Fairbanks-Mors "Trainmasters"

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I have always been a fan of FM’s “Trainmaster.” I was wondering if any have been preserved. If so are there any plans to restore one to operation?

I’ve also wondered what things could have been if FM’s design had been more successfull and what they could have done with today’s technology i.e. AC traction and microproccessor controlls.

2

Norfolk & Western was going to save one of their ex-Virginian TMs, but the locomotive wound up being converted into a slug. Canadian Pacific saved one of their TMs, and even a C-Line cab unit.

3

The killer for FM locomotives was the FM diesel engine - and there wasn’t much that could be done about it. A fairly common repair to a locomotive is the replacement of a power assembly (piston, liner, head, rod). On an EMD, GE and Alco, you basically just unbolt one, slide it up and slide in a new one. On an FM, you have to remove the top crankshaft first - a huge and expensive complicaton. This cost does not outweigh the benefit of having no cylinder heads.

4

Yet Fairbanks-Morse engines are some of the best marine diesels out there. The advantage of the marine enviroment is the fact that there is no lack of coolant at a low temp out there. In railroad service the probelm is how efficent the radiators are and how warm the air is the FM engine had trouble adapting to that enviroment. One other point the FM engine is designed for long runs at high power.

5

THe FM engine was a type called Opposed Piston, the cylinders shared two pistons each, the combustion chamber was at the point of top dead center for both pistons in the cylinder…It had great favor at the time in marine applications, but was a liability for locomotives when there was a mechanical screwup…The whole engine practically, had to be dis assembled to get to the damaged cylinder(s)…They had a mostly trouble free operation, except any problem was major, or at the least time consuming…

6

Perhaps, had FM been a diesel-electric locomotive pioneer (that is, producing diesels earlier than anyone else), they could have built up enough of a market for their product for the locomotive production to survive. They were a pioneer with the H-24-66 Trainmaster, as no other builder had a single-engine locomotive that could match that horsepower! Instead, they became an also-ran, due in part to a few different factors:

  1. Their choice of Westinghouse as the preferred supplier of electrical gear. When Westinghouse got out of that business, it left a few builders that may have otherwise survived without the loss of an electrical supplier. Even the alternative, GE, came out with their own locomotive line a few years later!
  2. Some corporate turbulence cost FM a few orders. IC was planning a decent order of H-24-66s, until they heard about those problems and ordered their diesels from elsewhere. FM was right near the north end of IC’s operating territory.
  3. The market, at the time, was well due for a change. Although in steam days, there were many builders, a lot of them consolidated at one time or another. The same was true with the diesel builders, although on a lesser scale. And today we have only two major locomotive builders! In FM’s locomotive-building days, Alco was still a formidable builder holding over from steam days, while EMD was the innovator and usually at a lower price, with maintenance being very simple. Eventually it got to the point that most railroads only wanted to deal with, and keep parts for, one or maybe two builders, so that left the minority builders – FM, Baldwin, Lima, even Alco after GE’s maturing into the locomotive business – out of luck.

I always liked those Trainmasters myself – too bad they didn’t last…

-Mark
www.fuzzyworld3.com