Fairbanks-Morse Diesel Locomotive Horsepower Comparison
Fairbanks-Morse was perhaps the second newest American builder to manufacture diesel locomotives, the first one being Lima-Hamilton (1949), but in a world of railroading, the hallmark of F-M was the two-cycle, opposed-piston diesel engine. Founded in 1830, Fairbanks-Morse began building internal combustion engines less than one hundred years later, initially for ships and submarines. In 1939, the St. Louis Car Company assembled a 600-horsepower center-cab switcher for the Reading Railroad. Numbered 35, it used a pair of F-M’s 8-cylinder, in-line prime movers; this was considered to be the very first locomotive application partially done by F-M. In the same year, however, the Southern Railway ordered six of what became the first railcars propelled by opposed-piston engines. St. Louis Car Co. and F-M provided the car bodies and power plants respectively.
In the early 1940’s, the United States joined in the allied forces of the Second World War, and Fairbanks-Morse built the OP engines at its Beloit, Wisconsin factory for submarines only. However, it became a true locomotive builder by 1944 when it completed a 1,000-hp Milwaukee Road diesel switcher, the first example of the four-axle H-10-44 production model. When the war ended in the next year, F-M designed its first streamlined cab-unit locomotives, which were initially too big to be assembled at the Beloit plant. To solve this problem, General Electric agreed to provide space at its Erie, Pennsylvania factory for the construction of these six-axle diesels, earning the nickname “Erie-Builts”. GE also continued to supply electrical equipment to F-M as well as ALCO and Baldwin. As soon as F-M expanded its own production space back in Beloit, it launched a new generation of cab units called the Consolidation Line (a.k.a. C-Liners) in 1950. To offer its products for the Canadian market, licensed F-M production was done by the Canadian Locomotive Company in Kingston, Ontario.
Sales of the C-Liners turned out to be weak, due to the increasing popularity of road switchers. In response to this change, Fairbanks-Morse had to expand its own hood unit lineup, following the builder’s first road switcher model: the 1,500-hp, four-axle H-15-44 (introduced in 1947). 1953 was the company’s most remarkable year when it announced the massive, six-motor H-24-66 “Train Master”; it was equipped with a 12-cylinder OP engine to produce 2,400 hp. The Train Master is undoubtedly the most talked about F-M diesel locomotive of all time. Sadly, Fairbanks-Morse couldn’t stay in the locomotive business any longer, so the final American unit was completed in 1958, though the very last F-M locomotives were exported to Mexico five years later. Meanwhile, the Canadian Locomotive Company was reorganized as Fairbanks-Morse Canada, but no more locomotives were ever produced until its closure in 1969.
Like all other diesel locomotive builders, Fairbanks-Morse manufactured cab units (including Erie-Builts and C-Liners), switchers, and road switchers; the latter two categories are both designated with an H. But unlike other builders, F-M used the same type of opposed-piston engine (designated as 38D 8-1/8) for every locomotive model in its catalog, except for the Reading center-cab switcher. The 38D prime mover was available with 6, 8, 10, or 12 cylinders, ranging from 1,000 to 2,400 hp. In the end, the OP engine turned out to be the least successful for trains, mostly due to its maintenance difficulties as well as higher-than-average necessities for cooling, lubrication, and intake air. On the contrary, it could have maximized power and efficiency by using not one but two crankshafts with the help from two pistons opposing each other in each vertical cylinder.
As you can see, the Fairbanks-Morse Horsepower Comparison chart contains the “Locomotive Model”, “Number of Cylinders”, and “Total Horsepower” columns, but there’s no “Engine Type” column. All the locomotives listed had the same 38D 8-1/8 diesel engine in their respective cylinder configurations. Here are the screenshots snipped from this document, but you can also download a PDF copy of it for a full view. Click below to download the Fairbanks-Morse Horsepower Comparison chart.
