Nostalgia & History > Almost 80 years ago - EMC's First Switcher

I received this photo, dated May 20, 1936, over 10 years ago from the son of Martin Blomberg, designer of the EMC/EMD four-wheel freight truck, as well as numerous other EMC/EMD components.

On September 1, 1935, Martin P. Blomberg started at EMC. His work as a design engineer included designing locomotive wheel assemblies, known as "trucks." Blomberg was responsible from the beginning for the construction of carbody, underframe, and trucks. In 1939 he developed the four-wheel truck for the new FT freight diesel locomotive. This truck and/or derivatives of it were built as part of over 15,000 locomotives by General Motors. Blomberg held altogether over 100 patents, including 32 at EMC/EMD alone. In 1947 he became a leading engineer under the chief engineer of EMD.

Locomotive historians have taken to using the designer name to describe locomotive trucks. However, back in 2007 a former EMD employee wrote, "Call it a Blomberg truck at EMD and most engineers would not know what you're talking about. There were two versions of the GP swinghanger truck to EMD - the GP single shoe and the GP clasp brake truck. Anything else is just a modification of one of the those. Americast (formerly Atchison, Rockwell, and LFM) calls it the Freight truck. If railfans insist on naming trucks after their designers, then the HTC should be the Mels truck, the SD Flexicoil the Sundby truck, the HTB the Garg truck, and the GE Steerable truck the McGrew truck . You'd also have to name a truck for me."

Don Strack



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/16 14:12 by donstrack.

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I doubt anyone there had any idea how successful that company would later become.

That is some good background information on EMD locomotive trucks right from the source.  I recall reading that Blomberg also designed the famous A-1-A truck used under the E units. 

TonyJ Wrote:
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> I doubt anyone there had any idea how successful
> that company would later become.

Their first secretary quit because she thought it was a fly-by-night operation.

TAW

interesting and i wonder what the Nazi's were thinking they must have known of this

 the date is of importance, they would have been developing diesel engines at the same time but for passenger trains multiple unit like the flying hamburger

i am not sure if they were going the same  way for freight locomotives or passenger locomotives...  they were building thousands of steam locomotives for general service



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/16 18:08 by bakersfielddave.

donstrack Wrote:
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> There were two versions of the GP
> swinghanger truck to EMD - the GP single shoe and
> the GP clasp brake truck.

I've wondered if "clasp brake" is/was even a a standard EMD term.  I've heard or seen written somewhere, from an "official" EMD source, the terms of "single shoe" and "two shoe". (?)

Mark

Correct me if I am wrong but clasp or two shoe brakes were steel brakes whereas single brake was a composition shoe.

tomstp Wrote:
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> Correct me if I am wrong but clasp or two shoe
> brakes were steel brakes whereas single brake was
> a composition shoe.

Not steel brake shoes, cast iron. Steel would be way too hard!

You probably know this, and there isn't enough space in the subject line to spell out all the qualifiers, but the significance of the locomotive in the photo is that it was the first EMC switcher built at La Grange.  The plant was brand new, and the workforce was posing for a photo with the first locomotive off the line (which became Santa Fe's fourth diesel locomotive, SC #2301, later 2150).  There were earlier EMC-design switchers like DL&W "pre-SC" 426 that were assembled under contract elsewhere (GE-Erie in the case of 426), the last gasp of the early fly-by-night days when Electro-Motive was just an office in Cleveland and all the actual construction was done by subcontractors.

By the way, did that former EMD employee have anything to say regarding the official-and-approved name for the trucks under the switcher in the photo?   You can't see them, but they were the typical switcher truck used under just about every EMD switcher from the production SC up to the SW1200 as well as most later Alco, Baldwin, FM, and Lima switchers.  In railfan circles it has generally been known as the "AAR Type-A" or just the "Type-A switcher truck," but both those names generally elicit sneers (but no approved alternatives) from those who "know better."

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> By the way, did that former EMD employee have
> anything to say regarding the
> official-and-approved name for the trucks under
> the switcher in the photo?   You can't see them,
> but they were the typical switcher truck used
> under just about every EMD switcher from the
> production SC up to the SW1200 as well as most
> later Alco, Baldwin, FM, and Lima switchers.  In
> railfan circles it has generally been known as the
> "AAR Type-A" or just the "Type-A switcher truck,"
> but both those names generally elicit sneers (but
> no approved alternatives) from those who "know
> better."

In his book about Alco, John Kirkland discussed this at length. I have captured his words on this web page.

http://utahrails.net/loconotes/loconotes-trucks.php#typeAandB

Kirkland wrote three books about the locomotives builders. One about Fairbanks-Morse and Lima (Vol. 1, 1985), one about Alco (Vol. 2, 1989), and a third about Baldwin (Vol. 3, 1994). His first book was "Dawn of the Diesel Age," published in 1983, about the early years of the diesel locomotive. Kirkland was a long time Baldwin employee, starting in 1940 and retiring in 1970 as Regional Manager with his office in San Francisco. His books are slightly biased toward Baldwin, but they remain excellent histories of all four builders. He was working on histories of both General Electric and EMD, but failing health forced him to set those projects aside. He passed away in 2000, at age 95.

Don Strack

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> By the way, did that former EMD employee have
> anything to say regarding the
> official-and-approved name for the trucks under
> the switcher in the photo?   You can't see them,
> but they were the typical switcher truck used
> under just about every EMD switcher from the
> production SC up to the SW1200 as well as most
> later Alco, Baldwin, FM, and Lima switchers.  In
> railfan circles it has generally been known as the
> "AAR Type-A" or just the "Type-A switcher truck,"
> but both those names generally elicit sneers (but
> no approved alternatives) from those who "know
> better."

Evan,

I am that now retired former EMD employe (for some unknown reason, GM always spelled employee with only 2 e's). The EMD truck used on switchers was known at EMD as the "switcher truck", even M.I.1501"Locomotive Swing Hanger and Switcher Truck Assemblies Equipped with Clasp Brakes" (Maintenance Instruction) calls it that. FWIW, that single maintenance instruction, probably written in the 1940's, covered both GP and E trucks as well as the switcher truck. It was also called the "rigid switcher truck" internally (since it had no secondary suspension) to distinguish it from the Flexicoil truck used on some later switchers, which is the "flexible switcher truck".

I started my EMD career in 1968 as an engineering co-op student eventually spending the most of my time in the truck design area - my first truck design is the HTCR and most recently, the HTCR-6 for the Tier 4 locos and the GBB four axle span bolster truck used on the SD70ACe-BB's in Brazil. During my first retirement from EMD 2005-2010, I designed the 2-axle bolsterless MP1114 truck for MotivePower that was used on the HSP-46 locos for MBTA and also worked for a couple of years for ASF in Granite City doing freight car truck work. I am quite proud to be able to say I have designed production 2, 3, and 4 axle locomotive trucks and certainly look up to Martin Blomberg as an inspiration. Some day I'll get around to scanning and posting some of my photos taken during development of the HTCR truck at TTCI, Raton Pass, and UP's Reno Branch.

Dave Goding