Jeff, On the PRR as a brakeman I rode in the cabs of EMD switchers GP7/9s and SD7/9s… The best riders was the SDs… We hated Alcos because of their road failure rate. The FM H24-66 would wear your legs out riding the steps while the FM10-44s was much better. On the Chessie(C&O) I rode EMDs and GEs and like most C&O men I would rather have GP9 as motive power. They was old but,still got the job done. I also like the GP38 and GP40/40-2s.
On the PRR those former old head steam engineers would work 'em for all they was worth. I’m sure that would have cause EMD’s and PRR’s mechanical departments to eat Tums by the pound.
This is basically it. It’s far more efficient to standardize with a single manufacturer. A second competing source is important to keep a cap on prices and maintain quality as was seen historically with first EMD and ALCo and then EMD and GE. EMD and ALCo got that initial lead due to WWII production restrictions and regulation of what products each builder could manufacture. It is my understanding that during the initial post-war (WWII) dieselization boom EMD was maxed out on production capacity which is what led some railroads to give Baldwin and FM a try; that and existing business relationships with the legacy builders. We see the same processes happening in all business fields a couple of the most high profile being the aviation and automobile businesses.
Baldwin was notorious for continuing the steam-locomotive mentality on ‘custom building’ - each individual locomotive had its own manuals, and support, and included any running changes in equipment and specifications. One thing this meant was that ‘resale’ of the unit (for instance following default on an equipment trust) would not involve the standardization inherent in a particular EMD model … to say nothing of the possible special support and parts that might be involved.
Baldwin also had trouble with detail design – many of their lubrication connections were made with hoses, not hardlines, and they were fond of running electrical cabling in channels under the floor that were virtual magnets for coolant, oil, and fuel leaks… I remember a story about a NYC crew on one of the babyface units that stopped on a bridge to fish … and could hear the drip, drip, drip of various fluid leaks down into the water. I remember being particularly struck by the water-pump drive of one of the PRSL RS-12s – about 20 little V fan-belts in parallel on enormous multiply-grooved pulleys…
In addition, Baldwin tried to maintain the large, low-speed, reliable tugboat-engine school of motive power far too long, thinking it a competitive advantage over thin lightweight two-stroke power. This was in part a reaction from the very revolutionary Essl design of the late Thirties, which was 6000hp out of eight axles in a comparatively short high-speed chassis, modular by 750hp increments while running (!) – that wound up being uncompetitive on cost, and Baldwin did not continue the multiple-small-genset approach. There was no particular high-end enhancement possible with the 606/8 engine family, as there proved to be with the Cooper-Bessemer ‘articulated-rod’ design after the Fifties) so Baldwin would have been badly behind the eight-ball in the second-generation high-horsepower market even if they had 'sco