The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone in the early 20th century. The company was for decades the world's largest producer of steam locomotives, but struggled to compete when 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.
The company has no relation to the E.M. Baldwin and Sons of New South Wales, Australia, a builder of small diesel locomotives for sugar cane railroads.
History: 19th century
Beginning
Matthias W. Baldwin, the founder, was a jeweler and whitesmith, who, in 1825, formed a partnership with machinist David H. Mason, and began making bookbinders' tools and cylinders for calico printing. Baldwin then designed and constructed a small stationary steam engine for his own use. This proved so successful and efficient that he was asked to build others like it. The original engine was in use and powered many departments of the works for well over 60 years, and is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
In 1831, Baldwin built a miniature locomotive for exhibition at the request of the Philadelphia Museum, which was such a success that he received an order from a railway company for a locomotive to run on a short line to the suburbs of Philadelphia. The Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A) had already imported their John Bull locomotive from England, and it was stored in Bordentown, New Jersey awaiting assembly when Baldwin inspected it, noting the principal dimensions of the parts...
Without the benefit of modern machine tools the cylinders were bored by a chisel fixed in a block of wood and turned by hand; the workmen had to be taught how to do nearly all the work; and Baldwin did a great deal of it himself. The locomotive Old Ironsides was completed and successfully tested on the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad on November 23, 1832. It worked the line for over 20 years. It weighed a little over five tons with four diameter driving wheels and bore by stroke cylinders. The wheels had heavy cast iron hubs, with wooden spokes and rims and wrought iron tires, and the outside frame was made of wood. The diameter boiler took 20 minutes to raise steam. Top speed was .
Early years Baldwin struggled to survive the Panic of 1837. Production fell from 40 locomotives in 1837 to just nine in 1840 and the company was heavily in debt.. As part of the survival strategy, Matthias Baldwin took on two partners, George Vail and George Hufty. Although the partnerships proved relatively short-lived, they helped Baldwin pull through the economic hard times.
Zerah Colburn was one of many engineers who had a close association with Baldwin Locomotive Works. Between 1854 (and the start of his weekly paper, the Railroad Advocate) and 1861, when Colburn went to work more or less permanently in London, England, the journalist was in frequent touch with M. W. Baldwin, as recorded in Zerah Colburn: The Spirit of Darkness. Colburn was full of praise for the quality of Baldwin's work.
In the 1850s, railroad building became a national obsession,. with many new carriers starting up, particularly in the Midwest and South. While this helped drive up demand for Baldwin products, it also increased competition as more companies entered the locomotive production field.
Still, Baldwin had trouble keeping pace with orders and in the early 1850s began paying workers piece-rate pay.. By 1857, the company turned out 66 locomotives and employed 600 men. But another economic downturn, this time the Panic of 1857, cut into business again. Output fell by 50 percent in 1858..
1860–1899 The Civil War at first appeared disastrous for Baldwin. According to John K. Brown in The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831–1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice, at the start of the conflict Baldwin had a great dependence on Southern railways as its primary market. In 1860, nearly 80 percent of Baldwin's output went to carriers in states that would soon secede from the Union.. As a result, Baldwin's production in 1861 fell more than 50 percent compared to the previous year. However, the loss in Southern sales was counterbalanced by purchases by the United States Military Railroads and the Pennsylvania Railroad, which saw its traffic soar, as Baldwin produced more than 100 engines for carriers during the 1861–1865 war.
By the time Matthias Baldwin died in 1866, his company was vying with Rogers Locomotive & Machine Works for the top spot among locomotive producers.. By 1870 Baldwin had taken the lead and a decade later, it was producing 2 times as many engines as its nearest competitor, according to the U.S. Manufacturing Census..
In 1897 the Baldwin Locomotive Works was presented as one of the examples of successful shop management in a series of articles by Horace Lucian Arnold.Horace Lucian Arnold (Henry Roland). "Six examples of successful shop management. IV. Pre-Eminent Success of the Differential Piece Rate System" Engineering Magazine 12. 1897. p. 831-37. The article specifically described the Piece Rate System used in the shop management.
Burton (1899) commented, that "in the Baldwin Locomotive Works... piecework rates are seldom altered... Some rates have remained unchanged for the past twenty years, and a workman is there more highly esteemed when he can, by his own exertions and ability, increase his weekly earnings. He has an absolute incentive to increase his output as much as he possibly can, because he knows that he will not, by increasing his own income, lead to cutting piece-work rates, and so be forced to make still further exertions in order to maintain the same weekly wage."* Francis George Burton. The Commercial Management of Engineering Works. (1899). p. 148.
History: 20th century
Initially, Baldwin built many more steam locomotives at its cramped Broad Street Philadelphia shop but would begin an incremental shift in production to a site located at Spring Street in nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in 1906. Broad Street was constricted, but even so, it was a huge complex, occupying the better part of 8 square city blocks from Broad to 18th Streets and Spring Garden Street to the Reading tracks just past Noble Street. Eddystone had a capacity of well over 3000 locomotives per year. The move from Broad Street was completed in the late 1920s.
Gilded age
The American railroad industry expanded significantly between 1898 and 1907, with domestic demand for locomotives hitting its highest point in 1905.. Baldwin's business boomed during this period while it modernized its Broad Street facilities. Despite this boom, Baldwin faced many challenges, including the constraints of space in the Philadelphia facility, inflation, increased labor costs, Labor tensions, the substantial increase in the size of the locomotives being manufactured, and the formation of the American Locomotive Company, an aggressive competitor which eventually became known simply as Alco..
From 1904 to 1943, Baldwin and Westinghouse marketed Baldwin-Westinghouse electric locomotives and A.C. electrification of railroads, particularly to the New Haven Railroad.
In 1906 the Hepburn Act authorized greater governmental authority over railroad companies, and revitalized the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which stepped up its activities. The ICC was given the power to set maximum railroad rates, and to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, as defined by the ICC.
The limitation on railroad rates depreciated the value of railroad securities, and meant that railroads stopped ordering new equipment, including locomotives. The Panic of 1907 in turn disrupted finance and investment in new plants. Both of these events had a direct negative effect on the railroad industry, especially the locomotive builders. .
Baldwin's locomotive output dropped from 2,666 in 1906 to 614 in 1908. The company cut its workforce from 18,499 workers in 1907 to 4,600 the following year.. Baldwin's business was further imperiled when William P. Henszey, one of Baldwin's partners, died. His death left Baldwin with a US$6 million liability. In response, Baldwin incorporated and released US$10 million worth of bonds. Samuel Vauclain wanted to use these funds to expand Baldwin's capacities so it would be prepared for another boom. While other Baldwin officers opposed this expansion, Vauclain's vision won out; Baldwin would continue to expand its Eddystone plant until its completion in 1928. By 1928, the company moved all locomotive production to this location, though the plant would never exceed more than one-third of its production capacity..
World War I Baldwin was an important contributor to the Allied war effort in World War I. Baldwin built 5,551 locomotives for the Allies including separate designs for Russian, French, British and United States trench railways. Baldwin built railway gun carriages for the United States Navy and manufactured 6,565,355 artillery shells for Russia, Great Britain and the United States. From 1915 to 1918, Remington Arms subcontracted the production of nearly 2 million Pattern 1914 Enfield and M1917 Enfield rifles to the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Baldwin expanded its Eddystone, Pennsylvania works into the Eddystone Arsenal, which manufactured most of these rifles and artillery shells before being converted to locomotive shops when the war ended..
Following the war Baldwin continued to supply export orders, as the European powers strove to replace large numbers of locomotives either worn out or destroyed during the war, as European locomotive factories were still re-tooling from armaments production back to railroad production. In 1919 and 1920 Baldwin supplied 50 4-6-0 locomotives to the Palestine Military Railway that became the Palestine Railways H class..
Decline