Industrial History: IRM: Switching Class and Fairbanks-Morse

Updates: I learned from The Diesel Shop that Milwaukee Road 760 was Fairbanks-Morse first diesel locomotive. The aerial photo of the factory has been moved to Beloit, WI factory.

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There was a lot of activity involving Milwaukee Road 760 at the Illinois Railway Museum. I learned later that they were teaching a class of volunteers how to do switching.

The first activity that I had spotted is below --- Milwaukee Road #760 pulling a crane out of the steam engine service facility.

2:45:22

After I visited Barn 7, I noticed #760 was running light back to the steam service area. I asked the trainman if it was a Fairbanks-Morse Diesel. It was. He said the IRM has three, but this is the only one that is operational. I suggested that one of the RMs be displayed with some of the covers opened so that we could see what an opposed-piston diesel looks like. As I had mentioned: "FM made an opposing piston design that did not work very well in locomotives, but did work very well in the submarines of WWII." The IRM roster indicates this FM H10-44 was built in 1944 and arrived at the museum in 1981. It had six cylinders and it ran on AAR-A trucks with WH 362D traction motors. Each cylinder would have two pistons. So it is comparable to a 12-cylinder V-8 engine and generated 1200 horsepower. (The other two FMs are SWPC (Southwest Portland Cement) #409 H20-44 built in 1947 and Santa Fe #543 H-12-44TS built in 1956. See the end of the posting for a picture of #543.) The building in the background of these pictures is Barn 9, the one I generally see because it contains the big equipment such as the Zephyr, GG1, Little Joe, UP DDX, and steam locomotives.

I took this picture to record that they have not started yet on the turntable and roundhouse that the master plan specifies for this location. I believe the crane had been coupled to the coach car. So normally one cannot see this lineup of steam engines.

Digitally zoomed and brightened since the locomotives were backlit

2:49:20

#760 was going back on the north lead to couple to the passenger coach and TP&W diesel that we saw above on the north lead. Note that they have moved the crane to the lead next to the southern most lead. The earlier picture of them pulling the crane out of the yard has a time stamp of 2:37:10. And the picture above with the time stamp of 2:45:22 was of #760 leaving the yard after it shoved the crane into place. So it took 8 minutes to place the crane. I took a video of them pulling the coach and TP&W engine to capture the sound of the opposed piston engine and "switching speed."

(new window)

2:58:04

As they pull out the TP&W #400, we see that they still have a Chicago & Northwestern diesel on the north lead.

2:58:04, digitally zoomed

TP&W #400 is an Alco RS-11 built in 1958 and arrived in 1983. It rode on AAR-B trucks with GE 752 motors powered by a 12-251B engine that produces 1800 horsepower. CNW 4160 is not in their printed roster that I bought for a dollar, but it is in the online roster.

I noticed every time the engineer goosed the throttle, the exhaust turned white for a couple of seconds. So I took a series of pictures trying to capture each acceleration. You have to look closely to tell the "smoke" from the clouds, but it is discernible. I assume the smoke is caused by turbo lag.

When I entered Barn 9, the CB&Q Burlington Zephyr was on the left and a huge center cab locomotive was on the right. The barn doors were open so I had some light. But you can see the width of the aisle is big enough to walk, but not to take decent pictures. After I walked down this aisle, then took quite a few pictures of the Maintenance of Way equipment they had on the other side of Barn 9, and then walked back along another aisle in Barn 9, I discovered that this center cab engine was one of the "homework" problems for the switching class.