The Baldwin VO-1000 is a diesel-electric switcher locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works between January 1939 and December 1946. These units were powered by a naturally aspirated eight-cylinder diesel engine rated at 1,000 horsepower (746 kW), and rode on a pair of two-axle trucks in a B-B wheel arrangement. These were either the AAR Type-A switcher trucks, or the Batz truck originally developed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as a leading truck for steam locomotives.
In the early 1960s the Reading Company sent 14 of their VO-1000s to General Motors Electro-Motive Division to have them rebuilt to SW900 specifications. These locomotives retained most of their original carbodies, and were subsequently given the designation VO-1000m.
Around the same time, the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway repowered its VO1000s with turbocharged 606SC Baldwin engines taken from its EMD-repowered fleet of Baldwin DT-6-6-2000 locomotives. The work was performed at EJ&E's Joliet, Illinois workshops, and produced a finished unit that featured an offset exhaust stack and left-side turbocharger bulge, the latter being much like that found on Baldwin road switchers.
There are at least eight intact examples of the VO-1000 that are known to survive today, most of which are owned by museums or historical societies. However, a VO-1000m is owned by the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, a local freight carrier based in Schellville, California.
Trivia[]
- Between June and August 1945 Baldwin supplied 30 Co-Co road locomotives with 8-cylinder VO engines for export to the Soviet Union as their Дб20 (Db20) class.
- 548 examples of this model were built for American railroads, including examples for the Army and Navy.
- SLSF 200 (repowered with an EMD 567C engine and equipped with an EMD SW1200 hood) is preserved at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga.
Gallery[]
_Stockton_9-69...._-_Flickr_-_drewj1946.jpg "WP584 (VO1000) Stockton 9-69.... - Flickr - drewj1946.jpg (819 KB)")