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Baldwin 50hp Gas Mechanicaql Question

baldwin

Cast Iron
Joined
Dec 19, 2009
Location
South Yorkshire, England.
For many years I've been working on a model of the loco in the title in 7.25" gauge. I'm in Yorkshire England.

The cab is largely complete and I have just sent off drawings to a laser cutter for the engine cover frame parts.

I have started to wonder about the electrical switch box which is mounted to the front of the cab above the brake hand wheel. Unfortunately the French museum loco I am using as a basis to model has lost this feature in the last 102 years.

I have an excellent American book, "Narrow Gauge to No Man's Land" which does have some pictures and information. The picture of the cab, which I can't reproduce here due to copyright issues, is reproduced from the contemporary "Baldwin Locomotive Works - Instructions for Operating Gasoline Locomotives, Class 4-50-1-C". The picture is poor due to being reproduced from previously screened images on paper, probably more than once.

The box is labelled with arrows drawn from a list at one side, but the terminology has defeated me.

Can someone explain what would have been meant by:-

  • "Plug Switch"
  • "Ignition Control" The engine had a magneto and separate spark advance/retard, so perhaps an ignition kill switch?
  • "Battery Switch"


The engines has an electric starter with a push button starter switch on the cover by the side-saddle driver's right knee.
It is possible to distinguish LIGHTS at the top left of the box with two switches for the front and rear headlights, to the right of this is possibly HORN, but that is very blurred.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated
Steve Addy
 
Says its gas mechanical drive .....ie clutch and gearbox ,so the prototype would have ignition controll (advance retard) of the magneto,and by the looks of the model a 3 speed gearbox ,with separate forward /reverse controll......as was common in shunting and industrial of the 1915 period.............The model has hydroststic drive option ,as is very common now with all kinds of small mobile machines .....and lots of larger ones too.
 
For many years I've been working on a model of the loco in the title in 7.25" gauge. I'm in Yorkshire England.

The cab is largely complete and I have just sent off drawings to a laser cutter for the engine cover frame parts.

I have started to wonder about the electrical switch box which is mounted to the front of the cab above the brake hand wheel. Unfortunately the French museum loco I am using as a basis to model has lost this feature in the last 102 years.

I have an excellent American book, "Narrow Gauge to No Man's Land" which does have some pictures and information. The picture of the cab, which I can't reproduce here due to copyright issues, is reproduced from the contemporary "Baldwin Locomotive Works - Instructions for Operating Gasoline Locomotives, Class 4-50-1-C". The picture is poor due to being reproduced from previously screened images on paper, probably more than once.

The box is labelled with arrows drawn from a list at one side, but the terminology has defeated me.

Can someone explain what would have been meant by:-

  • "Plug Switch"
  • "Ignition Control" The engine had a magneto and separate spark advance/retard, so perhaps an ignition kill switch?
  • "Battery Switch"


The engines has an electric starter with a push button starter switch on the cover by the side-saddle driver's right knee.
It is possible to distinguish LIGHTS at the top left of the box with two switches for the front and rear headlights, to the right of this is possibly HORN, but that is very blurred.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated
Steve Addy


What kind of "copyright issues" could there be for something produced 103 years ago by a company that has been out of business for 48 years?
 
Thanks for the responses so far.

The locos were built for service in WW1 a hundred or so years ago. My avatar is a picture of the one preserved in Northern France

They had a four cylinder gasoline engine driving a gearbox through a cone clutch. The gearbox had two speeds, plus a forward/neutral/reverse lever.

Ignition was by magneto and the control for advance and retard was on the same quadrant control as the carburetor throttle to the right of electric box on top of what would be the firebox in a steam loco. This is visible in the picture of the model above by the brake hand wheel.

The copyright is in the Narrow Gauge book by Richard Dunn, my edition is dated 2009. I know the company produced the last loco about the time I was born and went out of business in 1972.

Having done some further searching of the internet, a plug switch could be a switch where the gap in the conductors was bridged by a plug type device with an insulated handle. Perhaps this functioned as a main isolator or "ignition key" in more modern parlance.

My model is a one-off and unrelated to those made commercially in the US. In fact I was unaware of them until the frame were quite advanced.
I intend to drive mine through and Eaton hydrostat and reduction gearbox using a fly by wire system so the loco behaves as if it has a mechanical gearbox, with the speed being controlled by the cab mounted throttle. The engine will automatically come up to governed revs when either gear lever is taken from neutral, but the loco will remain stationary until the "throttle" is opened. Before anyone asks, yes the system has a watchdog in the hardware.

Kind regards
Steve
 
Magneto systems in that era were not deemed reliable enough for starting due to slow cranking speeds of the engine....
Perhaps the system was fitted with a battery over magneto setup, where a battery and coil were used for starting , and then the engine was run using the magneto
once started.....hence the "battery" switch...

Cheers Ross
 
Dunno about the magneto being ineffective.......The Bosch Magneto was fully developed by 1915,and In fact Robert Bosch had built a huge new factory in New Jersey to be his world headquarters........Unfortunately for him ,on the declaration of war by the US in 1917 ,the whole lot was confiscated ,as he was an enemy alien........The Yanks even stole his funny face Red Devil Bosch trademark ,and Bosch has had to make do with a sort of rivet trademark ever since .
 
Bosch "Dual Spark" magnetos date from before the war. Was to aide in starting.
Not uncommon on cars in this era....Industrial (farm) engines used the simpler impulse system to wind up and trigger the magneto to get enough shuttle speed to fire the magneto...simpler and no battery required.
Impulse systems were not favored by higher speed applications (motor cars) and hence the dual setup .
Had a selector switch allowing running on either battery or magneto or both.....Switch often was part of the coil (see photo)
Selector included a scheme to short the magneto when it was not in use to prevent electrical damage to the rather fragile shuttle winding's....

Bosch Dual Ignition Coil Manual

Cheers Ross
 
Bosch has had to make do with a sort of rivet trademark ever since .

John,

Not sure if you are just kidding - the famous logo is the cross-section of a magneto armature inside its housing.

The creation of the Bosch logo | Bosch Global

Ross,
You probably know.... but a common "mag" on single cylinder stationary engines was a "trip magneto". More simple than an impulse (and probably pre-dates it). I have a couple of engines with trip mags (1914, 1917), they give a good spark when starting, in fact the same as when running.

bosch4.jpg
 
THanks for the Comments - Progress at last

Thanks again for all the comments, the loco has progressed a bit since the summer due to not being able to play elsewhere.
Today I found this article which answers the question about the plug switch. The link looks crazy but should work. I intend to make one at some point in the future.
MARCH 29 1902. A MOTOR SLED. A NEW WATER-LEVEL REGULATOR FOR STEAM BOILERS. THE CURTIS WATER-LEVEL REGULATOR—GENERAL VIEW AND CROSS SECTION. AUTOMOBILE NOVELTIES. BATTERY-TESTING VOLTMETER. PLUG SWITCH FOR IGNITION CIRCUIT. THE REASON AUTOMATIC AIR PUMP FOR STEAM CARRIAGES., scientific american, 1902-03-29 Stock Photo - Alamy
 
Baldwin:

In the era the gas-mechanical lokey you are researching/modelling was built, gasoline engines had some 'interesting' design features. Notably, a lot of the larger engines, including some stationary engines I've seen, had dual ignitions. These systems consisted to two independent ignition systems and had two sets of spark plugs. One system used a 'vibrator coil' (as used on Model T ignitions) with batteries and a 'timer' or what we now call a distributor. The other system used a magneto.

The coil/battery system was supposed to throw a 'shower of sparks' when starting the engine and made for a better chance of starting. If you were relying on hand cranking, or, on the larger engines, heaving or putting a bar into the flywheel, you wanted a good hot spark. Once running, to avoid pulling down the batteries (often, these were the round 1 1/2 volt dry batteries that were sometimes called 'door bell batteries', non rechargable), you switched to magneto ignition.

A lot of the early vehicle and industrial gasoline engines were made 'headless'. These engines used a 'side valve' design, with pipe plugs located above each valve.
The sparkplugs were huge by today's standards and were often made to be disassembled for cleaning. A priming petcock was located on the top of each cylinder casting, near the sparkplug tappings. By manually turning the engine so number 1 cylinder was lined up a little past top dead center compression, dribbling some raw gas (or 'starting ether' in cold weather) into the priming petcocks, and hitting the 'buzz coil' switch, the engines sometimes kicked off on their own.

At one of the NYC watershed 'gate houses; ' ( a stone masonry building with large valves to control the flow of water from an upstate reservoir into one of the aqueducts), there was an original ca 1915 GE 'Gasolene' engine driving a DC generator. This unit was used to provide DC power to work the motors operating the big valves and sluice gates until the 'house turbines' (two hydro turbines with DC generators) could be started. You needed DC power to run the oil pump for the governors on the house turbines, and while you could theoretically black start them manually, it was easier and quicker to have the 'Gasolene' engine and generator for black starts. This engine had a large flywheel with spokes, and had three cylinders with dual sparkplugs. It had the dual ignition feature. Older plant operators there told me about the starting method and the dual ignitions. Unfortunately, some brains in the NYC watershed administration down in NYC decided all that old machinery had to go. They also determined it had some asbestos in the generator insulation, so treated all of it as Hazmat and would not allow any of us to get even the brass nameplates from the dumpsters.

Years ago, people worked around machinery in ways that would never be allowed today. Starting a gasoline engine by hand crank poses some risk, but on the heavier engines, using a bar to heave the flywheel (as on some of the early Caterpillar tractors), or simply heaving the flywheels is even riskier. Consider the application of the engine and the times: a narrow gauge locomotive with space or access to the engine restricted by the enclosure around it, in the era before 'self starters' were in common use. Admittedly, a Bosch magneto DOES throw a very hot spark... but... you have to crank the engine over to get the mag to throw that spark. Using a 'buzz coil' and dry batteries to get the 'shower of sparks' for starting the engine could make starting that much easier, and with a little skill, could make an engine almost 'self starting'.

Your Baldwin trench locomotive project sounds quite ambitious, particularly trying to find details of something that is not so well known nor well documented. I wonder which engine manufacturer Baldwin used to provide the gasoline engine ? Back at that point in time, engines for trucks and industrial use often had 'cylinders cast in pairs' which were bolted to a crankcase casting. Mack Truck was building their AC series trucks during WWI, the 'slope nosed' truck that got the Bulldog name. Those old AC Macks had an aluminum crankcase casting with iron cylinders, cast in pairs, of the headless design. During the time Mack was building the AC series trucks, the driveline and hood units were used to build small shunting locomotives. These were also gasoline mechanical. I do not think any served in WWI. For Baldwin to build a narrow gauge gasoline-mechanical engine during WWI was quite a change for them as they were almost exclusively building steam locomotives. At some point, Baldwin did absorb a smaller locomotive builder called "Whitcomb". Whitcomb was a builder of I/C engined locomotives and survived into the 1950's. I wonder if your project locomotive was not a Whitcomb design that Baldwin used. I've seen a few Whitcomb locomotives, but these were all diesel electric, some using Buda diesels.
 
Thanks Peter, yes that is the switch I was trying to link to. I've ended up designing one to hide a micro switch. Just needs the plate bits making and the assembly silver soldering together.
I've been following Terry for years,really enjoyed his thread.

Steve
 
Thanks Joe

I appreciate the time you've taken for me.

The loco had a Pittsburgh gasoline engine, separate cylinders with side valves driving a two speed, forward and reverse bevel box through a cone clutch. It had a magneto which is missing from the one in France - my source of information. I know it had electric and hand starting, but don't know it it had two ignition systems. Thankfully I'm not modeling the engine.

I have been in touch with the Feldbahn Museum in Frankfurt. They did a swap as the French had two of these engines. The German one is now in running order. Picture here: - Oktober 2016 – Frankfurter Feldbahnmuseum e.V.

They are going to photograph the dashboard for me.

Steve
 








 
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