I believe Pere Marquette #1225 is the only steam locomotive to be restored to operation by college students. After retirement by C&O in 1951, at just ten years old, it was donated to Michigan State in 1957, and then was restored to operation by students from 1966 to 1976.
There is a reason that the #1225, and her 38 sisters, bare a resemblance to NKP #765. At the time, the Pere Marquette was part of the Van Sweringen lines, and so, under the Advisory Mechanical Comittee, they used the same basic design for the Erie S-class Berkshires, the C&O T-1 Texas-types and K-4 Kanawhas, and the Nickel Plate Road S-class and Pere Marquette Berkshires.
Dredged from the dark depths of the internet, with my own notes/explanations in brackets
A History of the Michigan Northern and the Last Two Remaining Sharks
by Alex Huff
Why we leased them and what happened to them. What follows is based on my memory of nearly thirty years ago, I was MIGN's VP-Operations (big title, small railroad) at the time.
Michigan Northern started on April Fool's Day, 1976 between Grand Rapids and Mackinaw City, MI on ex-PRR (nee Grand Rapids & Indiana) track which was not included in Conrail. The state of Michigan leased the track from the Penn Central trustee and subleased the line to MIGN. We started with two secondhand RS-3's, our second choice. First choice was three ex-GM&O RS-1's, but ICG wanted too much for them. Because of the 244 engine, the RS-3's were considered expendable, just run them until major failure, which was usually a failed crankshaft due to fuel dilution in the lube oil. In the winter of the first year we purchased an RS-2 from the Green Bay & Western. Under pressure from the state to increase carloadings or see the railroad cut back, we chose to not take a general rate increase of rail freight rates. This was before deregulation in 1980. This greatly annoyed the major railroads, since our flag out did not apply to just MIGN but all railroads in the route [at the time, if a railroad on a service chose to increase rates, all railroads that helped out with the connecting service had to agree to the rate increase. If one of the railroads didn't agree, or "flagged out" then none of the railroads could raise their rate either]. Bottom line, it became cheaper to ship lumber from the west coast to the east via MIGN than via Chicago. Business picked up considerably and we were in the market for more power. Conrail was leasing just about everything that had an EMD prime mover in it, so we were priced out of GP's. CNW was selling off some of their Alcos wth 244 engines at a price we could afford, so we bought two RS-3's. Later, we went back for more, but the last four RS-3's had been sold to Craig Burrough's Erie Western. CNW still had some unwanted RSD-4's and RSD-5's but we were reluctant to take on the six axle trucks. In hindsight we should have bought them.
With EMD's out of our price range and no Alco's we knew about available, we took what was available, the two Sharks. (I know, you thought I would never get to them.) A serious consideration was the "railfan" aspect of running the last two Sharks in existence. However, after having been assured by the D&H that the Sharks were in good condition (they weren't) [remember, the #1205 had a cracked block that required frequent welding when it arrived on the D&H, and by the end of their time on the D&H, they had been downrated to 1600hp total for the pair] and that owner John Kunzie [of Castolite Corporation locomotive leasing company) was willing to lease them for $100/day of use only, and we were pretty desperate for power, we took them on.
We knew going in that the air throttle system would not MU with the Alco's and soon figured out which air control valves would stick by looking at the scars on the valve bodies where D&H crews had thumped them with whatever was handy. D&H had purchased replacement parts from a company in Belgium which had acquired the 600 series engine design. There were reliability issues with some of these parts. One unit (#1205) had a head failure and our Master Mechanic, ex-PRR Wade Plummer, took the head off, bolted some straps over the liner to keep it from walking out of the block, left the piston connected so as to not unbalance the crankshaft and fired it up. There was a slight water leak so when you peered into the bore and watched the piston stroke back and forth, you got mist in your face. There was no significant drop in power while it ran on seven cylinders. I don't recall how long we ran it this way, but it was used in regular service. This unit was scheduled for a major rebuild by John Kunzie, he supplied the material, including new power assemblies and a crankshaft. Michigan Northern supplied the labor, overseen by Fred Cave, the last Baldwin tech rep, by now working for Ecolaire Inc [Ecolaire was who took over the Baldwin service replacement part program in the '70s]. Unfortunately, the engine failed due to low oil pressure not too long after it was rebuilt and scored the crankshaft. The unit never operated again.
The remaining Shark (#1216) was often double headed with two Alcos. Because most of the traffic was southbound from the car ferry at Mackinaw City, the Shark would tow the pair of Alcos and the cars (mostly empty). Southbound with a heavier train, the Shark would be towed by the Alcos except on the ruling grades. When the crew needed the extra power, the conductor would go back to the Shark and run it seperately. This unit came to a bad end due to human error. It was the sole power on a snow plow run, pushing a Jordan spreader. The man in charge wanted to turn the equipment at a wye at Walton Jct. which meant the Shark had to tow the spreader around one leg of the wye. The Shark was run backwards into deep snow which packed under the carbody and against the #4 traction motor. The traction motor grounded out.
By this time, John Kunzie had had enough of Michigan Northern and arranged to have the Shark with the bad crankshaft repaired at Diesel Electric Services in St. Paul, MN. They removed the prime mover, fell on hard times and folded up. The unit was put back together and both ended up going to the E&LS [Escanaba & Lake Superior] where John stored them. One unit (#1216) was operated briefly on the E&LS. I am not familiar with what happened after that, I believe John Larkin/E&LS bought the units from Castolite to settle storage charges. John Larkin has a fairly large collection of Baldwins, of which at least one is still in service as an occasional switcher. John also has a collection of passenger cars, including one of the Skytop MILW observations and probably the only representative set of Soo heavyweight passenger cars. He will not leave any descendants and since the railroad is owned by his family, I think it unlikely that anything of value will be scrapped.
Other trivia, John Kunzie told me he had looked at the B-unit carbody [there was at least one surviving ex-PRR DR-6-4-2000 B-unit carbody into the '90s that PRR had installed an Alco 251 engine into, and then a mining company had put on on semi-truck axles to use as a portable generator, but I'm guessing this is referring to one of the ex-NYC/Monongahela RF-16Bs that was traded in for scrap) but it was too far gone to be put back in service. When the Sharks worked, they pulled well, the air throttle gave the engineer an early version of creep control, the wheels would slowly slip/creep which maximizes adhesion. John gave us a stack of plastic builder's plates since Castolite made casting kits. We went through a fair number of them as "fans" were prone to steal them. Some cracked and we gave those to whatever fan happened to be standing nearby. The units rode well and it seemed you sat a little higher than in the Alcos. You had to watch the speed, they would get going faster than you realized because of the smooth ride."
A fascinating read on the less-commonly heard end of the Sharks career. Usually you just read "After Baldwin sold them, they went to Michigan, both of them suffered mechanical failures and were stashed away on the E&LS."
According to John Larkin:
“In 1991, when Baldwin was getting out of the processes, I bought a number of items that could be used either for a Baldwin RS12, which E&LS was using at the time, and/or an RF-16. The problem was that even though we put the materials in storage, people would take a part out and use it to repair other Baldwin engines and by taking the parts out, we don’t know how many or what type are gone."
“I would hope that at some point to rebuild the 1216. The last time the late Fred Cave (former Baldwin Locomotive manager and mechanic) was here, we shot a 608A bedplate and put the crank in the bedplate with the proper tensioning so that at some point it may become economically feasible to rebuild an RF16. My main objective is to keep the locomotives out of harm’s way.”
Fred Cave was the final field service rep that Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton had, and he took over handling the sales of the replacement parts after Westinghouse pulled B-L-H out of the locomotive market. In the years afterwards, he would also travel around and perform more complicated repairs. John Larkin would ask him to come up for a visit, for a "working" vacation. They treated him like royalty, which he, of course, was with his intimate and detailed knowledge of the Baldwin/De La Vergne diesel engine. The E&LS had a large fleet of Baldwins, operating, profitably, on a daily basis, so with Fred Cave's help they were rebuilt, and rebuilt again, with Baldwin parts, both new and available for reuse.
According to Henry Rentcshler, who had been an employee of Lima-Hamilton, BLH and finally the Baldwin-Hamilton Co. (as it was known in the post-locomotive era), where he served as President:
Now then, when the Baldwin-Hamilton Company was going out of business, in the summer of 1991, Escanaba & Lake Superior was the primary customer. John Larkin, personally, talked to me about available parts, issued purchase orders, and paid cash, promptly. What a way to close down our renewal parts operations! All of the parts he originally purchased were new and unused - pistons, liners, cylinder heads and everything in between. However, as we were winding down, we had a goodly supply of "used" parts that were prime candidates for rebuilding. Rather than see these "rare" hunks of steel go to waste I decided to give them to E & LS. Cylinder liners, in good shape on the exterior, could be easily honed and re-chromed, and give years of faithful service. Bed plates could be rebuilt, by welding the bores, machining, and scraping to finished dimensions. We even gave away all of our applicable gaskets, rather than throw them into the trash. Larkin, and I talked briefly about the Shark Nose engines, but he was generally elusive. I don't know about the vandalism, but the frames and sides were badly rusted - that alone would be a major job to restore. BH officially closed on September 1, 1991 and we refused to accept any orders, at all, at all, at all!
I have to assume that Mr Rentschler was related to George A. Rentschler, of Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Co. fame. Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Co. was based out of Hamilton, Ohio and became General Machinery Corporation, which later merged with Lima Locomotive Works to form Lima-Hamilton. Hooven, Owens, Rentschler Co. gained notoriety during WWII with their double-acting two-stroke diesel engines that they sold to the Navy and were murderously unreliable, leading to crews referring to the engines as "Whores" as a pronunciation of H-O-R and as a slur against them. Captain Charles Herbert Andrews of the USS Gurnard recalled concerning a war patrol in support of Operation Torch, "I only used three, saving the fourth for a spare. When two of them broke down in the Bay of Biscay, I cut the patrol short and limped back to Scotland." All submarine H-O-R. engines were replaced by early 1943, usually with GM Cleveland Division diesel engines (which were loosely related to the Winton 201A engine that EMC/EMD would use) and the Fairbanks-Morse Model 38 engines (which Fairbanks-Morse would later repurpose for locomotive use). The wartime performance of the H.O.R. engines was so poor that Captain Tommy Dykers of the USS Jack said, "The H.O.R. engines saved the Japanese thirty or forty ships." General Machinery Corporation would later develop the Hamilton diesel engine, which was used in the short-lived Lima-Hamilton diesel locomotive lineup.
Ads from 1958 and 1959 for Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, Eddystone Division, as the service parts division was known after leaving the locomotive market. B-L-H was still involved in the heavy machinery market, which was the main reason that Baldwin bought out Lima-Hamilton; to get the former General Machinery Corporation product line and market.
Ads from the 1961-1965 era, when it was then known as Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, Industrial Equipment Division. Interesting to note that Baldwin wasn't just offering service replacement parts, but was developing parts to improve the De La Vergne 600-series engines.
This one's really interesting for including Whitcomb, which Baldwin had bought and operated as basically an industrial switcher subsidiary builder, and Lima-Hamilton, which I'm pretty sure there wasn't a ton of support or demand for, and then there's Sterling Viking at the end. I'm not aware of any locomotives built by Sterling or using their engines.
After 1965, it became Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, A Subsidiary of Armour & Co.
This one features (original) Norfolk Southern AS416 #1617, one of the last BLH locomotives built, and constructed with GE electrical components after Westinghouse had pulled out of the locomotive market.
A Patapsco & Back Rivers VO-1000 with a rather ungainly fan setup. I'm not sure what the story is there, but Baldwin used several different engine configurations in the VO-1000s and changed things seemingly at random, so that might be part of it.
Another rarity: one of the Columbus & Greenville's DR-6-4-1500 road switchers.
A Rayonier-owned Baldwin AS-616 of obvious Southern Pacific ancestry. It was sold to Rayonier in '61, ran until 1986, and then was cannibalized for parts by the Escanaba & lake Superior and scrapped.
The final ads from 1970 and 1971, when the locomotive replacement part division was sold off from the main company and became Baldwin-Hamilton, a subsidiary of Ecolaire Incorporated.
An oddball light power move on the Michigan Northern of ex-NYC/MGA/D&H Baldwin RF-16 #1216, an ex-SAL/SCL Baldwin RS-12, an ex-Southern Alco RS-3, and an ex-C&NW Alco RS-3. The RS-12 is the only unit actually in Michigan Northern colors.
MIGN #1216 doing some switching at Boynes Falls. That had to be a lot of fun with just a single RF-16
The two sharks and RS-2 #1501 switching the yard at Cadillac, MI. Not really sure why they are dragging the Alco around, since the two brands of locomotive were not M.U. capable, so the Alco was really just in the way. Also, you can see the engineer leaning all the way out of the #1205 to look back, showing the issue with rearward visibility that carbody units presented. The Reading was supposedly looking at buying RF-16s, and Baldwin even set aside the constructor numbers for them, but then, for this very reason, Reading converted the order to AS16 road switchers instead. A pity, because RF-16s in the Reading black with green and yellow stripes would have looked very sharp.
You'll need to log in to post.
