Fairbanks, Morse and Company was an American manufacturing company in the late 19th and early 20th century. Originally a weighing scale manufacturer, it later diversified into pumps, engines, windmills, coffee grinders, radios, farm tractors, feed mills, locomotives, and industrial supplies until it was purchased by Penn Texas in 1958.[1]
There are three separate corporate entities that could be considered successors to the company, none of which is a complete and direct descendant of the original company. All claim the heritage of Fairbanks Morse and Company:
Fairbanks Scales is a privately owned company in Kansas City, Missouri, that manufactures scales
Fairbanks Morse and Company began in 1823 when inventor Thaddeus Fairbanks opened an ironworks in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, to manufacture two of his patented inventions: a cast iron plow and a heating stove. In 1829 he started a hemp dressing business for which he built the machinery. Though unsuccessful in fabricating for fiber factories, another of Morse's inventions, the platform scale, formed the basis for the later company. It was patented in June 1832, and a generation later, with his brother Erastus Fairbanks, the E. & T. Fairbanks & Company was selling thousands of scales, first in the United States, later in Europe, South America, and Imperial China. Fairbanks scales won 63 medals over the years in international competition.[citation needed]
In Wisconsin, former missionary Leonard Wheeler designed a durable windmill for pumping water, the Eclipse windmill.[when?] Wheeler set up shop in Beloit just after the Civil War. Soon half a million windmills dotted the landscape throughout the West and as far away as Australia.[citation needed] At about the same time, a Fairbanks & Company employee, Charles Hosmer Morse, opened a Fairbanks office in Chicago, from which he expanded the company's territory of operation and widened its product line. As part of this expansion, Morse brought Wheeler and his Eclipse Windmill pumps into business with the Fairbanks company.[when?] Morse later became a partner in the Fairbanks Company and by the end of the nineteenth century, it was known as Fairbanks Morse & Company and was headquartered in Chicago. Canadian and American cities had branch dealerships, with Fairbanks first coming to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1876 and later[when?] opening a factory there.
Market expansion
Fairbanks Morse Type T gas engine
In the late nineteenth century, business expanded in the Western United States, as did the company's catalog. It grew to include typewriters, hand trucks, railway velocipedes, pumps, tractors, and a variety of warehouse and bulk shipping tools. The company became an industrial supplier distributing complete "turn-key" systems: tools, plumbing, gauges, gaskets, parts, valves, and pipe. Its 1910 catalog contained over 800 pages.
The Fairbanks Morse Company began producing oil and naptha engines in the 1890s with the purchase of the Charter line of engines (the first commercially available gas engine). They had the idea that an engine could be used as backup power for when one of their Eclipse windmills wasn't getting wind. The Fairbanks Morse gas engine became a success with farmers. Electricity generation and oilfield work also used these engines. Small lighting plants built by the company were also popular. Fairbanks Morse power plants evolved by burning kerosene in 1893, coal gas in 1905, then to semi-diesel engines in 1913 and to full diesel engines in 1924. The Model N was popular in stationary industrial applications. [citation needed]
In 1934, Fairbanks-Morse entered the radio business by acquiring the Audiola Radio Co. After a 1939 factory fire FM decided to exit the radio business. Fairbanks-Morse radios are well known for their colorfulness.[3] The company also had brief forays into building automobiles, tractors, corn shellers, hammermills, cranes, televisions, and refrigerators, but output was small in these fields.
After the expiration of Rudolf Diesel's American license in 1912, Fairbanks Morse (FM) entered the large engine business. The company's larger Model Y semi-diesel became a standard workhorse, and sugar, rice, timber, and mine mills used the engine. The model Y was available in sizes from one through six cylinders, or 10 to 200 horsepower (150kW). The Y-VA engine was the first high-compression, cold-start, full diesel developed by Fairbanks Morse without the acquisition of any foreign patent. This machine was developed in Beloit and introduced in 1924. The company expanded its line to the marine CO engine (Many 100 H.P. CO marine engines were used in the Philippine Islands to power ferry boats) as well as the mill model E, a modernized Y diesel. From this, Fairbanks-Morse became a major engine manufacturer and developed plants for railway and marine applications. The development of the diesel locomotive, tug, and ship in the 1930s fostered the expansion of the company.
"Z" Engine Line
Fairbanks-Morse renamed their headless1.5 horsepower (1.1kW) Model to "Z" in July 1914, according to engine historian C.H. Wendel.[4] On all "Z" engines the gasoline tank is located in the base. In 1917, they expanded the line to include more sizes. In 1918, they stopped making headless models and adapted the 1.5 H.P. to have a head, and larger H.P. engines could now run on Kerosene. In 1928 The "Z" style "D" was introduced, and was entirely enclosed.[5][6] The Z was made in incremental sizes of 3, 6, 12, 15 and up to 20 horsepower (15kW). Over a half million units were produced in the following 30 years. In the early 1980s the line was sold off to Bell. The model Z found favor with farmers, and is a collectable today.
During World War I, a large order of 60 30 H.P. CO marine engines were installed in British decoy fishing ships to lure German submarines within range of their 6" naval guns. In 1939 Fairbanks-Morse developed a marine engine using an unusual opposed piston (OP) design, similar in arrangement to a series of German Junkers aircraft diesels.[7] The most common variant for submarines through the 1990s was the 38D 8-1/8 engine, ranging from 4 to 12 cylinders. This engine was delivered to the U.S. Navy in large numbers, often for use in fleet submarines, which used 9- or 10-cylinder versions as main engines in World War II.[8][9][10][11] When the innovative but faulty EMD 16-338 "pancake" engines of the Tang class proved unworkable, they were replaced with World War II-style Fairbanks-Morse engines, and these remained standard on US diesel-powered submarines through the early 1960s.[12] These and other Fairbanks-Morse OP engines were also used as backup power on US nuclear submarines through the Seawolf class of the 1990s. Fairbanks-Morse ranked 60th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[13] The US Navy has had Fairbanks-Morse diesels in operation on its submarines almost continuously since 1938.[citation needed] They remain in service on Los Angeles-, Seawolf-, and Ohio-class nuclear submarines of the US Navy.[citation needed] In addition to OP engines (used in the USCGC Hamilton class), Fairbanks-Morse license builds Pielstick (used in the Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships and San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks), Alco (used in USCGCPolar Sea), and M.A.N. design engines.[11][14]
Other World War II era models are the 875hp 5-cylinder Model 37E16 installed in some T1 tankers.
Shortly after it won its first US Navy contract, the company introduced its 5 inches (13cm) bore by 6 inches (15cm) stroke opposed piston diesel to the rail industry, installing the engine in various self-propelled railcars.[15] This engine proved unreliable, and was superseded by a larger 5-cylinder 8 inches (20cm) bore by 10 inches (25cm) stroke engine that produced 800 H.P. and was installed in the OP800 railcars in 1939.[15]
In 1935, F-M initiated a long-term plan to build locomotives in house when it hired electrical engineer John K. Stotz from Westinghouse Electric Corporation and began developing plans for a 1,000 H.P. switcher and a 2,000 H.P. multipurpose locomotive.[15] While the company was ready to begin production of the units in 1940, the War Production Board (WPB) denied it permission, citing the national interest of F-M's production of submarine engines and a locomotive market supplied by existing manufacturers.[15] In 1943, the WPB approved F-M's plans to sell locomotives, and it introduced the 1,000 H.P. switcher H-10-44 in 1944, followed by the 2,000 H.P. cab unit, dubbed the Erie-built for its outsourced assembly location, in late 1945.[15] The early locomotives soon proved unreliable, as high-stress railroad service exposed weaknesses in the engine that had not been seen in less demanding marine applications.[16] In 1947, F-M reorganized its locomotive division with the hiring of new managers and the construction of a dedicated factory the following year.[16]
In 1947, F-M introduced two new road switcher models, the 1,500 H.P. H-15-44 and the 2,000 H.P. H-20-44.[17] In late 1949, the company's new cab units, named the Consolidated Line, were introduced to replace the Erie-builts in its catalog.[16] None of the late 1940s models sold as well as competing units from EMD and Alco, and the Consolidated Line fared particularly poorly as cab units fell out of favor on American railroads.[17][16] In 1951 F-M began designing a new large locomotive, and in 1953 it introduced the 2,400 H.P. H-24-66 Train Master, then the highest powered locomotive available.[18] It also proved unpopular. In 1956, the Santa Fe ordered three specialized units, based on the H12-44, for terminal switching in Chicago's Dearborn Station: the H12-44TS ("TS" for "Terminal Switcher"). They remained in service until the early 1970s.[19]
In 1958 F-M built its last locomotive for the American market, followed in 1963 by its final delivery to a Mexican customer.[18] In total, it sold 1,460 diesel locomotives.[18]
Post-war power products
Fairbanks Morse continued to build diesel and gas engines, as it had been doing for the first half of the twentieth century. This is in addition to the pump and engine division, which produced Canadian Fairbanks Morse branded products for farms, factories and mines.
Export offices were established in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires; a factory was opened in Mexico, where model Z engines were built well into the 1980s. An Australian branch factory, similar to the Canadian Branch operation, was opened and remote sheep stations benefited from their products. It dated from 1902, when Cooper Sheep Shearing Machinery Ltd was set up in Sydney, and became an agent for Fairbanks Morse in that Hemisphere.
The company sold and updated the Eclipse model of windmill pumps in North America until they became obsolete with widespread rural electrification in the 1940s. Low cost electricity from the grid eliminated the need for local power production by small and medium diesel plants. While many Fairbanks Morse engines dutifully served into the late twentieth century, modernization, regional plant closures, and electricity were too much competition.
An inter-family feud for control of the company in 1956 between the sons of Charles Morse weakened the company. Consequently, Fairbanks-Morse was merged with Penn-Western in 1958. The downhill slide continued for the next few decades, with assets being sold off, and branches of the company closed. Regional sales offices were closed, and the one-shop model no longer appealed to buyers in the new consumer age. Automakers, tractor makers and locomotive builders made inroads into Fairbanks-Morse's market share. Thus the company spiraled down, and was sold.
Corporate disposition
Fairbanks Morse and Company merged with Penn-Texas Corporation in 1958 to form Fairbanks Whitney Corporation. Fairbanks Whitney was reorganized as Colt Industries in 1964, taking the name from Colt Manufacturing, the maker of firearms and an asset of Penn-Texas. In 1988, the Fairbanks Morse Pump division was sold off to private investors to become Fairbanks Morse Pump. It was subsequently purchased by Pentair as part of an acquisition of General Signal Pump Group in 1997. In 1988, the scale business was sold off by Colt Industries and became Fairbanks Scales, still an independent company.
In 1990, Colt Industries sold its firearms business to C.F. Holdings Corp as Colt's Manufacturing Company, Inc. and became Coltec Industries, Inc., which later became a subsidiary of EnPro Industires, Inc. EnPro was then the parent company of Fairbanks Morse Engine until January 21, 2020, when Fairbanks Morse was sold to Arcline Investment Management.
As a result, there are now three companies using either the Fairbanks or Fairbanks Morse trademarks, with lineage to the original Fairbanks Morse and Company. Fairbanks Scale and Fairbanks Morse Pump claim lineage back to E & T Fairbanks Company.
Modern descendants
In the 1990s, Fairbanks Morse merged with ALCO to make the FM | ALCO line. In October 2013, FM signed a joint development and licensing agreement with Achates Power to reduce emissions and fuel consumption of Fairbanks Morse proprietary and dual-fuel opposed-piston engines.[20] The opposed-piston (OP) diesel engine once made by Fairbanks-Morse is still (August 2019) manufactured.[21] Also, Fairbanks-Morse still (November 2021) manufactures large four-stroke diesel engines such as the FM 48/60 CR series, which ranges from 7,200 to 19,200 kWm in output.[22]
Fairbanks Scales has dropped the Morse from the name as most scales made by FM had.
A V16 engine is a sixteen-cylinder piston engine where two banks of eight cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V16 engines are less common than engines with fewer cylinders, such as V8 and V12 engines. Each bank of a V16 engine can be thought of as a straight-8, a design that can be inherently balanced. Most V16 engines have a 45° bank angle.
A V20 engine is a twenty-cylinder piston engine where two banks of ten cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. Large diesel V20 engines have been used in diesel locomotives, haul trucks, electric generators and marine applications.
An opposed-piston engine is a piston engine in which each cylinder has a piston at both ends, and no cylinder head. Petrol and diesel opposed-piston engines have been used mostly in large-scale applications such as ships, military tanks, and factories. Current manufacturers of opposed-piston engines include Cummins, Achates Power and Fairbanks-Morse Defense (FMDefense).
The American Locomotive Company was an American manufacturer that operated from 1901 to 1969, initially specializing in the production of locomotives but later diversifying and fabricating at various times diesel generators, automobiles, steel, tanks, munitions, oil-production equipment, as well as heat exchangers for nuclear power plants.
A V18 engine is an eighteen-cylinder piston engine where two banks of nine cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft.
The ALCO RS-3 is a 1,600 hp (1.2 MW), B-B diesel-electric locomotive manufactured from May 1950 to August 1956 by American Locomotive Company (ALCO) and its subsidiary Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW). A total of 1,418 were produced: 1,265 for American railroads, 98 for Canadian railroads, 48 for Brazilian railroads, and seven for Mexican railroads.
The Consolidation Line was a series of diesel-electric railway locomotive designs produced by Fairbanks-Morse and its Canadian licensee, the Canadian Locomotive Company. Railfans have dubbed these locomotives “C-liners”, however F-M referred to the models collectively as the C-Line. A combined total of 165 units were produced by F-M and the CLC between 1950 and 1955.
The H-24-66, or Train Master, was a diesel-electric railroad locomotive produced by Fairbanks-Morse and its licensee, Canadian Locomotive Company. These six-axle hood unit road switchers were deployed in the United States and Canada during the 1950s.
Electro-Motive Diesel is a brand of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. Formerly a division of General Motors, EMD is now owned by Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc. Electro-Motive Diesel traces its roots to the Electro-Motive Engineering Corporation, founded in 1922 and purchased by General Motors in 1930. After purchase by GM, the company was known as GM's Electro-Motive Division. In 2005, GM sold EMD to Greenbriar Equity Group and Berkshire Partners, and in 2010, EMD was sold to Progress Rail. Upon the 2005 sale, the company was renamed to Electro-Motive Diesel.
The ALCO RS-2 is a 1,500–1,600 horsepower (1,100–1,200 kW) B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) from 1946 to 1950. ALCO introduced the model after World War II as an improvement on the ALCO RS-1. Between 1946 and 1950, 377 examples of the RS-2 were built, primarily for American and Canadian customers.
The FM H-12-44TS was a light road switcher version of the Fairbanks-Morse H-12-44 yard switcher locomotive. Only three of the 1,200-horsepower (890 kW), six-cylinder opposed piston engine locomotives were manufactured especially for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in May, 1956. The units had an extended frame to accommodate the addition of a short hood behind the cab, and were configured in a B-B wheel arrangement and mounted atop a pair of two-axle AAR Type-A switcher trucks with all axles powered. H-12-44TSs also came equipped with steam generator units as they were acquired solely for shuttling passenger cars in and around the Dearborn Station terminal in Chicago, Illinois.
The FM H-12-44 was a switcher locomotive produced by Fairbanks-Morse from May 1950 until March 1961. The units had a 1,200-horsepower (890 kW), six-cylinder opposed piston engine prime mover, and were configured in a B-B wheel arrangement mounted atop a pair of two-axle AAR Type-A switcher trucks, with all axles powered and geared for a top speed of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h).
The FM H-12-46 was a light road switcher of Fairbanks-Morse design manufactured exclusively by the Canadian Locomotive Company from October, 1951–January, 1953 for the Canadian National Railway. Only thirty of the 1,200 hp, six-cylinder opposed piston engine locomotives were produced. The units were configured in an A1A-A1A wheel arrangement, mounted atop a pair of three-axle trucks.
The FM H-20-44 was a diesel locomotive manufactured by Fairbanks-Morse from June 1947 – March 1954. It represented the company's first foray into the road switcher market. The 2,000 hp (1,490 kW), ten-cylinder opposed piston engine locomotive was referred to by F-M's engineering department as the "Heavy Duty" unit. It was configured in a B-B wheel arrangement mounted atop a pair of two-axle AAR Type-B road trucks with all axles powered. H-20-44s shared the same platform and much of the same carbody as the lighter-duty FM H-15-44, which began its production run three months later.
The Erie-built was the first streamlined, cab-equipped dual service diesel locomotive built by Fairbanks-Morse, introduced as direct competition to such models as the ALCO PA and FA and EMD FT. F-M lacked the space and staff to design and manufacture large road locomotives in their own plant at Beloit, Wisconsin, and was concerned that waiting to develop the necessary infrastructure would cause them to miss out on the market opportunity for large road locomotives. Engineering and assembly work was subcontracted out to General Electric, which produced the locomotives at its Erie, Pennsylvania, facility, thereby giving rise to the name "Erie-built."
The A-3080 (LS-1000) is a diesel-electric switcher locomotive built between May 1949 and April 1950, by the Lima-Hamilton Corporation of Lima, Ohio, United States. The A-3080 is a 1,000 hp switcher, which became the standard for Lima's designs. By changing fuel rack settings, the A-3080 was upgraded to the A-3170, producing 1,200 horsepower from the same turbocharged Hamilton T89SA four-stroke, eight cylinder inline diesel engine, a Westinghouse generator and four Westinghouse traction motors provided the 74,508 lbf of tractive effort.
The ALCO 251 is a 4-stroke diesel engine that was developed by the American Locomotive Company to replace its 244 and 539 engines. The 251 was developed to be used in diesel locomotives, as a marine power plant in ships, and as a stationary power generator.
The Fairbanks-Morse 38 8-1/8 is a diesel engine of the two-stroke, opposed-piston type. It was developed in the 1930s, and is similar in arrangement to a contemporary series of German Bombers aircraft diesels. The engine was used extensively in US diesel electric submarines of the 1940s and 1950s, as backup power on most US nuclear submarines, as well as in other marine applications, stationary power generation, and briefly, locomotives. A slightly modified version, the 38ND 8-1/8, continues in service on Los Angeles-, Seawolf-, and Ohio-class nuclear submarines of the US Navy. The 38 8-1/8 has been in continuous production since its development in 1938, and is currently manufactured by a descendant of Fairbanks-Morse, FMDefense, in Beloit, Wisconsin.
The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division of General Motors (GM) was a leading research, design and production facility of diesel engines from the 1930s to the 1960s that was based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division designed several 2 stroke diesel engines for submarines, tugboats, destroyer escorts, Patapsco-class gasoline tankers and other marine applications. Emergency generator sets were also built around the Cleveland Diesel and were installed in many US warships. The division was created in 1938 from the GM-owned Winton Engine Corporation and was folded into the GM Electro-Motive Division in 1962. The engines continue in use today on older tugs.
↑ Grenning, Wayne (2018). "Timeline of the Fairbanks-Morse Z Engine". Gas Engine Magazine. Retrieved 27 March 2020. Wayne appreciates that in his youthful exuberance [in his original 'Gas Engine Magazine' article from 1981] he may have gotten a few facts wrong, chiefly the introduction of the Z series, which he dated to September 1916: It's believed to have been introduced two years earlier, in July 1914.
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