Baldwin Numbers????

[PASteam]

Hi all,

While this may be slightly off subject, my question concerns research for upcoming Live Steam projects. Can anyone give a complete explanation of Baldwin's use of numbers: ORDER, BUILDERS, ERECTING, CLASS, NEGATIVE, CARD, ETC? Thanks

[justgary]

This doesn't directly answer your question, but might stimulate more interest from the group.

It would seem that Baldwin's records were partially preserved by the fellow who sold the narrow gauge locomotive to Disneyland in the 1950's, as described here. The collection is open to researchers and is kept at The SMU DeGolyer Library.

I did find several interesting PDF files about 2/5 of the way down the first page I quoted, which are (and I'll post just one here) Erecting Drawings, sorted by railroad name and class number, and Detail drawings sorted both ways also. The Erecting Drawing number will probably be the set of prints showing how to assemble that particular locomotive.

Class number is described in the first page also, in the Engineering Drawings section. It isn't what I would have expected, but I guess it worked for Baldwin.

Order number I suspect is just that: A purchase order for a locomotive, and probably numbered according to some bookkeeping method.

By the way, Google will return lots of hits on this topic, I'm sure.

Regards,

- Just Gary