Top Three Most Powerful Baldwin Passenger Diesels
Let’s review the top three most powerful passenger-duty, diesel-electric locomotives built by Baldwin. In the 1940s and 50s, many of the company’s road diesels (known as the DR series) had streamlined carbodies, although these were augmented by the DRS road switchers. As typical for an early passenger cab unit, most of Baldwin’s DR locomotives built for that service rode on a pair of three-axle, two-motored A1A trucks. In contrast, their freight counterparts, such as the DR-4-4-1500 and RF-16, used two-axle B trucks. Some cab units had the “babyface” nose while others had the “sharknose”. As usual, we’ll go in order from third place to first place.
The Bronze Medal of Passenger Power is going to the Baldwin DR-6-4-1500. The 1,500-horsepower model was propelled by a single supercharged, eight-cylinder 608SC diesel engine. All examples of the DR-6-4-1500 featured babyfaces and were delivered to only two railroads: New York Central (4 A units, 2 B units) and Seaboard Air Line (3 A units). As a side note, Baldwin built the sole DR-6-2-1000 for the Chicago & North Western Railway. Unlike all other passenger DR models, it had one engine (a six-cylinder 606SC) to power only the lead A1A truck. At the rear of this locomotive were a baggage compartment and a non-powered six-wheel truck.
Earning the Silver Medal of Passenger Power is the DR-6-4-2000. This model was built in the form of three variants: the babyface, the double-cab DRX babyface, and the sharknose. Several cabless B units were also available to go with the latter. While they all had the same 2,000-hp rating, the earlier babyface used a pair of normally aspirated, eight-cylinder 608NA engines, but the sharknose had a pair of supercharged, six-cylinder 606SC engines. The design of the DR-6-4-2000 originated from Baldwin’s two passenger cab-unit demonstrators (numbers 2000 and 2001), each possessing two of the eight-cylinder VO engines.
Lastly, the Gold Medal of Passenger Power is going to Baldwin’s DR-12-8-1500/2 (or DR-12-8-3000) “Centipede”. Despite its humongous looks, the 3,000-hp “Centipede” was initially geared for passenger duty. The same thing was true for Baldwin’s demonstrator number 6000, which was originally intended to produce 6,000 hp with eight engines. Since the production model was powered by two 608SC prime movers, this locomotive was essentially a doubled version of the DR-6-4-1500, not to mention its twelve-axle arrangement and eight traction motors. Among the purchasers of the Centipedes were the Seaboard Air Line, the Pennsylvania, and the National Railways of Mexico. However, many units were eventually reassigned to freight operations on the latter two railroads. Sadly, all of the Centipedes were scrapped, but they will always be remembered as the biggest Baldwin diesels ever built.
Click on following links to learn more about the top three Baldwin passenger diesels.
All photos courtesy of American-Rails.com
