile would, if roads were judiciously located, carry railroads over any of the moun- tain passes in America, without the use of planes with stationary steam pow 7 er, or, as a general rule, of costly tunnels, an opinion very extensively verified by the experience of the country since that date. A step had thus been taken towards a plan of locomotive having more adhesive power. Mr. Baldwin, however, was slow to adopt the new design. He naturally regarded innovations with distrust. He had done much to perfect the old pattern of engine, and had built over a hundred of them, which were in suc- cessful operation on various railroads. Many of the details were the subjects of his several patents, and had been greatly simplified in his practice. In fact, simplicity in all the w r orking parts had been so largely his aim, that it was natural that he should distrust any plan involving additional machinery, and he regarded the new design as only an experiment at best. In November, 1838, he wrote to a correspondent that he did not think there was any advantage in the eight- wheeled engine. There being three points in contact, it could not turn a curve, he argued, without slipping one or the other pair of wheels sideways. Another objection was in the multiplicity of machinery and the difficulty in maintaining four driving wheels all of exactly the same size. Some means, however, of getting more adhesion must be had, and the result of his reflections upon this subject was the project of a "geared engine." In August, 1839, he took steps to secure a patent for such a machine, and December 31, 1840, letters patent were granted him for the device. In this engine, an independent shaft or axle was placed between the two axles of the truck, and connected by cranks and coupling rods with cranks on the outside of the driving wheels. This shaft had a central cog-wheel engaging on each side with intermediate cog-wheels, which in turn geared into cog-wheels on each truck axle. The intermediate cog-wheels had wide teeth, so that the truck could pivot while the main shaft remained HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS parallel with the driving axle. The diameters of the cog-wheels were, of course, in such proportion to the driving and truck wheels that the latter should revolve as much oftener than the drivers as their smaller size might require. Of the success of this machine for freight service, Mr. Baldwin was very sanguine. One was put in hand at once, completed in August, 1841, and eventually sold to the Sugarloaf Coal Company. It was an outside-connected engine, weighing thirty thousand pounds, of which eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy- five pounds were on the drivers, and eighteen thousand three hundred and thirty-five on the truck. The driving wheels were forty-four and the truck wheels thirty-three inches in diameter. The cylinders were thirteen inches in diameter by sixteen inches stroke. On a trial of the engine upon the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, it hauled five hundred and ninety tons from Reading to Philadelphia a distance of fifty-four miles in five hours and twenty -two minutes. The superintendent of the road, in writing of the trial, remarked that this train was un- precedented in length and weight both in America and Europe. The performance was noticed in favorable terms by the Phila- delphia newspapers, and was made the subject of a report by the Committee on Science and Arts of the Franklin Institute, who strongly recommended this plan of engine for freight service. The success of the trial led Mr. Baldwin at first to believe that the geared engine would be generally adopted for freight traffic ; but in this he was disappointed. No further demand was made for such machines, and no more of them were built. In 1840, Mr. Baldwin received an order, through August Belmont, Esq., of New York, for a locomotive for Austria, and had nearly completed one which was calculated to do the work required, when he learned that only sixty pounds pressure of steam was admissible, whereas his engine was designed to use steam at one hundred pounds and over. He according!)' con- structed another, meeting this requirement, and shipped it in the following year. This engine, it may be noted, had a kind of link motion, agreeably to the specification received, and was the first of his make upon which the link was introduced. Mr. Baldwin's patent of December 31, 1840, already referred HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 29 to as covering his geared engine, embraced several other devices, as follows : 1. A method of operating a fan, or blowing wheel, for the purpose of blowing the fire. The fan was to be placed under the footboard, and driven by the friction of a grooved pulley in contact with the flange of the driving wheel. 2. The substitution of a metallic stuffing, consisting of wire, for the hemp, wool, or other material which had been employed in stuffing boxes. 3. The placing of the springs of the engine truck so as to obviate the evil of the locking of the wheels when the truck frame vibrates from the center pin vertically. Spiral as well as semi-elliptic springs, placed at each end of the truck frame, were specified. The spiral spring is described as received in two cups, one above and one below. The cups were connected together at their centers, by a pin upon one and a socket in the other, so that the cups could approach toward or recede from each other and still preserve their parallelism. 4. An improvement in the manner of constructing the iron frames of locomotives, by making the pedestals in one piece with and constituting part of, the frames. 5. The employment of spiral springs in connection with cylindrical pedestals and boxes. A single spiral was at first used, but, not proving sufficiently strong, a combination or nest of spirals curving alternately in opposite directions was after- ward employed. Each spiral had its bearing in a spiral recess in the pedestal. In the specification of this patent a change in the method of making cylindrical pedestals and boxes is noted. Instead of boring and turning them in a lathe, they were cast to the required shape in chills. This method of construction was used for a time, but eventually a return was made to ,the original plan, as giving a more accurate job. In 1842, Mr. Baldwin constructed, under an arrangement with Mr. Ross Winans, three locomotives for the Western Rail- road, of Massachusetts, on a plan which had been designed by that gentleman for freight traffic. These machines had upright boilers and horizontal cylinders, which worked cranks on a shaft 30 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS bearing cog-wheels engaging with other cog-wheels on an inter- mediate shaft. This latter shaft had cranks coupled to four driving wheels on each side. These engines were constructed to burn anthracite coal. Their peculiarly uncouth appearance earned for them the name of " crabs," and they were but short- lived in service. But to return to the progress of Mr. Baldwin's locomotive practice. The geared engine had not proved a success. It was unsatisfactory, as well to its designer as to the railroad com- munity. The problem of utilizing more or all of the weight of the engine for adhesion remained, in Mr. Baldwin's view, yet to be solved. The plan of coupling four or six wheels had long before been adopted in England, but on the short curves preva- lent on American railroads he felt that something more was necessary. The wheels must not only be coupled, but at the same HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 31 time must be free to adapt themselves to a curve. These two conditions were apparently incompatible, and to reconcile these inconsistencies was the task which Mr. Baldwi'n' ; 'set himself to accomplish. He undertook it, too, at a time when his business had fallen off greatly and he was involved in the most serious financial embarrassments. The problem was constantly before him, and at length, during a sleepless night, its solution flashed across his mind. The plan so long sought for, and which, sub- sequently more than any other of his improvements or inven- tions, contributed to the foundation of his fortune, was his well- known six-wheels-connected locomotive with the four front drivers combined in a flexible truck. For this machine Mr. Baldwin secured a patent, August 25, 1842. Its principal char- acteristic features are now matters of history, but they deserve here a brief mention. The engine was on six wheels, all con- n LI u nected as drivers. The rear wheels were placed rigidly in the frames, usually behind the firebox, with inside bearings. The cylinders were inclined, and with outside connections. The four remaining wheels had inside journals running in boxes held by two wide and deep wrought-iroii beams, one on each side. These beams were unconnected, and entirely independent of each other. The pedestals formed in them were bored out cylindrically, and into them cylindrical boxes, as patented by him in 1835, were fitted. The engine frame on each side was directly over the beam, and a spherical pin, running down from the frame, bore in a socket in the beam midway between the two axles. It will thus be seen that each side beam independently could turn hori- zontally or vertically under the spherical pin, and the cylindrical boxes couJS also turn in the pedestals. Hence, in passing a curve, the middle pair of drivers could move laterally in one 32 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS direction say to the right while the front pair could move in the opposite direction, or to the left; the two axles all the while remaining parallel to each other and to the rear driving axle. The operation of these beams, was therefore, like that of the parallel ruler. On a straight line the iwo beams and the two axles formed a rectangle; on curves, a parallelogram, the angles varying with the degree of curvature. The coupling rods were made with cylindrical brasses, thus forming ball-and-socket joints, to enable them to accommodate themselves to the lateral movements of the wheels. Colburn, in his "Locomotive Engi- neering, ' ' remarks of this arrangement of rods as follows : " Geometrically, no doubt, this combination of wheels could only work properly around curves by a lengthening and shortening of the rods which served to couple the principal pair of driving wheels with the hind truck wheels. But if the coupling rods from the principal pair of driving wheels be five feet long, and if the beams of the truck frame be four feet long (the radius of curve described by the axle boxes around the spherical side bearings being two feet) , then the total corresponding lengthening of the coupling rods, in order to allow the hind truck wheels to move one inch to one side, and the front wheels of the truck one inch to the other side of their normal position on a straight line would be j 60-- i- 60- 24 j 24* I 2 =0.0275 inch, or less than one thirty-second of an inch. And if only one pair of driving wheels were thus coupled with a four-wheeled truck, the total wheel base being nine feet, the motion permitted by this slight elongation of the coupling rods (an elongation provided for by a trifling slackness in the brasses) would enable three pairs of wheels to stand without binding in a curve of only one hundred feet radius." The first engine of the new plan was finished early in December, 1842, being one of fourteen engines constructed in that year, and was sent to the Georgia Railroad, on the order of Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, then Chief Engineer and Superintendent of that line. It weighed twelve tons, and drew, besides its own weight, two hundred and fifty tons up a grade of thirty-six feet to the mile. Other orders soon followed. The new machine was received generally with great favor. The loads hauled by it exceeded anything so far known in American railroad practice, and saga- cious managers hailed it as a means of largely reducing operating expenses. On the Central Railroad, of Georgia, one of these HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS twelve-ton engines drew nineteen eight-wheeled cars, with seven hundred and fifty bales of cotton, each bale weighing four hun- dred and fifty pounds, over maximum grades of thirty feet per mile, and the manager of the road declared that it could readily take one thousand bales. On the Philadelphia and Reading Rail- road a similar engine of eighteen tons weight drew one hundred and fifty loaded cars (total weight of cars and lading, one thousand one hundred and thirty tons) from Schuylkill Haven to Philadelphia, at a speed of seven miles per hour. The regular load was one hundred loaded cars, which were hauled at a speed of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour on a level. The following extract from a letter, dated August 10, 1844, of Mr. G. A. Nicolls, then superintendent of that line, gives the particulars of the performance of these machines, and shows the estimation in which they were held : ' ' We have had two of these engines in operation for about four weeks. Each engine weighs about fort} 1 thousand pounds with water and fuel, equally distributed on six wheels, all of which are coupled, thus gaining the whole adhesion of the engine's weight. Their cylinders are fifteen by eighteen inches. "The daily allotted load of each of these engines is one hundred coal cars, each loaded with three and six-tenths tons of coal, and weighing two and fifteen one-hundredths tons each, empty ; making a net weight of three hundred and sixty tons of coal carried, and a gross weight of train of five hundred and seventy-five tons, all of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds. "This train is hauled over the ninety-four miles of the road, half of which is level, at the rate of twelve miles per hour; and with it the engine is able to make fourteen to fifteen miles per hour on a level. "Were all the cars on the road of sufficient strength, and making the trip by daylight, nearly one-half being now performed at night, I have no doubt of these engines being quite equal to a load of eight hundred tons gross, as their average daily performance on any of the levels of our road, some of which are eight miles long. "In strength of make, quality of workmanship, finish, and proportion of parts, I consider them equal to any, and superior to most, freight engines I have seen. They are remarkably easy on the rail, either in their vertical or horizontal action, from the equalization of their weight, and the improved truck under the forward part of the engine. This latter adapts itself to all the curves of the road, including some of seven hundred and sixteen feet radius in the main track, and moves with great ease around our turning Y curves at Richmond, of about three hundred feet radius. 34 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS "I consider these engines as near perfection, in the arrangement of their parts, and their general efficiency, as the present improvements in machinery and the locomotive engine will admit of. They are saving us thirty per cent, in every trip on the former cost of motive or engine power." But the flexible-beam truck also enabled Mr. Baldwin to meet the demand for an engine with four drivers connected. Other builders were making engines with four drivers and a four- wheeled truck, of the present American standard type. To compete with this design, Mr. Baldwin modified his six-wheels- connected engine by connecting only two out of the three pairs of wheels as drivers, making the forward wheels of smaller diameter as leading wheels, but combining them with the front drivers in a flexible-beam truck. The first engine on this plan was sent to the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, in October, 1843, and gave great satisfaction. The superintendent of the road was enthusiastic in its praise, and wrote to Mr. Baldwin that he doubted "if anything could be got up which would answer the business of the road so well." One was also sent to the Utica and Schenectady Railroad a few weeks later, of which the superintendent remarked that "it worked beautifully, and there were not wagons enough to give it a full load." In this plan the leading wheels were usually made thirty-six and the drivers fifty- four inches in diameter. This machine, of course, came in competition with the eight-wheeled engine having four drivers, and Mr. Baldwin claimed for his plan a decided superiority. In each case about two-thirds of the total weight was carried on the four drivers, and Mr. Baldwin maintained that his engine, having only six instead of eight wheels, was simpler and more effective. At about this period Mr. Baldwin's attention was called by Mr. L,evi Bissell to an "Air-Spring" which the latter had devised, and which it was imagined was destined to be a cheap, effective, and perpetual spring. The device consisted of a small cylinder placed above the frame over the axle box, and having a piston fitted air-tight into it. The piston rod was to bear on the axle box and the proper quantity of air was to be pumped into the cylinder above the piston, and the cylinder then hermetically closed. The piston had a leather packing which was to be HISTORY OF "THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 35 kept moist by some fluid (molasses was proposed) previously introduced into the cylinder. Mr. Baldwin at first proposed to equalize the weight between the two pairs of drivers by connect- ing two air springs on each side by a pipe, the use of an equalizing beam being covered by Messrs. Eastwick & Harrison's patent. The air springs were found, however, not to work practically, and were never applied. It may be added that a model of an equalizing air spring was exhibited by Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., at the Franklin Institute, in 1838 or 1839. With the introduction of the new machine business began at once to revive, and the tide of prosperity turned once more in Mr. Baldwin's favor. Twelve engines were constructed in 1843, all but four of them of the new pattern ; twenty-two engines in 1844, all of the new pattern; and twenty -seven in 1845. Three of this number were of the old type, with one pair of drivers, but from that time forward the old pattern with the single pair of drivers disappeared from the practice of the establishment, save occasionally for exceptional purposes. In 1842, the partnership with Mr. Vail was dissolved, and Mr. Asa Whitney, who had been superintendent of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, became a partner with Mr. Baldwin, and the firm continued as Baldwin & Whitney until 1846, when the latter withdrew to engage in the manufacture of car wheels, establishing the firm of A. Whitney & Sons, Philadelphia. Mr. Whitney brought to the firm a railroad experience and thorough business talent. He introduced a system in many details of the management of the business, which Mr. Baldwin, whose mind was devoted more exclusively to mechanical sub- jects, had failed to establish or wholly ignored. The method at present in use in the establishment, of giving to each class of locomotives a distinctive designation, composed of a number and a letter, originated very shortly after Mr. Whitney's connection with the business. For the purpose of representing the different designs, sheets with engravings of locomotives were employed. The sheet showing the engine with one pair of drivers was marked B; that with two pairs, C; that with three, D; and that with four, E. Taking its rise from this circumstance, it became customary to designate as B engines those with one pair of 36 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS drivers; as C engines, those with two pairs; as D engines, those with three pairs; and as E engines, those with four pairs. Shortly afterwards, a number, indicating the weight in gross tons, was added. Thus the 12 D engine was one with three pairs of drivers, and weighing twelve tons; the 12 C, an engine of same weight, but with only four wheels connected. A modi- fication of this method of designating the several plans and sizes is still in use, and is explained elsewhere. It will be observed that the classification as thus established began with the B engines. The letter A was reserved for an engine intended to run at very high speeds, and so designed that the driving wheels should make two revolutions for each recipro- cation of the pistons. This was to be accomplished by means of gearing. The general plan of the engine was determined in Mr. Baldwin's mind, but was never carried into execution. The adoption of the plan of six -wheels-connected engines opened the way at once to increasing their size. The weight being almost evenly distributed on six points, heavier machines were admissible, the weight on any one pair of drivers being little, if any, greater than had been the practice with the old plan of engine having a single pair of drivers. Hence engines of eighteen and twenty tons weight were shortly introduced, and in 1844 three of twenty tons weight, with cylinders sixteen and one-half inches diameter by eighteen inches stroke, were con- structed for the Western Railroad of Massachusetts, and six of eighteen tons weight, with cylinders fifteen by eighteen, and drivers forty-six inches in diameter, were built for the Philadel- phia and Reading Railroad. It should be noted that three of these latter engines had iron flues. This was the first instance in which Mr. Baldwin had employed tubes of this material, although they had been previously used by others. Lap- welded iron flues were made by Morris, Tasker & Co., of Philadelphia, about 1838, and butt-welded iron tubes had previously been made by the same firm. Ross Winans, of Baltimore, had also made iron tubes by hand for locomotives of his manufacture, before 1838. The advantage found to result from the use of iron tubes, apart from their less cost, was that the tubes and boiler shell, being of the same material, expanded and contracted alike, while HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 37 in the case of copper tubes, the expansion of the metal by heat varied from that of the boiler shell, and as a consequence there was greater liability to leakage at the joints with the tube sheets. The opinion prevailed largely at that time that some advantage resulted in the evaporation of water, owing to the superiority of copper as a conductor of heat. To determine this question, an experiment was tried with two of the six engines referred to above, one of which, the "Ontario," had copper flues, and another, the " New England," iron flues. In other respects they were precisely alike. The two engines were run from Richmond to Mount Carbon, August 27, 1844, each drawing a train of one hundred and one empty cars, and returning, from Mount Carbon to Richmond, on the following day each with one hundred loaded cars. The quantity of water evaporated and wood con- sumed was noted, with the result shown in the following table : UP TRIP, AUG. 27, 1844 DOWN TRIP, AUG. 28, 1844 "Ontario." (Copper Flues) "New England." (Iron Flues) " Ontario." (Copper Flues) " New England." (Iron Flues) Time, running ' ' standing at stations . . Cords of wood burned .... Cubic feet of water evaporated Ratio, cubic feet of water to a cord of wood 9h. 7m. 4h. 2m. 6.68 925-75 138.57 7h. 4im. 3h. ym. 5-50 757.26 137.68 ioh. 44m. 2h. i2m. 837.46 120.67 8h. 1 9m. 3h. 8m. 6. 656.39 109.39 The conditions of the experiments not being absolutely the same in each case, the results could not of course be accepted as entirely accurate. They seemed to show, however, no con- siderable difference in the evaporative efficacy of copper and iron tubes. The period under consideration was marked also by the intro- duction of the French & Baird stack, which proved at once to be one of the most successful spark-arresters thus far employed, and which was for years used almost exclusively wherever, as on the cotton-carrying railroads of the South, a thoroughly effective spark-arrester was required. This stack was introduced by Mr. Baird, then a foreman in the Works, who purchased 38 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS the patent right of what had been known as the Grimes stack, and combined with it some of the features of the stack made by Mr. Richard French, then Master Mechanic of the German- town Railroad, together with certain improvements of his own. The cone over the straight inside pipe Avas made with volute flanges on its under side, which gave a rotary motion to the sparks. Around the cone was a casing about six inches smaller in diameter than the outside stack. Apertures were cut in the sides of this casing, through which the sparks in their rotary motion were discharged, and thus fell to the bottom of the space between the straight inside pipe and the outside stack. The opening in the top of the stack was fitted with a series of V-shaped iron circles perforated with numerous holes, thus pre- senting an enlarged area, through which the smoke escaped. The patent right for this stack was subsequently sold to Messrs. Radley & Hunter, and its essential principle is still used in the Radley & Hunter stack as at present made. In 1845, Mr. Baldwin built three locomotives for the Royal Railroad Company of Wiirtemberg. They were of fifteen tons weight, on six wheels, four of them being sixty inches in diameter and coupled. The front drivers were combined by the flexible beams into a truck with the smaller leading w r heels. The cylinders were inclined and outside, and the connecting rods took hold of a half-crank axle back of the firebox. It was specified that these engines should have the link motion which had shortly before been introduced in England by the Stephensous. Mr. Baldwin accordingly applied a link of a peculiar character to suit his own ideas of the device. The link was made solid, and of a truncated V-section, and the block was grooved so as to fit and slide on the outside of the link. During the year 1845 another important feature in locomo- tive construction the cut-off valve was added to Mr. Baldwin's practice. Up to that time the valve motion had been the two eccentrics, with the single flat hook for each cylinder. Since 1841, Mr. Baldwin had contemplated the addition of some device allowing the steam to be used expansively, and he now added the ' ' half-stroke cut-off. ' ' In this device the steam chest was separated by a horizontal plate into an upper and a lower com- HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 39 partment. In the upper compartment, a valve, worked by a separate eccentric , and having a single opening, admitted steam through a port in this plate to the lower steam chamber. The valve rod of the upper valve terminated in a notch or hook, which engaged with the upper arm of its rock shaft. When thus working, it acted as a cut-off at a fixed part of the stroke, determined by the setting of the eccentric. This was usually at half the stroke. When it was desired to dispense with the cut- off and work steam for the full stroke, the hook of the valve rod was lifted from the pin on the upper arm of the rock shaft by a lever worked from the footboard, and the valve rod was held in a notched rest fastened to the side of the boiler. This left the opening through the upper valve and the port in the partition plate open for the free passage of steam throughout the whole stroke. The first application of the half-stroke cut-off was made on the engine "Champlain" (20 D), built for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, in 1845. It at once became the practice to apply the cut-off on all passenger engines, while the six- and eight- wheels-connected freight engines were, with a few exceptions, built for a time longer with the single valve admit- ting steam for the full stroke. After building, during the years 1843, 1844, and 1845, ten four-wheels-connected engines on the plan above described, viz., six wheels in all, the leading wheels and the front drivers being combined into a truck by the flexible beams, Mr. Baldwin finally adopted the present design of four drivers and a four-wheeled truck. Some of his customers who were favorable to the latter plan had ordered such machines of other builders, and Colonel Gadsden, President of the South Carolina Railroad Company, called on him in 1845 to build for that line some passenger en- gines of this pattern. He accordingly bought the patent right for this plan of engine of Mr. H. R. Campbell, and for the equalizing beams used between the drivers, of Messrs. Eastwick & Harrison, and delivered to the South Carolina Railroad Com- pany, in December, 1845, his first eight-wheeled engine with four drivers and a four-wheeled truck. This machine had cylin- ders thirteen and three-quarters by eighteen, and drivers sixty inches in diameter, with the springs between them arranged as 40 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS equalizers. Its weight was fifteen tons. It had the half-crank axle, the cylinders being inside the frame but outside the smoke- box. The inside-connected engine, counterweighting being as yet unknown, was admitted to be steadier in running, and hence more suitable for passenger service. With the completion of the first eight- wheeled "C" engine, Mr. Baldwin's feelings underwent a revulsion in favor of this plan, and his partiality for it became as great as had been his antipathy before. Comment- ing on the machine, he recorded himself as "more pleased with its appearance and action than any engine he had turned out." In addition to the three engines of this description for the South Carolina Railroad Company, a duplicate was sent to the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, and a similar but lighter one to the Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, shortly afterwards. The engine for the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, and perhaps the others, had the half-stroke cut-off. From that time forward all of his four-wheels-connected machines were built on this plan, and the six-wheeled "C" en- gine was abandoned, except in the case of one built for the Philadelphia, German town and Norristown Railroad Company, in 1846, and this was afterwards rebuilt into a six-wheels-con- nected machine. Three methods of carrying out the general design were, however, subsequently followed. At first the half- crank was used ; then horizontal cylinders inclosed in the chimney seat and working a full-crank axle, which form of con- struction had been practiced at the Lowell Works : and eventually outside cylinders with outside connections. Meanwhile, the flexible truck machine maintained its popu- larity for heavy freight service. All the engines thus far built on this plan had been six- wheeled, some with the rear driving axle back of the firebox, and others with it in front. The next step, following logically after the adoption of the eight-wheeled " C " engine, was to increase the size of the freight machine, and dis- tribute the weight on eight wheels all connected, the two rear pairs being rigid in the frame, and the two front pairs combined into the flexible-beam truck. This was first done in 1846, when seventeen engines on this plan were constructed on one order for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company. Fifteen of HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS these were of twenty tons weight, with cylinders fifteen and a half by twenty, and wheels forty -six inches in diameter: and two of twenty-five tons weight, with cylinders seventeen and a quarter by eighteen, and drivers forty-two inches in diameter. These engines were the first on which Mr. Baldwin placed sand boxes, and they were also the first built by him with roofs. On all previous engines the footboard had only been inclosed by a railing. On these engines for the Reading Railroad four iron posts were carried up, and a wooden roof supported by them. The engine men added curtains at the sides and front, and Mr. Baldwin on subsequent engines added sides, with sash and glass. The cab proper, however, was of New England origin, where the severity of the climate demanded it, and where it had been used previous to this period. Forty-two engines were completed in 1846, and thirty-nine in 1847. The only novelty to be noted among them was the engine " M. G. Bright," built for operating the inclined plane on the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad. The rise of this incline was one in seventeen, from the bank of the Ohio River at Madison. The engine had eight wheels, forty -two inches in diameter, connected, and worked in the usual manner by outside inclined cylinders, fifteen and one-half inches diameter by twenty inches stroke. A second pair of cylinders, seventeen inches in diameter with eighteen inches stroke of piston was placed verti- cally over the boiler, midway between the furnace and smoke arch. The connecting rods, worked by these cylinders, connected 42 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS with cranks on a shaft under the boiler. This shaft carried a single cog-wheel at its center, and this cog-wheel engaged with another of about twice its diameter on a second shaft adjacent to it and in the same plane. The cog-wheel on this latter shaft worked in a rack-rail placed in the center of the track. The shaft itself had its bearings in the lower ends of two vertical rods, one on each side of the boiler, and these rods were united over the boiler by a horizontal bar, which was connected by means of a bent lever and connecting rod to the piston worked by a small horizontal cylinder placed on top of the boiler. By means of this cylinder, the yoke carrying the shaft and cog-wheel BALDWIN ENGINE FOR RACK RAH., 1847 COUld be depressed and held down so as to engage the cogs with the rack-rail, or raised out of the way when only the ordinary drivers were required. This device was designed by Mr. Andrew Cathcart, Master Mechanic of the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad. A similar machine, the "John Brough," for the same plane, was built by Mr. Baldwin in 1850. The incline was worked with a rack-rail and these engines until it was finally abandoned and a line with easier gradients substituted. The use of iron tubes in freight engines grew in favor, and in October, 1847, Mr. Baldwin noted that he was fitting his flues with copper ends, "for riveting to the boiler." The subject of burning coal continued to engage much atten- tion, but the use of anthracite had not as yet been generally successful. In October, 1847, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company advertised for proposals for four engines to burn Cumberland coal, and the order was taken and filled by Mr. Baldwin with four of his eight- wheels-connected machines. These engines had a heater on top of the boiler for heating the feed water, and a grate with a rocking bar in the center, having HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 43 fingers on each side which interlocked with projections on fixed bars, one in front and one behind. The rocking bar was oper- ated from the footboard. This appears to have been the first instance of the use of a rocking grate in the practice of these Works. The year 1848 showed a falling off in business, and only twenty engines were turned out. In the following year, however, there was a rapid recover)', and the production of the Works increased to thirty, followed by thirty -seven in 1850, and fifty in 1851. These engines, with a few exceptions, were confined to three patterns: the eight- wheeled four-coupled engine, from twelve to nineteen tons in weight, for passengers and freight, and the six and eight-wheels-connected engine, for freight exclu- sively, the six-wheeled machine weighing from twelve to seven- teen tons, and the eight- wheeled from eighteen to twenty-seven tons. The drivers of these six- and eight- wheels-connected ma- chines were made generally forty-two, with occasional variations up to forty-eight inches in diameter. The exceptions referred to in the practice of these years were the fast passenger engines built by Mr. Baldwin during this period. Early in 1848, the Vermont Central Railroad was approaching completion, and Governor Paine, the President of the Company, conceived the idea that the passenger service on the road required locomotives capable of running at very high velocities. Henry R. Campbell, Esq., was a contractor in building the line, and was authorized by Governor Paine to come to Philadelphia and offer Mr. Baldwin ten thousand dollars for a locomotive, which could run with a passenger train at a speed of sixty miles per hour. Mr. Baldwin at once undertook to meet these conditions. The work was begun early in 1848, and in March of that year Mr. Baldwin filed a caveat for his design. The engine w r as completed in 1849, and was named the "Gov- ernor Paine." It had one pair of driving wheels, six and a half feet in diameter, placed back of the firebox. Another pair of wheels but smaller and unconnected, was placed directly in front of the firebox, and a four-wheeled truck carried the front of the engine. The cylinder* were seventeen and a quarter inches di- ameter and twenty inches stroke, and were placed horizontally 44 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS between the frames and the boiler, at about the middle of the waist. The connecting rods took hold of "half-cranks" inside of the driving wheels. The object of placing the cylinders at the middle of the boiler was to lessen or obviate the lateral motion of the engine, produced when the cylinders were attached to the smoke arch. The bearings on the two rear axles were so con- trived that, by means of a lever, a part of the weight of the engine usually carried on the wheels in front of the firebox could be transferred to the driving axle. The ' ' Governor Paine ' ' was used for several years on the Vermont Central Railroad, and then rebuilt into a four-coupled machine. During its career, it was stated by the officers of the road that it could be started from a state of rest and run a mile in forty-three seconds. Three engines on the same plan, but with cylinders fourteen by twenty, and six-feet driving wheels, the "Mifflin," "Blair," and "In- diana," were also built for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1849. They weighed each about forty-seven thousand pounds, distributed as follows: Eighteen thousand on the drivers, four- teen thousand on the pair of wheels in front of the firebox, and fifteen thousand on the truck. By applying the lever, the weight on the drivers could be increased to about twenty-four thousand pounds, the weight on the wheels in front of the firebox being correspondingly reduced. A speed of four miles in three minutes is recorded for them, and upon one occasion President Taylor was taken in a special train over the road by one of these ma- chines at a speed of sixty miles an hour. One other engine of HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 45 this pattern , the ' ' Susquehanna ' ' was built for the Hudson River Railroad Company in 1850. Its cylinders were fifteen inches diameter by twenty inches stroke, and drivers six feet in di- ameter. All these engines, however, were short-lived, and died young, of insufficient adhesion. Eight engines, with four drivers connected and half-crank axles, were built for the New York and Erie Railroad Company in 1849, with seventeen by twenty-inch cylinders; one-half of the number with six-feet and the rest with five-feet drivers. These machines were among the last on which the half-crank axle was used. Thereafter, outside-connected engines were constructed almost exclusively. In May, 1848, Mr. Baldwin filed a caveat for a four-cylinder locomotive, but never carried the design into execution. The first instance of the use of steel axles in the practice of the establishment occurred during the same year, a set being placed as an experiment under an engine constructed for the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company. In 1850, the old form of dome boiler, which had characterized the Baldwin engine since 1834, was abandoned, and the wagon-top form substituted. The business in 1851 had reached the full capacity of the shop, and the next year marked the completion of about an equal number of engines (forty-nine). Contracts for work extended a year ahead, and to meet the demand, the facilities in the various departments were increased, and resulted in the con- struction of sixty engines in 1853, and sixty-two in 1854. At the beginning of the latter year, Mr. Matthew Baird, who had been connected with the Works since 1836, as one of its fore- men, entered into partnership with Mr. Baldwin, and the style of the firm was made M. W. Baldwin & Co. The only novelty in the general plan of engines during this period was the addition of a ten-wheeled engine to the patterns of the establishment. The success of Mr. Baldwin's engines with all six or eight wheels connected, and the two front pairs com- bined by the parallel beams into a flexible truck, had been so marked that it was natural that he should oppose any other plan for freight service. The ten -wheeled engine, with six drivers connected, had however, now become a competitor. 46 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS This plan of engine was first patented by Septimus Norris, of Philadelphia, in 1846, and the original design was apparently to produce an engine which should have equal tractive power with the Baldwin six- wheels-connected machine. This the Norris patent sought to accomplish by proposing an engine with six drivers connected, and so disposed as to carry substantially the whole weight, the forward drivers being in advance of the center of gravity of the engine, and the truck only serving as a guide, the front of the engine being connected with it by a pivot pin, but without a bearing on the center plate. Mr. Norris's first engine on this plan was tried in April, 1847, and was found not to pass curves as readily as was expected. As the truck carried little or no weight, it would not keep the track. The New York and Erie Railroad Company, of which John Brandt was then Master Mechanic, shortly afterward adopted the ten- wheeled engine, modified in plan so as to carry a part of the weight on the truck. Mr. Baldwin filled an order for this company, in 1850, of four eight- wheels-connected engines, and in making the contract he agreed to substitute a truck for the front pair of wheels if desired after trial. This, however, he was not called upon to do. In February, 1852, Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, invited proposals for a number of freight locomotives of fifty-six thousand pounds weight each. They were to be adapted to burn bituminous coal, and to have six wheels connected and a truck in front, which might be either of two or four wheels. Mr. Baldwin secured the contract, and built twelve engines of the prescribed dimensions, viz. : cylinders eighteen by twenty-two ; drivers forty-four inches diameter, with chilled tires. Several of these engines were constructed with a single pair of truck wheels in front of the drivers, but back of the cylinders. It was found, however, after the engines were put in service, that the two truck wheels carried eighteen thousand or nineteen thousand pounds, and this was objected to by the company as too great a weight to be carried on a single pair of wheels. On the rest of the engines of the order, therefore, a four-wheeled truck in front was employed. The ten-wheeled engine thereafter assumed a place in the HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 47 Baldwin classification, but it was some years not until after 1860, however before this pattern of engine wholly superseded in Mr. Baldwin's practice the old plan of freight engine on six or eight wheels, all connected. In 1855-56, two locomotives of twenty -seven tons weight, nineteen by twenty-two cylinders, forty-eight-inch drivers, were built for the Portage Railroad, and three for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1855, '56 and '57, fourteen of the same dimensions were built for the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad ; four for the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad; and one for the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad. In 1858 and '59, one was constructed for the South Carolina Railroad, of the same size, and six lighter ten-wheelers, with cylinders fifteen and one-half by twenty-two, and four-feet drivers, and two with cylinders sixteen by twenty-two, and four-feet drivers, were sent out to railroads in Cuba. On three locomotives the " Clinton , " " Athens, ' ' and ' ' Sparta ' ' completed for the Central Railroad of Georgia in July, 1852, the driving boxes were made with a slot or cavity in the line of the vertical bearing on the journal. The object was to produce a more uniform distribution of the wear over the entire surface of the bearing. This was the first instance in which this device, which has since come into general use, was employed in the Works, and the boxes were so made by direction of Mr. Charles Whiting, then Master Mechanic of the Central Railroad of Georgia. He subsequently informed Mr. Baldwin that this method of fitting up driving boxes had been in use on the road for several years previous to his connection with the company. As this device was subsequently made the subject of a patent by Mr. David Matthew, these facts may not be without interest. In 1853, Mr. Charles Ellet, Chief Engineer of the Virginia Central Railroad, laid a temporary track across the Blue Ridge, at Rock Fish Gap, for use during the construction of a tunnel through the mountain. This track was twelve thousand five hundred feet in length on the eastern slope, ascending in that distance six hundred and ten feet, or at the average rate of one in twenty and a half feet. The maximum grade was calculated for two hundred and ninety -six feet per mile, and prevailed for 48 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS half a, mile. It was found, however, in fact, that the grade in places exceeded three hundred feet per mile. The shortest radius of curvature was two hundred and thirty-eight feet. On the western slope, which was ten thousand six hundred and fifty feet in length, the maximum grade was two hundred and eighty feet per mile, and the ruling radius of curvature three hundred feet. This track was worked by two of the Baldwin six-wheels- connected flexible-beam truck locomotives constructed in 1853- 54. From a description of this track, and the mode of working it, published by Mr. Ellet, in 1856, the following is extracted : "The locomotives mainly relied on for this severe duty were designed and constructed by the firm of M. W. Baldwin & Company, of Phila- delphia. The slight modifications introduced at the instance of the writer, to adapt them better to the particular service to be performed in crossing the Blue Ridge, did not touch the working proportions or principle of the engines, the merits of which are due to the patentee, M. W. Baldwin, Esq. "These engines are mounted on six wheels, all of which are drivers, and coupled, and forty-two inches diameter. The wheels are set very close, so that the distance between the extreme points of contact of the wheels and the rail, of the front and rear drivers, is nine feet four inches. This closeness of the wheels, of course, greatly reduces the difficulty of turn- ing the short curves of the road. The diameter of the cylinders is sixteen and a half inches, and the length of the stroke twenty inches. To increase the adhesion, and at the same time avoid the resistance of a tender, the engine carries its tank upon the boiler, and the footboard is lengthened out and provided with suspended side boxes, where a supply of fuel may be stored. By this means the weight of wood and water, instead of abstract- ing from the effective power of the engine, contributes to its adhesion and consequent ability to climb the mountain. The total weight of these engines is fifty-five thousand pounds, or twenty-seven and a half tons, when the boiler and tank are supplied with water, and fuel enough for a trip of eight miles is on board. The capacity of the tank is sufficient to hold one hundred cubic feet of water, and it has storage room on top for one hundred cubic feet of wood, in addition to what may be carried in the side boxes and on the footboard. "To enable the engines to better adapt themselves to the flexures of the road, the front and middle pairs of drivers are held in position by wrought-iron beams, having cylindrical boxes in each end for the journal bearings, which beams vibrate on spherical pins fixed in the frame of the engine on each side, and resting on the centers of the beams. The object of this arrangement is to form a truck, somewhat flexible, which enables the drivers more readily to traverse the curves of the road. "The writer has never permitted the power of the engines on this HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 49 mountain road to be fully tested. The object has been to work the line regularly, economically, and above all, safely ; and these conditions are incompatible with experimental loads subjecting the machinery to severe strains. The regular daily sen-ice of each of the engines is to make four trips, of eight miles, over the mountain, drawing one eight-wheel baggage car, together with two eight-wheel passenger cars, in each direction. "In conveying freight, the regular train on the mountain is three of the eight-wheel house cars, fully loaded, or four of them when emptv or partly loaded. ' ' These three cars when full, weigh with their loads, from forty to forty-three tons. Sometimes, though rarery, when the business has been unusually heavy, the loads have exceeded fifty tons. "With such trains the engines are stopped on the track, ascending or descending, and are started again, on the steepest grades, at the discretion of the engineer. "Water for the supply of the engines has been found difficult to obtain on the mountain ; and since the road was constructed a tank has been established on the eastern slope, where the ascending engines stop daily on a grade of two hundred and eighty feet per mile, and are there held by the brakes while the tank is being filled, and started again at the signal and without any difficulty. "The ordinary speed of the engines, when loaded, is seven and a half miles an hour on the ascending grades, and from five and a half to six miles an hour on the descent. "When the road was first opened, it speedily appeared that the differ- ence of forty-three feet on the western side, and fifty-eight on the eastern side, between the grades on curves of three hundred feet radius and those on straight lines, was not sufficient to compensate for the increased friction due to such curvature. The velocity, with a constant supply of steam, was promptly retarded on passing from a straight line to a curve, and promptly accelerated again on passing from the curve to the straight line. But, after a little experience in the working of the road, it was found advisable to supply a small amount of grease to the flange of the engine by means of a sponge, saturated with oil, which, when needed, is kept in contact with the wheel by a spring. Since the use of the oil was introduced, the difficulty of turning the curves has been so far diminished that it is no longer possible to determine whether grades of two hundred and thirty-seven and six-tenths feet per mile on curves of three hundred feet radius, or grades of two hundred and ninety-six feet per mile on straight lines, are traversed most rapidly by the engine. " When the track is in good condition, the brakes of only two of the cars possess sufficient power to control and regulate the movement of the train, that is to say, they will hold back the two cars and the engine. When there are three or more cars in the train, the brakes on the cars, of course, command the train so much the more easilv. 50 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS " But the safety of the train is not dependent on the brakes of the car. There is also a valve or air cock in the steam chest, under the control of the engineer. This air cock forms an independent brake, exclusively at the command of the engineer, and which can always be applied when the engine itself is in working order. The action of this power may be made ever so gradual, either slightly relieving the duty of the brakes on the cars, or bringing into play the entire power of the engine. The train is thus held in complete command." The Mountain Top Track, it may be added, was worked successfully for several years by the engines described in the above extract, until it was abandoned on the completion of the tunnel. The exceptionally steep grades and short curves which characterized the line afforded a complete and satisfactory test of the adaptation of these machines to such peculiar service. But the period now under consideration was marked by another and a most important step in the progress of American locomotive practice. We refer to the introduction of the link motion. Although this device was first employed by William T. James, of New York, in 1832, and eleven years later by the Stephensons, in England, and was by them applied thenceforward on their engines, it was not until 1849 that it was adopted in this country. In that year Mr. Thomas Rogers, of the Rogers Locomotive and Machine Company, introduced it in his practice. Other builders however, strenuously resisted the innovation, and none more so than Mr. Baldwin. The theoretical objections which confessedly apply to the device, but which practically have been proved to be unimportant, were urged from the first by Mr. Baldwin as arguments against its use. The strong claim of the advocates of the link motion, that it gave a means of cutting off steam at any point of the stroke, could not be gainsaid, and this was admitted to be a consideration of the first importance. This very circumstance undoubtedly turned Mr. Baldwin's attention to the subject of methods for cutting off steam, and one of the first results was his " Variable Cut-off," patented April 27, 1852. This device consisted of two valves, the upper sliding upon the lower, and worked by an eccentric and rock shaft in the usual manner. The lower valve fitted steam-tight to the sides of the steam chest and the under surface of the upper valve. When the piston reached each end of its stroke, the full pressure of HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 51 steam from the boiler was admitted around the upper valve, and transferred the lower valve instantaneously from one end of the steam chest to the other. The openings through the two valves were so arranged that steam was admitted to the cylinder only for a part of the stroke. The effect was therefore, to cut off steam at a given point, and to open the induction and exhaust ports substantially at the same instant and to their full extent. The exhaust port, in addition, remained fully opened while the induction port was gradually closing, and after it had entirely closed. Although this device \vas never put in use, it may be noted in passing that it contained substantially the principle of the steam pump, as since patented and constructed. Early in 1853 Mr. Baldwin abandoned. the half-stroke cut-off previously described, and which he had been using since 1845, and adopted the variable cut-off, which was already employed by other builders. One of his letters, written in January, 1853, states his position, as follows : ' ' I shall put on an improvement in the shape of a variable cut-off, which can be operated by the engineer while the machine is running, and which will cut off anywhere from six to twelve inches, according to the load and amount of steam wanted, and this without the link motion, which I could never be entirely satisfied with. I still have the independent cut- off, and the additional machinery to make it variable will be simple and not liable to be deranged. ' ' This form of cut-off was a separate valve, sliding on a parti- tion plate between it and the main steam valve, and worked by. an independent eccentric and rock shaft. The upper arm of the rock shaft was curved so as to form a radius arm, on which a sliding block, forming the termination of the upper valve rod, could be adjusted and held at varying distances from the axis, thus producing a variable travel of the upper valve. This device did not give an absolutely perfect cut-off, as it was not operative in backward gear, but when running forward it would cut off with great accuracy at any point of the stroke, was quick in its movement, and economical in the consumption of fuel. After a short experience with this arrangement of the cut-off, the partition plate was omitted, and the upper valve was made to slide directly on the lower. This was eventually found objec- $2 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS tionable however, as the lower valve would soon cut a hollow in the valve face. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to remedy this defect by making the lower valve of brass, with long bearings, and making the valve face of the cylinder of hardened steel ; finally however, the plan of one valve on the other was abandoned, and recourse was again had to an interposed par- tition plate, as in the original half-stroke cut-off. Mr. Baldwin did not adopt this form of cut-off without some modification of his own, and the modification in this instance con- sisted of a peculiar device, patented September 13, 1835, for rais- ing and lowering the block on the radius arm. A quadrant was placed so that its circumference bore nearly against a curved arm projecting down from the sliding block, and which curved in the reverse direction from the quadrant. Two steel straps, side by side, were interposed between the quadrant and this curved arm. One of the straps was connected to the lower end of the quadrant and the upper end of the curved arm; the other, to the upper end of the quadrant and the lower end of the curved arm. The effect was the same as if the quadrant and arm geared into each other in any position by teeth, and theoretically the block was kept steady in whatever position placed on the radius arm of the rock shaft. This was the object sought to be accomplished, and was stated in the specification of the patent as follows : "The principle of varying the cut-off by means of a vibrating arm and sliding pivot block has long been known, but the contrivances for changing the position of the block upon the arm have been very defective. The radius of motion of the link by which the sliding block is changed on the arm, and the radius of motion of that part of the vibrating arm on which the block is placed, have, in this kind of valve gear, as heretofore con- structed, been different, which produced a continual rubbing of the sliding HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 53 block upon the arm while the arm is vibrating ; and as the block, for the greater part of the time, occupies one position on the arm, and only has to be moved towards either extremity occasionally, that part of the arm on which the block is most used soon becomes so worn that the block is loose, and jars." This method of varying the cut- off was first applied on the engine "Belle," delivered to the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany, December 6, 1854, an d thereafter was for some time employed by Mr. Baldwin. It was found however, in practice, that the steel straps would stretch sufficiently to allow them to buckle and break, and hence they were soon abandoned, and chains substituted between the quadrant and curved arm of the sliding block. These chains in turn proved little better, as they lengthened, allowing lost motion, or broke altogther, so that eventually the quadrant was wholly abandoned, and recourse was finally had to the lever and link for raising and lowering the sliding block. As thus arranged, the cut-off was substantially what was known as the ' ' Cuyahoga Cut-off, ' ' as introduced by Mr. Ethan Rogers, of the Cuyahoga Works, Cleveland, Ohio, except that Mr. Baldwin used a partition plate between the upper and the lower valve. But while Mr. Baldwin, in common with many other builders, was thus resolutely opposing the link motion, it was nevertheless rapidly gaining favor with railroad managers. Engineers and master mechanics were everywhere learning to admire its sim- plicity, and were manifesting an enthusiastic preference for en- gines so constructed. At length therefore, he was forced to suc- cumb; and the link was applied to the "Pennsylvania," one of two engines completed for the Central Railroad of Georgia, in February, 1854. The other engine of the order, the "New Hampshire," had the variable cut-off, and Mr. Baldwin, while yielding to the demand in the former engine, was undoubtedly sanguine that the working of the latter would demonstrate the inferiority of the new device. In this however he was dis- appointed, for in the following year the same company ordered three more engines, on which they specified the link motion. In 1856 seventeen engines for nine different companies had this form of valve gear, and its use was thus incorporated in his practice. 54 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS It was not, however, until 1857 that he was induced to adopt it exclusively. February 14, 1854, Mr. Baldwin and Mr. David Clark, Master Mechanic of the Mine Hill Railroad, took out conjointly a patent for a feed- water heater, placed at the base of a locomotive chimney, and consisting of one large vertical flue, surrounded by a number of smaller ones. The exhaust steam was discharged from the nozzles through the large central flue, creating a draft of the products of combustion through the smaller surrounding flues. The pumps forced the feed water into the chamber around these flues, whence it passed to the boiler by a pipe from the back of the stack. This heater was applied on several engines for the Mine Hill Railroad, and on a few other roads; but its use was exceptional, and lasted only for a year or two. In December of the same year Mr. Baldwin filed a caveat for a variable exhaust, operated automatically, by the pressure of steam, so as to close when the pressure was lowest in the boiler, and open with the increase of pressure. The device was never put in service. The use of coal, both bituminous and anthracite, as a fuel for locomotives, had by this time become a practical success. The economical combustion of bituminous coal however, en- gaged considerable attention. It was felt that much remained to be accomplished in consuming the smoke and deriving the maxi- mum of useful effect from the fuel. Mr. Baird, who was now associated with Mr. Baldwin in the management of the business, made this matter a subject of careful study and investigation. An experiment was conducted under his direction, by placing a sheet iron deflector in the firebox of an engine on the German - town and Norristown Railroad. The success of the trial was such as to show conclusively that a more complete combustion resulted. As however, a deflector formed by a single plate of iron would soon be destroyed by the action of the fire, Mr. Baird proposed to use a water-leg projecting upward and backward from the front of the firebox under the flues. Drawings and a model of the device were prepared, with a view of patenting it, but subsequently the intention was abandoned, Mr. Baird con- cluding that a firebrick arch as a deflector to accomplish the same HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 55 object was preferable. This was accordingly tried on two loco- motives built for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1854, and was found so valuable an appliance that its use was at once established, and it was put on a number of engines built for rail- roads in Cuba and elsewhere. For several years the firebricks were supported on side plugs; but in 1858, in the "Media," built for the West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad Company, water- pipes extending from the crown obliquely downward and curving to the sides of the firebox at the bottom, were successfully used for the purpose. The adoption of the link motion may be regarded as the di- viding line between the present and the early and transitional stage of locomotive practice. Changes since that event have been principally in matters of detail, but it is the gradual perfection of these details which has made the locomotive the symmetrical, efficient, and wonderfully complete piece of mechanism it is to-day. In perfecting these minutiae, the Baldwin Locomotive Works has borne its part, and it only remains to state briefly its contributions in this direction. The production of the establishment during the six years from 1855 to 1860, inclusive, was as follows : forty-seven engines in 1855; fifty-nine in 1856; sixty-six in 1857; thirty-three in 1858; seventy in 1859; and eighty -three in 1860. The greater number of these were of the ordinary type : four drivers coupled, and a four-wheeled truck, and varying in weight from fifteen ton en- gines, with cylinders twelve by twenty-two, to twenty -seven ton engines, with cylinders sixteen by twenty-four. A few ten- wheeled engines were built, as has been previously noted, and the remainder were the Baldwin flexible truck six- and eight- wheels connected engines. The demand for these however, was now rapidly falling off, the ten-wheeled and heavy " C " engines taking their place, and by 1859 they ceased to be built, save in exceptional cases, as for some foreign roads, from which orders for this pattern were still occasionally received. A few novelties characterizing the engines of this period may be mentioned. Several engines built in 1855 had cross-flues placed in the firebox, under the crown, in order to increase the heating surface. This feature, however, was found impracticable 56 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS and was soon abandoned. The intense heat to which the flues were exposed converted the water contained in them into highly superheated steam, which would force its way out through the water around the firebox 'with violent ebullitions. Four engines were built for the Pennsylvania Railroad" Company, in 1856-57, with straight boilers and two domes. The "Delano" grate, by means of which the coal was forced into the firebox from below, was applied on four ten-wheeled engines for the Cleveland and Pittsburg Railroad in 1857. 1 1859 several engines were built with the form of boiler introduced on the Cumberland Valley Railroad, in 1851, by Mr. A. F. Smith, and which consisted of a combustion chamber in the waist of the boiler next the firebox. This form of boiler was for some years thereafter largely used in engines for soft coal. It was at first constructed with the "water-leg," which was a vertical water space, connecting the top and bottom sheets of the combustion chamber, but event- ually this feature was omitted, and an unobstructed combustion chamber employed. Several engines were built for the Philadel- phia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, in 1859 and thereafter, with the "Dimpfel" boiler, in which the tubes con- tain water, and starting downward from the crown sheet, are curved to the horizontal, and terminate in a narrow water space next to the smokebox. The whole waist of the boiler, therefore, forms a combustion chamber, and the heat and gases, after passing for their whole length along and around the tubes, emerge into the lower part of the smokebox . In 1860 an engine was built for the Mine Hill Railroad, with a boiler of a peculiar form. The top sheets sloped upward from both ends toward the center, thus making a raised part or hump in the center. The engine was designed to work on heavy grades, and the object sought by Mr. Wilder, the superintendent of the Mine Hill Railroad, was to have the water always at the same height in the space from which steam was drawn, whether going up or down grade. All these experiments are indicative of the interest then pre- vailing upon the subject of coal burning. The result of experience and study had meantime satisfied Mr. Baldwin that to burn soft coal successfully required no peculiar devices ; that the HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 57 ordinary form of boiler, with plain firebox, was right, with perhaps the addition of a firebrick deflector ; and that the secret of the economical and successful use of coal was in the mode of firing, rather than in a different form of furnace. The year 1861 witnessed a marked falling off in the produc- tion. The breaking out of the Civil War at first unsettled business, and by many it was thought that railroad traffic would be so largely reduced that the demand for locomotives must cease altogether. A large number of hands were discharged from the Works, and only forty locomotives were turned out during the year. It was even seriously contemplated to turn the resources of the establishment to the manufacture of shot and shell, and other munitions of war, the belief being entertained that the building of locomotives would have to be altogether suspended. So far was this from being the case however, that after the first excitement had subsided, it was found that the demand for trans- portation by the General Government, and by the branches of trade and production stimulated by the war, was likely to tax the carrying capacity of the principal Northern railroads to the fullest extent. The Government itself became a large purchaser of loco- motives, and it is noticeable, as indicating the increase of travel and freight transportation, that heavier machines than had ever before been built became the rule. Seventy-five engines were sent from the works in 1862; ninety-six in 1863; one hundred and thirty in 1864 ; and one hundred and fifteen in 1865. During two years of this period, from May, 1862, to June, 1864, thirty- three engines were built for the United States Military Railroads. The demand from the various coal-carrying roads in Penn- sylvania and vicinity was particularly active, and large numbers of ten-wheeled engines, and of the heaviest eight- wheeled four- coupled engines, were built. Of the latter class, the majority were fifteen- and sixteen-inch cylinders, and of the former, seven- teen- and eighteen -inch cylinders. The introduction of several important features in construction marks this period. Earty in 1861 four eighteen-inch cylinder freight locomotives, with six coupled wheels, fifty -two inches in diameter, and a Bissell pony truck with radius bar in front, were sent to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company. This HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS was the first instance of the use of the Bissell truck in the Baldwin Works. These engines however, were not of the regular "Mogul" type, as they were only modifications of the ten- wheeler, the drivers retaining the same position w r ell back, and a pair of pony wheels on the Bissell plan taking the place of the ordinary four-wheeled truck. Other engines of the same pat- tern, but with eighteen and one-half inch cylinders, were built in 1862-63, f r the same company, and for the Dom Pedro II. Railway of Brazil. The introduction of steel in locomotive construction was a distinguishing feature of the period. Steel tires were first used in the works in 1862, on some engines for the Dom Pedro II. Railway of South America. Their general adoption on American Railroads followed slowly. No tires of this material were then made in this country, and it was objected to their use that, as it took from sixty to ninety days to import them, an engine, in case of a breakage of one of its tires, might be laid up useless for several months. To obviate this objection, M. W. Baldwin & Co. imported five hundred steel tires, most of which were kept in stock, from which to fill orders. The steel tires as first used in 1862, on the locomotives for the Dom Pedro Segundo Railway, were made with a ' ' shoulder ' ' at one edge of the internal periphery, and were shrunk on the wheel centers. The accompanying sketch shows a section of the tire as then used. Steel fireboxes were first built for some engines for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in 1861. English steel of a high temper was used, and at the first attempt the fireboxes cracked in fitting them in the boilers, and it became necessary to take them out and substitute copper. American homogeneous cast steel was then tried on engines 231 and 232, completed for the Pennsylvania Railroad in January, 1862, and it was found to STEEL T HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 59 work successfully. The fireboxes of nearly all engines thereafter built for that road were of this material, and in 1866 its use for the purpose became general. It may be added that while all steel sheets for fireboxes or boilers are required to be thoroughly annealed before delivery, those which are flanged or worked in the process of boiler construction are a second time annealed before riveting. Another feature of construction gradual!}- adopted was the placing of the cylinders horizontally. This was first done in the case of an outside-connected engine, the "Ocmulgee," which was sent to the Southwestern Railroad Company, of Georgia, in January, 1858. This engine had a square smokebox, and the cylinders were bolted horizontally to its sides. The plan of casting the cylinder and half-saddle in one piece and fitting it to the round smokebox was introduced by Mr. Baldwin, and grew naturally out of his original method of construction. Mr. Baldwin was the first American builder to use an outside cyl- inder, and he made it for his early engines with a circular flange cast to it, by which it could be bolted to the boiler. The cylinders were gradually brought lower, and at a less angle, and the flanges prolonged and enlarged. In 1852, three six-wheels- connected engines, for the Mine Hill Railroad Company, were built with the cylinder flanges brought around under the smoke- box until they nearly met, the space between them being filled with a sparkbox. This was practical!}' equivalent to making the cylinder and half-saddle in one casting. Subsequently, on other engines on which the sparkbox was not used, the half- saddles were cast so as almost to meet under the smokebox, and, after the cylinders were adjusted in position, wedges were fitted in the interstices and the saddles bolted together. It was finally discovered that the faces of the two half-saddles might be planed and finished so that they could be bolted together and bring the cylinders accurately in position, thus avoiding the troublesome and tedious job of adjusting them by chipping and fitting to the boiler and frames. With this method of construction, the cylinders were placed at a less and less angle, until at length the truck wheels were spread sufficiently, on all new or modified classes of locomotives in the Baldwin 60 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS list, to admit of the cylinders being hung horizontally, as is the present almost universal American practice. By the year 1865 horizontal cylinders were made in all cases where the patterns would allow it. The advantages of this arrangement are manifestly in the interest of simplicity and economy, as the cylinders are thus rights or lefts, indiscriminately, and a single pattern answers for either side. A distinguishing feature in the method of construction which characterizes these Works, is the extensive use of a system of standard gauges and templets, to which all work admitting of this process is required to be made. The importance of this arrangement in securing absolute uniformity of essential parts in all engines of the same class is manifest, and with the increased production since 1861 it became a necessity as well as a decided advantage. It has already been noted, that as early as 1839 Mr. Baldwin felt the importance of making all like parts of similar engines absolutely uniform and interchangeable. It was not at- tempted to accomplish this object, however, by means of a com- plete system of standard gauges, until many years later. In 1861 a beginning was made of organizing all the departments of manufacture upon this basis, and from it has since grown an elaborate and perfected system, embracing all the essential details of construction. An independent department of the Works, having a separate foreman and an adequate force of skilled work- men with special tools adapted to the purpose, is organized as the Department of Standard Gauges. A system of standard gauges and templets for every description of work to be done is made and kept by this department. The original templets are kept as "standards," and are never used on the work itself, but from them exact duplicates are made, which are issued to the foremen of the various departments, and to which all work is required to conform. The working gauges are compared with the standards at regular intervals, and absolute uniformity is thus maintained. The system is carried into every possible important detail. Frames are planed and slotted to gauges, and drilled to steel bushed templets. Cylinders are bored and planed, and steam ports, with valves and steam chests, finished and fitted to gauges. Tires are bored, centers turned, axles finished, and HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 6 1 cross-heads, guides, guide bearers, pistons, connecting- and parallel-rods planed, slotted, or finished by the same method. Every bolt about the engine is made to a gauge, and every hole drilled and reamed to a templet. The result of the system is an absolute uniformity and interchangeableness of parts in engines of the same class, insuring to the purchaser the minimum cost of repairs, and rendering possible, by the application of this method, the large production which these Works have accom- plished. Thus had been developed and perfected the various essential details of existing locomotive practice when Mr. Baldwin died, September 7, 1866. He had been permitted, in a life of unusual activity and energy, to witness the rise and wonderful increase of a material interest which had become the distinguishing feature of the century. He had done much, by his own mechanical skill and inventive genius, to contribute to the development of that interest. His name was as " familiar as household words " wherever on the American continent the locomotive had pene- trated. An ordinary ambition might well have been satisfied with this achievement. But Mr. Baldwin's claim to the remem- brance of his fellow-men rests not alone on the results of his mechanical labors. A merely technical history, such as this, is not the place to do justice to his memory as a man, as a Chris- tian, and as a philanthropist ; yet the record would be manifestly imperfect, and would fail properly to reflect the sentiments of his business associates who so long knew him in all relations of life, were no reference made to his many virtues and noble traits of character. Mr. Baldwin was a man of sterling integrity and singular conscientiousness. To do right, absolutely and unre- servedly, in all his relations with men, was an instinctive rule of his nature. His heroic struggle to meet every dollar of his liabilities, principal and interest, after his failure, consequent upon the general financial crash in 1837, constitutes a chapter of personal self-denial and determined effort which is seldom paral- leled in the annals of commercial experience. When most men would have felt that an equitable compromise with creditors was all that could be demanded in view of the general financial embarrassment, Mr. Baldwin insisted upon paying all claims in 62 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS full, and succeeded in doing so only after nearly five years of unremitting industry, close economy, and absolute personal sacri- fices. As a philanthropist and a sincere and earnest Christian, zealous in every good work, his memory is cherished by many to whom his contributions to locomotive improvement are com- paratively unknown. From the earliest years of his business life the practice of systematic benevolence was made a duty and a pleasure. His liberality constantly increased with his means. Indeed he would unhesitatingly give his notes, in large sums, for charitable purposes, when money was absolutely wanted to carry on his business. Apart from the thousands which he expended in private charities, and of which, of course, little can be known, Philadelphia contains many monuments of his munificence. Early taking a deep interest in all Christian effort, his contri- butions to missionary enterprise and church extension were on the grandest scale, and grew with increasing wealth. Numerous church edifices in this city, of the denomination to which he belonged, owe their existence largely to his liberality, and two at least were projected and built by him entirely at his own cost. In his mental character Mr. Baldwin was a man of remarkable firmness of purpose. This trait was strongly shown during his mechanical career, in the persistency with which he would work at a new improvement or resist an innovation. If he was led sometimes to assume an attitude of antagonism to features of locomotive construction which after-experience showed to be valuable, (and a desire for historical accuracy has required the mention, in previous pages, of several instances of this kind,) it is at least certain that his opposition was based upon a consci- entious belief in the mechanical impolicy of the proposed changes. After the death of Mr. Baldwin the business was reorganized in 1867, under the title of "The Baldwin Locomotive Works," M. Baird & Co., proprietors. Messrs. George Burnham and Charles T. Parry, who had been connected with the establishment from an early period, the former in charge of the finances, and the latter as General Superintendent, were associated with Mr. Baird in the copartnership. Three years later Messrs. Edward H. Williams, William P. Henszey, and Edward Longstreth became members of the firm. Mr. Williams had been connected with HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 63 railway management on various lines since 1850. Mr. Henszey had been Mechanical Engineer, and Mr. Longstreth the General Superintendent of the works for several years previously. The production of the Baldwin Locomotive Works from 1866 to 1871, both years inclusive, was as follows : 1866, one hundred and eighteen locomotives. 1867, one hundred and twenty-seven " 1868, one hundred and twenty-four " 1869, two hundred and, thirty-five 1870, two hundred and eighty 1871, three hundred and thirty-one " In July, 1866, the engine " Consolidation " was built for the Lehigh Valley Railroad, on the plan and specification furnished by Mr. Alexander Mitchell, Master Mechanic of the Mahanoy Division of that Railroad. This engine was intended for working the Mahanoy plane, which rises at the rate of one hun- dred and thirty-three feet per mile. The "Consolidation" had cylinders twenty by twenty-four, four pairs of drivers connected, forty-eight < CONSOLATION." inches in diameter, and a Bissell pony truck in front, equalized with the front drivers. The weight of the engine, in working order, was ninety thousand pounds, of which all but about ten thousand pounds was on the drivers. This engine has constituted the first of a class to which it has given its name, and "Consolidation" engines have since been constructed for a large number of railways, not only in the United States, but in Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Later engines of the class for the four feet eight and a half inch gauge have, however, been made heavier. A class of engines known as " Moguls," with three pairs of drivers connected, and a swinging pony truck in front equalized with the forward drivers, took its rise in the practice of this 64 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS establishment from the "E. A. Douglas," built for the Thomas Iron Company in 1867. Several sizes of "Moguls" have been built, but principally with cylinders sixteen to nineteen inches in diameter, and twenty-two or twenty-four inches stroke, and with drivers from forty-four to fifty- seven inches in diameter. This plan of engine has rapidly grown in favor for freight ser- vice on heavy grades or where maximum loads are to be moved, and has been adopted -\io<;ri," by several leading lines. Util- izing, as it does, nearly the entire weight of the engine for adhesion, the main and back pairs of drivers being equalized together, as also the front drivers and the pony wheels, and the construction of the engine with swing truck and one pair of drivers without flanges allowing it to pass short curves without difficulty, the "Mogul" is generally accepted as a type of engine especially adapted to the economical working of heavy freight traffic. In 1 867 , on a number of eight- wheeled four-coupled engines for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the four-wheeled swing bolster truck was first applied, and thereafter a large number of engines have been so constructed. The two- wheeled or ' ' pony truck ' ' has been built both on the Bissell plan, with double inclined slides, and with the ordinary swing bolster, and in both cases with the radius bar pivoting from a point about four feet back from the center of the truck. The four-wheeled truck has been made with swinging or sliding bolster, and both with and without the radius bar. Of the engines above referred to as the first on which the swing bolster truck was applied, four were for express passenger service, with drivers sixty-seven inches in diameter, and cylinders seventeen by twenty-four. One of them, placed on the road September 9, 1867, was in constant service until May 14, 1871, without ever being off its wheels for repairs, making a total mileage of one hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred and eighty miles. All of these engines have their driving wheels spread eight and one-half feet between centers. HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS 65 Steel flues were first used in three ten -wheeled freight engines, Numbers 211, 338 and 368, completed for the Pennsylvania Rail- road in August, 1868. Steel boilers were first made in 1868 for locomotives for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and the use of this material for the barrels of boilers as well as for the fire- boxes has now become universal in American practice. In 1854, four engines for the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany, the ' ' Tiger, " ' ' L,eopard, " " Hornet, ' ' and ' ' Wasp, ' ' were built with straight boilers and two domes each, and in 1866 this method of construction was revived, and until about 1880 the practice of the establishment included both the wagon -top boiler with single dome, and the straight boiler with one or two domes. When the straight boiler is used the waist is made about two inches larger in diameter than that of the wagon-top form. About equal space for water and steam is thus given in either case, and as the number of flues is the same in both forms, more room for the circulation of water between the flues is afforded in the straight boiler, on account of its larger diameter, than in the wagon-top shape. Since 1880, the use of two domes has been exceptional, both wagon-top and straight boilers being con- structed with one dome. In 1868, a locomotive of three and a half feet gauge was constructed for the Averill Coal and Oil Company, of West Virginia. This was the first narrow gauge locomotive in the practice of the Works. In 1869, three locomotives of the same gauge were con- structed for the Uuiao Valenciana Railway of Brazil, and were the first narrow gauge locomotives constructed at these Works for general passenger and freight traffic. In the following year the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, of Colorado, was projected on the three-feet gauge, and the first locomotives for the line were designed and built in 1871. Two classes, for passenger and freight respectively, were constructed. The former were six- wheeled, four wheels coupled forty inches in diameter, nine by sixteen cylinders, and weighed each, loaded, about twenty-five thousand pounds. The latter were eight- wheeled, six wheels coupled, thirty-six inches in diameter, eleven by sixteen cylinders, and weighed each, loaded, about thirty-five thousand pounds. 66 HISTORY OF THE BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS Each had a swinging truck of a single pair of wheels in front of the cylinders. The latter type has been maintained for freight service up to the present time, but principally of larger sizes, engines as heavy as fifty thousand pounds having been turned out. The former type for passenger service was found to be too small and to be unsteady on the track, owing to its comparatively short wheel base. It was therefore abandoned, and the ordinary "American" pattern, eight- wheeled, four coupled, substituted. Following the engines for the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, others for other narrow gauged lines were called for, and the manufacture of this description of rolling stock soon assumed importance. The ' ' Consolidation ' ' type, as first introduced for the four feet eight and one-half inches gauge in 1866, was adapted to the three feet gauge in 1873. In 1877, a locomotive qn this plan, weighing in working order about sixty thousand pounds, with cylinders fifteen by twenty, was built for working the Garland extension of the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, which crosses the Rocky Mountains with maximum grades of two hundred and eleven feet per mile, and minimum curves of thirty degrees. The performance of this locomotive, the " Alamosa," is given in the following extract from a letter from the then General Super- intendent of that railway : DENVER, Coi