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FILE NAME: Baldwin (BALD) DATE: 0000 DOC#: BALD061 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Book Excerpt - The Baldwin Locomotive Works A STUDY IN AMERICAN I N D U S T R IA L PRACTICE The Baldwin Locomotive Works 1831- 191 5 JO H N K. B R O W N THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS BALTIMORE AND LONDON Th G il poi del] mo skil due trai ind tiet ] Joh lab* nol of i anc sm cor Bal anc me ma ma full cen par cifi wo des An got HVo| pl^ firij Brj Art Studies in Industry and Society ' PHILIP B. SCRANTON, SERIES EDITOR Published, with the assistance o fthe Hagky Museum and Library 1. Burton W. Folsom, J r . Urban Capitalists: Entrepreneurs an d City Growth in Pennsylvania's Lackawanna and Lehigh Regions, 1800-1920 2. J ohn Bodnar Workers World: Kinship, Community, an d Protest in an Industrial Society, 1900-1940 3. Paul F. Paskoff Industrial Evolution: Organization, Structure, an d Growth o fthe Pennsylvania Iron Industry, 1/90-1860 4. David A. H ounshell From the Am erican System to Mass Production, 1800-1932. The Development o fM anufacturing Technology in the United States 5. Cynthia J. Shelton The M ilk ofM anayunk: Industrialization and Social Conflict in the Philadelphia Region, 1787-1837 6. J oAnne Yates Control through Communication: The Rise o fSystem in American M anagement 7. C harles W. C heape Strictly Business: Walter Carpenter at D u Pont and General Motors 8. John K. Brown The Baldw in Locomotive Works, 18 3 1-19 1y. A Study in Am erican Industrial Practice PREFACE As THE INDUSTRIAL AGE GATHERED FORCE AND MOMENTUM DURING THE nineteenth century, the steam locomotive came to symbolize the new agencies o f technology, commerce, speed, and power that reordered Western society and marked the most fundamental changes ever in humanity s lot on earth. Countless authors have traced the social and cultural impact o f steam railways, but we remain only dimly aware o f how these engines o f change were actually made. T hat is the concern o f this book, a history o f the Baldwin Locomotive Works o f Philadelphia, the largest and most successful locomotive builder in America or the world in the nineteenth century. T he chapters that follow detail aspects o f the company's history and its place in the larger American industrial scene. M y concern here at the outset is to ^ build a locomotive. Compared with the bedlam o f an erecting shop, the mind's eye is far quieter and much more orderly. Yet one must first see the process o f building an engine to situate all that follows in this book. So join the throng on the way to work in the Baldwin plant early one morning in October 1905. Just before the starting whistles blow out at seven A.M., Baldwin's day shift o f over ten thousand men hurries through the teeming streets o f Bush Hill, an industrial district rendered in brick and soot, crowded with factories, railway lines, coal yards, and worker tenements. T he men split up into separate groups, heading for the different shops o f a factory spread out over ten city blocks where the six thousand workers o f the night shift are ready to lay down their tools. Upon arriving, the day men will begin work on any o f the approximately 450 new locomotives that on this morning are at varying stages o f completion in Baldwin's regular production schedule. From the foundries to the erecting shop, workers in eight skilled trades and scores o f specialties apply their talents to engines ranging from litde 4-ton electrics to massive 150-ton steamers. Baldwin Ti Gi ^ ?si* " ,**t$Lr*' -'" ,, ""yfi > mi S ^ M fiM iK W h en Matthias Baldwin opened his first factory building on Broad Street in 1835, the neighborhood still had a rural quality. O ver the next thirty years a throbbing industrial district grew up around the expanding locomotive works. T h is view circa 1905 shows the plant at the height o f Baldwin's success. T h e shops filled seven city blocks and occupied portions o f five more, author s collection i x T he Gild. porti delp mos skill duci tran indi tietl I Joh lab' noi of : ani str co Ba an m m m fi: ci P c V d l PREFACE In 1905 draftsmen occupied two floors of Baldwin's office building at 500 North Broad Street. Like production workers, the designers specialized in particular components or aspects of design. The flat-file tables in the middle contained thousands of drawings for standard parts. Draftsmen used these standards whenever possible--even in custom engines. The boy leaning on one table (center) was a runner who took finished drawings down to the shops. H. L. BROADBELT did not make a single standard steam locomotive, but it largely followed common steps in building these custom products.1 It all begins in the drawing room, actually two large floors o f the office building at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, where 150 draftsmen work up new designs. Under Baldwin's eight-week production schedule, the draftsmen have three weeks on average to get out the plans for a new type o f engine-- and much o f the firm's output at this time is custom designs. Referring to the contract specifications, they build a locomotive on paper, using established standard parts where possible and drawing new component designs as needed. After plans are drawn and checked, they first go to the purchasing department, which orders materials from outside vendors. Great quantities o f costly semifinished materials, like boiler flues, steel tires, forged axles, and patented appliances, come from specialist firms, the expense reaching over 50 percent o f the final price o f a Baldwin engine.2 PREFACE On this mernin^ many orders have advanced to weeks four and five in the production sci edule. This fortnight sees the receipt o f materials from outside makers and the first work inside the factory'. Highly skilled blacksmiths in the smith shops swelter despite the cool autumn weather, forging iron and steel parts ranging trom leaf springs to engine frames. Individual smiths work up springs and a hundred other small parts on their own anvils, judging how far and fast to wo f the glowing plastic iron before returning it to the fire. Large pieces like a locomotive frame require a crew of four or five, using a jib crane to swing the work from the fire to the massive steam hammer needed for large iorgmg jobs. While the smiths test their skills against iron in a pitched battle ot ringing hammer blows, raging heat, and choking smoke, skilled molders and their assis ants in the foundry begin making sand molds for cylinders, wheel centers, and other castings, using wooden patterns made up by the patternmakers. With this painstaking work under way, the foundry cupolas are charged with i ake fuel and pig iron. By midafternoon the molten iron is ready tor pouring, A single cylinder casting can require over 10,000 pounds of the bubbling liquid: the founders judge when the heat is right for the pour bv veing the irou s brilliant glow in the ladle. \W leave ti r foundry behind for our next stop in the boiler shop, although mum or the r cat and smell of liquid iron accompany us. Crowded conditions o.c. e forced B .leiwin ro place one of its boiler shops on a floor above the iron A wain of Balds :n forge men stand bv their steam hammer sometime in the late nineteenth wnturv. I hev an working a wrought-iron axle under the hammer, with the axle suspended from a ih crane o that it could be swung back into the fire for reheating as needed. Such work oca: red c 'ordimuing the skills and efforts of a team of workers, carl hoopks T hj Gik pori delf mos skill due trar ind tied 1 Joh lab< nol of i anc stn cor Bal an< me ma ma fid cei pai cifi wc dei Ar.i 8j Hvoi P1 fii Bi A XU PREFACE Located above the iron foundry, this boiler shop ran the length o f a city block. Flat boilerplate was sheared, drilled, rolled, and stamped into separate components in other shops. Boilers were assembled here; their courses (or sections) were riveted together and fireboxes, tube sheets, staybolts, and steam domes installed. W ith o u t any workers to indicate the scale o f this 400-foot-long room, it appears deceptively small. AL GIANNANTONIO foundry. Boilermaking has the potential to be a real bottleneck in the production schedule. All parts entering into a boiler come from outside suppliers, so most o f the steel plates, flues, staybolts, piping, gauges, and insulation do not arrive at Baldwin until die fifth week o f the production schedule. The firm allots weeks five and six to the massively labor-intensive process o f fabricating boilers, which can reach 40 feet in length and weigh up to 43,000 pounds even before the flues are added. To make each boiler in this two-week period, Baldwin allots four shops and over three thousand men on two shifts to the task. Th ey employ powered tooling wherever possible: plate planers, drillers, punchers, and rollers that accommodate sheets over 20 feet long, as well as overhead cranes, hydraulic presses, and power riveters. Notwithstanding these tools, the work remains notably labor-intensive, and the firm must rigorously subdivide tasks to stay on schedule. Each stage has its own specialists: markers, drillers, rollers, flangers, riveters, chippers, and caulkers, many requiring helpers. W orking in small groups that are paid piecework rates, the men hurry from plate to plate and machine to machine. The work is rushed but cannot be slapdash. Boilers under pressure are notoriously lethal, and Baldwin's customers often send inspectors into the plant to ensure that construction o f their orders complies with railroad standards. The boiler shops are not as noisy as one would think. Huge hydraulic ' presses do most o f the flanging w ork-- making steam domes, for in sta n c e while much o f the riveting is accomplished by large hydraulic riveters rather than the brute-force hammering o f the past. W hile the boilermakers shear, roll, punch, flange, press, and rivet steel sheets as i f they were paper, over five thousand machinists turn to precision machining operations. Baldwin's machine shops are scattered across seven city blocks, with the two major shops on Broad Street occupying four- and sixstory buildings. Since the machinists must await the products o f the foundries and smith shops, today they are working on orders in weeks six and seven o f the production schedule. Machining work runs the gamut from crankpins PREFACE XIII the size of a fo earm to driving wheels 6V2 feet in diameter to 5-ton cylinder castings. Most of the workers run machine tools driven by electric motors and using the new sigh-speed steel cutting tools. But operations like the final fitting of evlinder heads and journal bearings still call for the old ways: a fine file, a scraper, and practiced eyes and hands. In both hand and machine work, the men must utilise special fixtures, jigs, and templates that, when used with care, help ensure th: r parts are made with sufficient precision to be interchangeable among all engines in a batch order. Railroad inspectors are also intrusive in the machining departments, checking that Baldwin's work meets the railways' standards of precision. The machinists generally labor alone, although thev need the help of crane operators and laborers to set up cylinders for boring or engine frames or planing. Here too the work is paid by the piece and highlv specialized, bu it calls for fine skill and judgment to bore a 10,000-pound evlinder casting on a true axis and to the correct diameters. A machinist's error at this point aid ruin the casting, alreadv the product of countless hours of ianor bv patternmakers, founders, and casting cleaners. 1his hydraulic be .1 riveter greatly speeded boilermaking while improving the quality of work over hand-riveting An overhead crane picked up the boiler [left] and lowered it over the riveter. A boy plat ed the glowing-hot rivets in holes in the seam to be riveted. The hydraulic ram pressed the r.vet against the anvil reaching up inside the boiler, setting the head. Then the crane operato repositioned the boiler for the next hole in the seam. Machine-riveting produced uniform.v tight joints, improving boiler safety. HAGLEY museum and library PREFACE ,\ t-roup of bonne mills, with driving-wheel centers mounted for boring the axle holes and feeing the hubs. 1udping from his attire, the man shown was probably a foreman, not an operator.Workers on these machines used special measuring tools, known as gauges, to bore wheels to the required dimensions it was'skilled but highly specialized work. One look at this shop suggests some of the dangers m loco motive building-the loose plank floor and absence of safety guards on the machines. AL G1A' T O N IU _ r The work of draftsmen, patternmakers, founders, blacksmiths, boilermakers, pipe //j \ * ' ` fiuers' and machinists a11 c nveres ,n the erecting s h o p - a single room filling most of a c tv block on Broad Street, only a short distance front City Hall and the heart of downtown Philadelphia. Erecting occup.es the e ghth week m me production schedule. Today the shop is filled to its capac.ty of sevenn-h L i n e s In previous decades this final stage of construction had been a - . . b h bottleneck to tmprovmg output. But now frames and other machtncu p.tts ,re made with sufficient precision to come together with onh mm.ma ;ll while electric overhead cranes speed the handling of large parts hke boners Tod.iv the Jin iv of thirty-two h im Jre J w t m >" -lie '""P ' V * week average ,o complere a locomo.ive. While all the m * * utvolved in erectingfa great range of -kills and taaks lomc uiadta' -ha. heading are m a d ,,,,, and (me,a. bur d ! ; l i,,su ,a,,,,n naan. ........................ -- "-1 - I '-- naatcr,, p a in , . T.d ir k ,n ' ' ' w i n v ,s,,,, r, die m l M ' fid ` ' " f rar:s and men, a chans n f design, in vam n g srage, ot completion. T he rst stage in ereerna.. generall,' Involves setting up (he cylinders, precisely stl,Sn,nE t.te , machined frames on jacks, and boding rhe cylinders to the dames cm a flaica, arrives from the boiler shop across Buttonwood S.rec, carry in .. b ,ha, .he roo-ron overhead crane silently places on irs frames, knots ot boss men rhen descend npon rhe developing engine, each gronp different rask and proceeding qnicklv from one locomotive .0 the nest-kk ini. erecrors hoi. the boiler m .he cylinder saddle, borlerm rkers place hundreds 0 flues inside rhe boiler shell, each rnbe requiring ten (separate steps tit,hr joint m rhe flue sheers.' Then rhe engme ,s wheeled-pluckecI off I s h W an overhead c a n e and placed on i,s drivmg wheels, which have been laid on, on an adjacent track. . . Now ,, looks like a real locomonve, and rhe pace of consmucrion increases. PREFACE Specialist gangs drill, tap, and mount the remaining boiler Strings, dte boden s S b " water at aoo pounds per squam indt, M b - * Hues and Strings, and the engine is prepamd fo , a lrve steam test. T he m on skilled n u c h in L in the plan t up the connecring ^ valve motion. The bearings ofthese moving pmmmust be preemdy a l^ n rf. so the machinists make Snal ^ u su n en ts with Sles and tempers. cover the boiler with its magnmla insularion and the rime, sted protects the lagging, and a cmne operator lowers the complete panned mb onto L engine. I t e l o a m * is Slled with 180-pound steam 6om a shop b o t o , 7 and a L c h i n is . cauriously opens rite thm nle. W ith the engine jacked up, the main drivers revolve in the air, showing that all is working P * P * After this crucial test, the remaining work is hurried fom ard. Erectors add the brakes, lubricators, air pump, injectors, handrails, cab fittings, running boards, fire grates, ash pan, leading truck, and dozens o f other parts. The engine is nearly finished, and the overhead crane places it on the ready track leading out o f the building. A shop switcher will soon haul the new ^ m o t i v e uptown on the tracks o f the Philadelphia and Reading to Baldwins fimshi g In the early years o f the twentieth century Baldwin's one oft ^ materials and lifted finished engines over those sail building. Two engines stand in the early stages o f erecting. T h e design and buyer cannot be identified, but that shown in the foreground is probably a 2-8-0-type freight locomotive. T h e wheels, cylinders, and frames await the b o ile r -n o t the normal erecting sequence, but procedures were often varied to compensate for delays in parts reaching the erecting shop. N o te how the walls were whitewashed to reflect all the natural light possible, al giannantonio shop at Twenty-sixth Street. There it will join its tender from the Seventeenth Street shops, painters will finish lettering and detailing, and a Baldwin delivery engineer will take charge o f the new locomotive. Under his care it will travel across country to its purchaser. In a mere eight weeks Baldwin's thousands o f workers take a novel design and translate it from words on a specification sheet into drawings and then into a finished mechanism in steel and iron, weighing upwards o f 150 tons and capable o f hauling 6,ooo-ton trains. W hile customers around the globe order uniquely different locomotives, the methods used in production reduce the constant variety and potential chaos to routine and order. During the month o f our imaginary visit, October 1905, more than seven engines rolled from the erecting shop every working day. For the year as a whole Baldwin built 2,250 locomotives in hundreds o f designs for customers around the nation and the world. PREFACE XVII -8-0 freight locomotive for the Danville and Western Wilmid i October t a ires' a; Baldwin's uptown finishing shop. Most engines toi .-\uie.-.,. .'v,.r, ,vcrt d,; livered without power in slow freight trains. Nonetheless, Baldsvir >c: v' ... p , e n o i n c e r s to ensure that the trip went satelv, to set up the cr. .c pur and u iron mu anv lasi-minui <diitmuluL's rhat mipht othcrvs'ise ml up T ; 5; . % o h < ( )N (T RI-.SS T he com nuiw had reduced engine construction to a routine process, but -ha: scarcel- detracted from the aura of mystery surrounding these machines that should .red the world's work. L.ocomotives provided the animated focal point of rai reading, in turn the dominant force behind the economic an `social trans ormations of industrial society.6 From Baldwins seven managing partners to us thousands of laborers, all involved took great pride m creating the leading tec mologv to svmbolize power, speed, and the progress of cvihzauon. Locomotives so fascinated the general public that Baldwin needed admission tickets for visitors, and Baedeker's tourist gu.de cited the factory as a highlv interesting attraction. People"of the nineteenth century had a passionate faith m this technology that conqi ered time, tamed vast distances, and tapped the wealth of conti nents.5To modern eyes theirs was a naively romantic view, hut bare facts suggest how it originated. Baldwin engines climbed Pikes Peak and hauled the Trans Siberian Express. They roamed the American West on the nation's five ma)0r xviii PREFACE Here five new Baldwin engines pose in 1893 on the trades oftheFh.laddph.aandR eadm g just outside the factory. Before going into service they were destined for ^ p la y atthe World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The lead engine, a 4 -4 -0 for the Baltimore and Ohio represented a high point for this standard American-type wheel arrangement, used ^ S 5os. Soon th e rlfte r heavier cars and faster schedules made this type obsolete for Z " l The Pennsylvania Railroad had owned this Baldwin 4-4-0 for less th an r pressed service to haul a spedal train carrying Abraham Lincoln's body westward for burial in Illinois. Thousands o f Americans turned out to see the train as it slowly passed, th engine and cars draped in mourning, railroad museum oe Pennsylvania (pmhc) PREFACE transcontinental lines. A Baldwin took the first train o f the Jaffa and Jerusalem Railroad into Jerusalem, while others ran in England, birthplace o f the railway age. Th ey also played supporting roles in life's human dramas. In 1865 a Baldwin engine decked in black mourning crepe pulled the train carrying the body o f the murdered Lincoln westward toward Springfield. Forty years later a wealthy California eccentric and former goldminer, Death Valley Scotty, paid the Santa Fe to carry him on a record-breaking forty-five-hour dash from Los Angeles to Chicago.9 Like Pony Express relays, a succession o f nineteen engines, seventeen built by Baldwin, propelled the old prospector's special express at lightning speed across the continent while the nation s newspapers chronicled the feat. Pardy because o f such incidents, a highly romantic symbolic burden has attached itself to the steam locomotive from its origins to the present. O f all the icons o f nineteenth-century technology, this machine has exerted the most enduring fascination. T he subject o f Whitman's poetry and Hawthorne's prose, gist for artists from George Inness to Charles Sheeler, and endlessly recorded in thousands o f photographs, steam locomotives still haul an infinite freight o mental im a g e ry -a s totems o f power and speed, as noble animated iron steeds, and as evocations o f a mythic national past o f confidence and simplicity when every boy dreamed o f being an engineer. This book offers an entirely different perspective on the locomotive, however. T he first history o f a major American locomotive builder in the nineteenth cen tury, it seeks to describe how the Baldwin Works sold and made these complex and expensive capital goods. Equally important, it details how the firm's ownermanagers ran such a high-technology company. Baldwin made locomotives for over a century and stood at the top rank o f American industry for sixty years. Beyond the firm's own merit, tracing Baldwin's development provides a new perspective for understanding the era when the forces o f industry, management, skilled labor, and technology first combined to remake the Western worl .