The Rock Island also purchased just a pair of them. Later in life, they sent them to La Grange and had EMD repower them with 567 V16s.
The Rock Island also purchased just a pair of them. Later in life, they sent them to La Grange and had EMD repower them with 567 V16s.
In 1950, to keep pace with the competition, Fairbanks-Morse also uprated their light road switcher up to 1600hp, resulting in the H-16-44. The H-16-44 was a much bigger sales success than the H-15-44, selling 299 units between the US-built Fairbanks-Morse and the Canada-based Canadian Locomotive Company division. The early ones were near-indistinguishable from the H-15-44 but in late 1953, they made the styling much more Spartan as a cost-saving measure. F-M/CLC also added the option of a low front hood, to match the competition, but no one actually ordered any, although the Chihuahua al Pacifica had some that they chopped the hood on later in life.
Shown are two of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia's fleet of four, after the P&WV was merged into the Norfolk & Western.
An interesting study of the NYC's H-16-44s: the "half-moon" window on this side is square on the right side as seen here. This was for the head-end brakeman that shared the cab with the engine crew, and had his own seat in that corner. Many NYC EMD yard switchers had two side cab windows on the fireman's side for the same reason. On the engineer's side of the FMs, the "half-moon" is intact at both ends.
A PRR H-16-44 has emerged from Gallitzin Tunnel with an MoW work train. You can also see the telltales hanging just behind the locomotive. These light chains on a yard arm were designed to hit a brakeman across the shoulders when approaching a tunnel, or other height restriction, so that he knew to drop down and not get Wile E. Coyote-ed by the tunnel portal.
CNJ H-16-44 #1517 accelerates out of South Amboy, NJ in commuter service
B&O H-16-44 #6708 at Baltimore, Maryland. This is one of those photos that the more you look, the more intriguing it is. For starters, look at the amount of people in the cab and on the running boards behind the cab. What's the deal there? And then, if you zoom in, the car directly behind the locomotive appears to have "Reading Company" lettering, not Baltimore & Ohio. With the small door that's open, that may be a dining car, as well. Some sort of railfan charter?
A Virginian Railway H-16-44 hammers over the crossing with the Norfolk & Western at Roanoke, VA in 1956. Within three years, the VGN would become part of the growing N&W empire, making this an N&W-N&W diamond. The Virginian dieselized entirely with Fairbanks-Morse power, with forty H-16-44 and twenty-five H-24-66s.
Here's another weird one: Southern is certainly not a railroad that comes to mind when it comes to Fairbanks-Morse power, but they did have ten H-16-44s and subsidiary Cincinatti, New Orleans & Texas Pacific ("the Rathole Division") had five H-24-66s. Most Fairbanks-Morse road switchers came configured as long hood forward (as did your early GPs/SDs and RS-1/RS-2/RS-3/RS-11s) and Southern was a railroad that stuck to long hood forward operation, but here you have two H-16-44s running short hood forward at Oneida, TN.
Three ATSF H-16-44s and a single GP7 lead local #161, Kansas City to Emporia via Topeka, at Wakarusa, Kansas in August of 1968. At the time of this photo, these three H-16-44s were the last three ATSF H-16-44s still in operation, of their original roster of 20.
In 1953, Fairbanks-Morse unveiled the H-24-66, which their own advertising print nicknamed "the Train Master" and touted as the "most useful locomotive ever built". It packed 2400hp from a 12-cylinder, 24-piston opposed-piston 38D8 1/8 engine and generated 112,000lbs of starting tractive effort. It was incredibly powerful for the era (EMD wouldn't hit the 2400hp mark until 1958 with the SD24, while Alco wouldn't get their RSD-7 out the door until a year later) and was also known to be an extremely rapid accelerating locomotive. Fairbanks-Morse claimed that they were just as happy dragging coal up a steep grade as they were sprinting from station to station with a commuter train, and they weren't wrong. Pretty much every purchaser put them into dual-service, particularly the DL&W, the CNJ, and SP. Through the week they hauled commuters to and from work, and then on weekends they would be moved over to the freight pool.
The CNJ's #2411 is shown here arriving in Elizabeth, NJ with a train of Reading passenger cars. Remember, the Reading had a controlling interest in the CNJ (and the B&O in turn had a controlling interest in the Reading) and basically used the CNJ as the easternmost end of their line, as well as sharing Jersey City facilities. During this era, even the dining car menus had both the CNJ and the Reading listed at the top.
CNJ #2412 kicks up a cloud of dust as it passes through South Amboy, en route to Monmouth Park Racetrack with a "race track special". The CNJ maintained a special siding in Oceanport, NJ that was primarily used to give passenger train specials direct access to the Grandstand of the Monmouth Park Racetrack during racing season.
CNJ #2409 is in charge of a railfan special that ran from Jersey City onto the Reading to tour the Reading Company's shops at Reading, where 0-6-0T #1251 was still in use as a shop switcher and lots of steam power, including five T-1 Northerns, were stored. Later that year, Reading would begin reactivating four of those T-1 Northerns (#2100, #2101, #2102, #2124) for their own corporate excursion program, while parting out the fifth (#2123) to keep them running.
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western #857 leans into a curve at Paterson, NJ on the Boonton Branch. Their's a milk car tucked behind the diesel and it looks as though most windows of the coaches are open on a hot July afternoon. The Boonton Branch was a terrifically-engineered line that was easily the best freight line into metropolitan New York that the DL&W/E-L had, and arguably the best full-stop, and was sadly sold off and torn down in the early years of Erie-Lackawanna. E-L management was looking for ways to stave off receivership and in a move that was extremely controversial, the New Jersey Highway Department offered to buy the ROW of the Boonton Branch between Paterson and Totowa from the railroad to construct I-80. The highway department's offer was $2 million for the entire width of the right-of-way, which would completely sever the double-track route. The E-L, in desperate need of cash, expressed interest, but asked if at least a single track could be retained along the edge of the highway. The highway department agreed it was feasible, but quoted a cost of $2 million to rebuild a single track, an offer that was of no interest to the EL as this would not result in any cash. Public hearings were held where rail advocates criticized the idea of severing the line, but faced with the inevitability of the highway, the EL decided to accept the offered $2 million, rather than risk getting less from an eminent domain seizure. It's sad how excellently engineered the DL&W was, and how little of it is still extent or active (looking at you, Lackawanna Cutoff)
DL&W #858 at a similar location, with some ancient-looking open-vestible coaches.
Now in an Erie-Lackawanna number, the former #858 has made it's weekend escape from commuter runs and is hauling coal with two of it's sister Train Masters on the former Erie mainline at Endicott, NY.
CNJ #2407 burbles away at Elizabeth, NJ. The CNJ ordered their H-24-66s with dual control stands (as did the Reading, DL&W and SP) and steam generators for passenger usage. From this angle, you can see just how tall the running boards were and the narrow steep ladder to get aboard, which apparently made them a real SOB to mount up. Also, when paired with other brand's power, when a brakeman had to move from locomotive to locomotive, climbing up or down off the H-24-66s could be a real nerve-wracking experience.
Ahh, what a shot, three brands and two excellent liveries, all on the same railroad. On the left is Southern Pacific H-24-66 #4809 in the "Black Widow" freight livery, one of the sharpest liveries to ever grace a diesel locomotive.In the center, Daylight-painted Alco PA-1 #211 is one of a dozen formerly belonging to subsidiary Texas & New Orleans that have recently found their way westward and will eventually be renumbered in sequence with SP’s own PAs. And on the right is "Black Widow" GP9, #5625, one of 22 steam-boiler equipped GP9’s purchased by SP for commuter trains and short passenger runs.
The story that's oft-repeated involving SP's H-24-66s is that they were supposedly part of an order that was constructed for New York Central, but then the New York Central refused delivery and so they were sold to Espee instead. I'm not sure where that story got it's start, but I don't buy it. The big one: New York Central never, at any point, owned any C-trucked locomotives. Period. From the first diesels on the property until the Penn Central merger, the NYC was purely 4-motor territory. With their flat terrain, they felt that they didn't need 6-motor power (and they also almost entirely avoided dynamic brakes as well), so I can't see the NYC ordering fourteen H-24-66s. The only possibility could be that there was some offhanded remark made by an NYC or some other miscommunication, that resulted in F-M thinking that there was an intent to buy, and they just went ahead and cranked them out only to get turned down. That is a possibility, since that's what happened with the RS-11s that Alco built and ultimately ended up on the D&H.
That being said, there were some other orders that never materialized. Illinois Central, an almost entirely EMD stronghold, was planning to order 75 Train Masters, but then got word of internal squabbling and a proxy fight at F-M and got cold feet, and went running back into EMD's arms (IC would later stray away again for a purchase of Alco C636s that they deeply regretted.) Pennsylvania had tested the demonstrators in '53, really liked them and then went on a buying slowdown shortly afterwards. In 1956, they purchased nine of them, as a "get your feet wet" deal, and was supposedly looking at a preliminary order of another 50 Train Masters, with the potential of another order of 50 units, but wanted Fairbanks-Morse to also sell them the rights to manufacture many parts of their own at Altoona. After buying a large amount of Baldwin locomotives only for Baldwin to crash and burn, and the earlier aftermarket licensee issues with the valve gear on the T1s, PRR wanted the be able to build their own prime mover parts if F-M left the locomotive market. F-M was apparently willing to consider this, but over time the details could not be worked out, and Pennsy threw in the towel on F-M. The fifty unit order instead was split between Alco (25 RSD12s) and EMD (25 SD9s) and the nine Train Masters would be orphans as a class. Would another 175 Train Masters, between PRR and IC, and the purchasing of manufacturing rights have been enough to keep the lights on at the locomotive division of F-M? Who knows, although it seems unlikely.
Some of the N&W's ex-Wabash H-24-66s. While repowering Fairbanks-Morse locomotives with EMD engines wasn't uncommon, Wabash went a weird direction with their Train Masters. They had 2400hp Alco 251B V16s installed, turning them into an Alco RSD-15 in Raymond Loewy dress. N&W primarily used them in hump yard service before cutting them, and the others from the Virginian, down into slugs.
Even stranger was the Missouri-Kansas-Texas' handful of H-16-44s that they supposedly repowered with Baldwin 608As. The repower job was also done in 1960, four years after Baldwin left the locomotive market. I know the Katy has some AS-16s that they put EMD engines in, so my guess is that those engines were moved over to the H-16-44s. Photos of them are non-existent though.
Two of the ex-Wabash Train Masters drag a coal train into Elmore, West Virginia. Before it was N&W #3598, before it had an Alco powerplant installed, and before it was bought by Wabash, this was TM-1, one of the four H-24-66 demonstrator units that toured the country. Wabash purchased TM-1 and TM-2, while Espee purchased TM-3 and TM-4.
The Virginian Railway heritage is starting to bleed through on N&W #156. Unlike the Wabash units, the Virginian's Train Masters retained their thrumming Fairbanks-Morse powerplants up until the end.
Southern Pacific Fairbanks-Morse H24-66 #3031 makes a station stop with train #147 in Sunnyvale on February 3, 1975 before continuing its run to San Francisco. By this late date 3031 was the last of SP's sixteen Train Masters still in service, with only two days remaining. On February 5 the 3031 would make its last run, on train #147, and just a few months later would be scrapped. While a Canadian Locomotive Works H-24-66 would be preserved, intact, north of the border, somehow preservationists let the SP H-24-66s slip through their hands, despite their late date of retirement. The only "surviving" Train Masters are a pair of ex-Norfolk Southern slugs.
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