Locomotive ID help!

USS ALASKA

Captain
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
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Can anyone ID this locomotive and configuration? Is this a factory yard engine given the B.L.W. on the side?

Thanks for the help!
USS ALASKA
 
Any special why the piston is on a raised angle?
As the loco has the leading powered bogie right forward, the cylinders have to be raised for clearance.
Somewhere and maybe DaveBrt has the same plan, I have a drawing of a climax with the cylinders in front of the cab. Very odd as the steam is supplied from a dome just in front of the firebox where you would expect the safety valves to be. I don't know whether it was built or just a proposal. I'll try and dig it put.
I find these geared engines fascinating.
 
Baldwin, operating from its Broad Street plant in Philly, and later in Eddystone, Pa. outside the city, would and did make any kind of locomotive a purchaser wanted, whether US or foreign. Google Baldwin locomotives and you will see some strange stuff, but all of it well made. I have always found it amazing that so much of what they made is still around and still working. There is a short line operating in South Jersey about 20 miles from the Eddystone Plant still using Baldwin locomotives from the first generation of diesels circa 1950. Baldwin made such good steam locomotives that it made the jump to diesel too late to survive the transition after WW II but the first generation diesels they did make were worthy of the Baldwin tradition. powerful, dependable, built by craftsmen proud of their skills. Unfortunately they could not make enough of them to get the major orders from the big railroads who wanted a uniformity to keep down maintenance costs and the orders dried up. Too bad. If you are lucky enough to be near one when the engineer starts the engine you will recall it forever.
 
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Geometry would be my guess - shorten the wheelbase.
Makes sense to me, one of my motorcycles is an in-line twin but the cylinders are at the same angle as a v twin which makes the carbs sit at an unusual angle, the reason being, the bike was designed to race through the desert, lots of steep climbs and descents, a bit like the pistons on that loco.
 
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