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A transfer switcher was a type of railroad locomotive specifically designed to perform "transfer" work in which freight cars are transported between two freight yards in a large terminal area.
As transfer work required high pulling power but not much speed, the general design of a transfer locomotive consisted of two engines with high-horsepower on an elongated locomotive frame, gearing designed for low speeds, and several driving axles, but were generally built without dynamic braking or multiple unit capability. In addition to the "center cab" design, transfer locomotives were also built in the form of road switchers and drawbar-coupled cow and calf switcher sets.
The "center cab" configuration is probably the best remembered transfer locomotive design, as the majority of these locomotives were built for transfer work. The first of the "center cab" locomotives was simply designated the T, and was a one-of-a-kind locomotive, built as a collaboration by the Electro Motive Corporation, St. Louis Car Company and General Electric for the Illinois Central Railroad in 1936.
Baldwin Locomotive Works and Lima-Hamilton (which would later merge to become Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton) produced the majority of these units, with the former producing 70 Baldwin DT-6-6-2000/BLH RT-624 locomotives, and the latter producing 22 Lima A-3177 locomotives between 1946 and 1954.
Only one surviving example of these locomotives is known to exist. Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railroad DT-6-6-2000 #21 is preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was so named because it was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete as demand switched to diesel locomotives. Baldwin produced the last of its 70,000-plus locomotives in 1951, before merging with the Lima-Hamilton Corporation on September 11, 1951, to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation.
Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between the Erie Railroad main line, the Baltimore & Ohio's Cincinnati-Toledo main line and the Nickel Plate Road main line and shops.
Locomotive classification on the Pennsylvania Railroad took several forms. Early on, steam locomotives were given single-letter classes. As the 26 letters were quickly assigned, that scheme was abandoned for a more complex system. This was used for all of the PRR's steam locomotives, and — with the exception of the final type bought — all electric locomotives also used this scheme.
A rail yard, railway yard, or railroad yard is a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading railroad cars and locomotives. Railroad yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or unused locomotives stored off the mainline, so that they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. Railroad cars are moved around by specially designed yard switchers, a type of locomotive. Cars in a railroad yard may be sorted by numerous categories, including railway company, loaded or unloaded, destination, car type, or whether they need repairs. Railroad yards are normally built where there is a need to store cars while they are not being loaded or unloaded, or are waiting to be assembled into trains. Large yards may have a tower to control operations.
The Consolidated line, or C-line, was a series of diesel-electric railway locomotive designs produced by Fairbanks-Morse and its Canadian licensee, the Canadian Locomotive Company. Individual locomotives in this series were commonly referred to as “C-liners”. A combined total of 165 units were produced by F-M and the CLC between 1950 and 1955.
Progress Rail Locomotives, doing business as Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD), is an American manufacturer of diesel-electric locomotives, locomotive products and diesel engines for the rail industry. The company is owned by Caterpillar through its subsidiary Progress Rail.
The EMD GP7 is a four-axle (B-B) diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors Diesel between October 1949 and May 1954.
In railroading, a slug is a version of a diesel-electric locomotive which lacks a prime mover, and often a cab. It derives the electrical power needed to operate its traction motors and motor controls from a fully-powered mother locomotive. When coupled together it takes advantage of the excess current that the mother's diesel-electric locomotive produces at low speed, providing additional horsepower and braking at such operation without the expense of a full locomotive.
The Baldwin VO-1000 is a diesel-electric locomotive (switcher) built by Baldwin Locomotive Works between January 1939 and December 1946. The 236,260–242,200 lb (107,170–109,860 kg) units were powered by a normally aspirated eight-cylinder diesel engine rated at 1,000 horsepower (746 kW), and rode on a pair of two-axle trucks in a B-B wheel arrangement. These were either the AAR Type-A switcher trucks, or the Batz truck originally developed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as a leading truck for steam locomotives. 548 examples of this model were built for American railroads, including examples for the Army and Navy.
The Baldwin S8 was an 875-horsepower (652 kW) diesel-electric locomotive intended for use in yard switching. The Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation produced a total of 63 units between 1951 and 1953. Of these, nine were "calf" units built for Oliver Iron Mining Company in Minnesota. A tenth calf had been built for them on order, but when delivery was refused, it was fitted with a cab, and converted to a regular S8.
Baldwin Locomotive Works produced several different Baldwin DR-6 models of 6-axle passenger train-hauling diesel locomotives between 1945 and 1948. The series comprised eight individual versions, all of which sold only in small numbers; across all versions, only 39 locomotives were produced. Each version was produced only for a single railroad. Many shared the same Baldwin model number, DR-6-4-2000, even though they were rather different; this was because the Baldwin model only encoded the total axles (6), the driven axles (4) and the power output. The single exception was the single unit produced for the Chicago and North Western Railway, which had a single 1,000 hp (750 kW) engine and was model number DR-6-2-1000. In the AAR wheel arrangement scheme of classification, these locomotives were of A1A-A1A and A1A-3 arrangements, respectively.
The Union Railroad is a Class III switching railroad located in Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. The company is owned by Transtar, Inc., which is itself a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors, after being purchased from United States Steel in 2021. The railroad's primary customers are the three plants of the USS Mon Valley Works, the USS Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the USS Irvin Works and the USS Clairton Works.
The Baldwin DT-6-6-2000 was a twin-engined diesel-electric transfer switcher, built by Baldwin Locomotive Works between 1946 and 1950.
The A-3177 (LT-2500) was a diesel-electric transfer-unit locomotive, built by the Lima-Hamilton Corporation between 1950 and 1951. The A-3177 was the final locomotive model produced by Lima-Hamilton before the company merged with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in September 1951 to form the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation (BLH).
The A-3080 (LS-1000) is a diesel-electric switching 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 BLH RT-624 was a twin-engined diesel-electric locomotive, built by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation between August 1951 and February 1954.
The RP-210 was a streamlined 1,000 hp (750 kW) locomotive built in 1956 by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, specifically to operate with the experimental, all-aluminum Train-X coaches that the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company built. The model represented Baldwin's attempted entry into the lightweight passenger locomotive market, but only three of the low-slung diesel-hydraulic units were produced. The first was built for the New York Central Railroad to power their Ohio Xplorer train between Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, and a pair was purchased by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad to double-end their Dan'l Webster, running between New York City and Boston.
Wyandotte Terminal Railroad was incorporated in the State of Michigan, United States of America, on September 14, 1904. It ceased operations as a railroad in 1982.