Baldwin AS-616

Here are a few shots of my Baldwin AS-616, acquired in Omaha on March 22, 2003. I got this cheap ($15.00) mostly to take it apart for its rare trucks... But I'm starting to like the thing more (it figures- I find one and it came painted in the colors of one of my favorite railroads...). Bashed up as it is, I may refurbish it instead of scrapping it. As you'll be able to see in these phots, she needs a bit of work. There are some pieces missing (brake rigging and cylinders on the trucks, and the fireman's side handrail) and the paint on the handrails that remain is chipped, but these are issues that can be dealt with if need be...

as616-1.jpg, a view of the fireman's side. The front of the locomotive is to the right. Note the dots just below the red stripe on the hood- that's where the handrail should be mounted. The bulge below the exhaust stack is for the turbocharger.
as616-2.jpg, another view of the fireman's side.
as616-3.jpg, showing the engineer's side. No bulge on this side. The front of the locomotive is now to the left- note the bell on the end of the hood. The handrail on this side is still (mostly) in place but the paint shows wear.
as616truck.jpg, a closeup of that ever-so-rare Commonwealth six-wheel, three-motor truck. Missing some detail parts.

As for the real thing... These were 1600-horsepower (hence the '16' in '616') heavy-duty locomotives introduced by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1950. Unfortunately, Baldwin equipment had some reliability issues and didn't last very long. To give you some idea of how unreliable these things could be, quite a few of these things were later rebuilt with completely new engines from General Motors, which had its own line of locomotives out at the time (and still does today). But worse than that, a number of these Baldwin units had their machinery replaced with ALCO (American Locomotive Co- like Baldwin, a major builder of steam locomotives that tried to make its way into the diesel world) equipment. ALCO left the diesel locomotive market around 1969 amid falling marketshare and continuing reliability problems with their own equipment. The fact that ALCO gear was considered an improvement over Baldwin is rather telling, given how many ALCO locos themselves got re-powered with General Motors engines. Production of the AS-616 ended in 1954; Baldwin left the locomotive market in 1956.