A.G. TRUMBULL: LOCOMOTIVE DESIGNER

The only competitor remaining to contest Alonzo Trumbull for the title of chief designer for the Advisory Mechanical Committee is Will Woodard of Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio. For many locomotive historians, Lima Locomotive rises above its competitors, Baldwin of Philadelphia and American (Alco) of Schenectady, New York, by virtue of its inventing "Super Power" locomotives and in adhering to a Midwestern work ethic that prized quality over volume. To these historians, Lima must have had a big hand in the C&O, PM, and NKP designs because almost all Super Power steamers produced for these roads came from Lima. True, Lima engineers worked closely with AMC" engineers. AMC" staff could take turns riding a business car from a siding at Cleveland's Terminal Tower to a spur near Lima's office building reserved for office cars. Certainly it was a privileged way to travel. Eric Hirsimaki, in his history of Lima, gives another reason for AMC usually granting Lima its locomotive contracts: "While the builder's bid was important," Hirsimaki noted, "it wasn't necessarily the deciding factor." Sometimes a builder would be on the railroad's lines, and thus be both a potential supplier and shipper. Such was the case with Lima. The fact that Will Woodard had originated the concept of Super Power at Lima in 1925 leads some historians to assume he had a hand in the specific designs of the AMC. (Of course, Lima had its own in-house designs in which Woodard did have a hand.) However, Woodard (who died in 1942) made a condition of his employment as Lima vice-president that he work out of New York City. His assistant, J. Edgar Smith told of productive days (Railroad, August 1974)-mostly with poppet valves and not with specific contracts-at their office at 17 East 42nd Street. Woodard was a restless experimenter, having been awarded 92 patents on various mechanical features of steam and electric locomotive design. Among achievements that led to his honoring by the National Association of Manufacturers in 1940 were development of lateral motion driving boxes and "constant resistance" engine and trailing trucks.

It would be giving Alonzo Trumbull too much credit if one were to fail to recognize those men (there were no women so far as we know) who worked with and under Trumbull in designing AMCs "giants of the rails." It is hard to trace down the engineering staff of the AMC, but besides Black, Trumbull, and Ellis, there were at least the following serving at one time or another during the existence of the AMC: D. J. Sheehan, F. J. Herter. J. B. Blackburn, Mike Donovan, Richard Vinning, T. P. Irving, and E. R. Hauer (not necessarily in that order). Herter and Irving held the title of "engineer of rolling stock," later changed to "engineer car construction." The rest entered AMC service as "engineer [of] motive power." Probably the most impressive of these lesser men was Ed Hauer, who took over Trumbull's job (for the short time it existed) after Trumbull's retirement. Hauer, graduate of the Mechanics Institute in Richmond, Va., worked for both Lima and C&O before joining the AMC. he took leave from the AMC to serve as assistant and associate director of the Office of Defense Transportation from April 1942 to july 1944.