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OF A HEAVY-DUTY SWITCH- ING ROAD TO DIESEL POWER By M. G. STEVENS Superintendent of Motive Power and Equipment, Union Railroad Company
Company, East Pittsburgh, Pa., received seven 1,500-hp Baldwin diesel-electric locomotives. With this step the road reached the exact half-way mark in its program of complete conversion to diesel power. Since then the Union has continued toward dieselization. In September, we received and put five more Baldwin road switchers of this type into service. The Union Railroad is in several respects a unique carrier. It has unusual problems in its op- eration, and has had unusual problems to meet |
in its conversion program. It is possible, therefore, that the reader of BALDWIN may find something of value and interest in an account of why and how we are carrying out this program. Although we are a common carrier and carry a great diversity of products, excluding passen- gers, the basic job of the Union Railroad is to supply the materials that are needed to run steel mills. We service a half-dozen Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation mills which lie in the Monon- gahela River Valley above Pittsburgh, in Alle- gheny County. We've been in business since July 2, 1894 and have grown steadily since then. The road has a total of 46 miles of main track, 208 miles of yard and switching tracks, and 1,455 turnouts along the line. Our longest single haul is 15 miles. We own about 150 locomotives and 5,000 freight cars. We employ 4,000 persons. We interchange with six other railroads. We are sometimes known as "The Railroad in the Sky" because of the 86 bridges along our route. |
