8 THE CALL BOARD NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. November 1992

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5270 West Albany's LastSteam Locomotive

By Dick Barrett & Tim TruscottNearly a century of steam locomotive

history ended on September 25, 1952 whenthe last steam locomotive to be repairedthere, J-l "Hudson" No. 5270, left the NewYork Central's West Albany Shops afterbeing given a sendoff by the crew of ma-chinists, steamfitters, boilermakers and oth-

ers who worked on it. While there wereapproximately 190 employees working atthe West Albany locomotive shop at thetime, only a comparative few saw the 5270leave.

The crew of 190 still working at WestAlbany at the time of the 5270's departurewas a far cry from the locomotive's peak

employment level of 1,400-1,500. As aconsequence of the layoffs at West Albany,employees who stayed with the railroadwere spread far and wide through transfersto other shops. Some, such as Tony Poletoand Ed Sedguick, began commuting toHarmon Shop each day. Others, like JackHickey, moved to Beach Grove, Indiana.

A gro P of 21 New York Central employees pause outside the inspection shed on the east end of the WestAlbany locomotive shop on September 25, 1952 to pay their respects to the 5270, the last steamlocomotive to be serviced at West Albany Shop. Perhaps you know one or more of the employees in thisphoto. or you or a family member may have worked at West Albany; if so, we'd like to talk with you. (EdNowak Photo, Collection of Dick Barrett)

November 1992 NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. THE CALL BOARD 9

Thirty more employees were laid offafter the 5270' s departure, with 160 re-tained for approximately another month to"clean up" the shop. After October, 1952,approximately 100 were left to repair steamcranes and the heating boilers of electricpassenger locomotives used in the NewYork City area and at Cleveland UnionTerminal. At the time about 800 employeeswere left in the West Albany car shop. Theopening of the New York State Thruwayabout two years later and the consequentplunge of passenger traffic resulted in theclosing of the West Albany car shop.

The end of steam locomotive work atWest Albany had been foreseen for severalyears as dieselization progressed across theNew York Central system. In spite of theintroduction of the "Niagara" locomotiveswith their advanced steam technology, thediesel locomotive rapidly became preferredto steam on the Central as well as other U.S.railroads.

Before launching into a full dieseliza-tion program after World War II, the NewYork Central undertook extensive studiescomparing diesel motive power with bothsteam and electric. In one of these studiesduring 1946, the performance of six 4,000horsepower two-unit diesels on three east-bound and three westbound passenger trainswere compared with six "Niagara" loco-motive-powered passenger trains betweenHarmon and Chicago. Needless to say, die-sel out-performed steam in these and anumber of other tests.

In addition to the performance factor ofdiesel versus steam, the diesel was dramati-cally less labor intensive in its service needs.Clearly, dieselization was bound to resultin excess shop capacity on this basis alone.

Dieselization on the New York Centralbegan in the east and progressed toward theMidwest. Initially, surplus steam locomo-tives were either scrapped or moved westof Buffalo. The best diesel motive powerwas assigned to the "name" passenger trainsand the "Niagara" steam locomotives were"bumped down" to lesser trains.

The Central's dieselization program soonled to a shift in the assignment of work to itsshops. In 1948, the Harmon, New York andCollinwood, Ohio shops had been selectedas the New York Central's principal dieselservicing facilities. The rationale for thisselection was the experience that personnelat both shops had with electric locomo-tives: Harmon with the electrics operatinginto Grand Central Terminal andCollinwood with the Cleveland Union Ter-minal electrics. Beach Grove, Indiana be-came the railroad's principal steam shop,

New York Central "Hudson" #5270 is given a sendoff from WestAlbany by a group of machinists, steamfitters, boiler makers andothers upon its final trip out of that shop. While there were 190employees still working in the locomotive shop at the time, only arelatively few were on hand to witness the event. (Ed Nowak Photo,Collection of Dick Barrett) .

ostensibly because it was the newest andhad the capacity to accommodate the large"Niagaras." Also, since steam power wasbeing pushed west, as mentioned above,Beach Grove's location near the west endof the system was a logical location for theprincipal steam shop.

In any event, Beach Grove did receivesome modifications to accommodate the"Niagaras." Both the east bay and the westbay of the shop were equipped with 120-ton capacity cranes. Since the "Niagaras"without tenders weighed in at 471,000 lbs,neither of these bays had sufficient liftingcapacity for the large engines. To rectifythis situation, the l20-ton crane was movedfrom the west bay to the east bay so thatthere were now two l20-ton cranes in thatbay which were twinned with a speciallifting beam. Presumably, this arrangementresulted in a lifting capacity of approxi-mately 240 tons (480,000 Ibs.), slightlygreater than engines they were supposed tolift. Another 120-ton crane was later in-stalled in the west bay once again whereheavy tender maintenance was performed.

If the New York Central had continued

with its great "Niagara" steam locomo-tives, West Albany would have requiredextensive, and expensive, modifications toaccommodate this huge steam locomotive.This new generation of steam was far dif-ferent from the "Hudsons," which had beencommon to West Albany for many years, orthe "Mohawks." Among the equipment andfacilities which may have required modifi-cation were the cranes (because of weight)and the shop machinery. The cranes in theWest Albany locomotive shop had a capac-ity of only 120 tons.

Even though West Albany was not des-ignated for' continued steam work or dieselrepair, it did become a collection point forretired steam power. As a consequence,literally hundreds of steam locomotives ofassorted types could be viewed at WestAlbany as dieselization progressed in thelate 1940's. Many railroad enthusiasts cameto West Albany to view for one last timetheir favorite steamers.

In early April of 1951, 85 employeeswere furloughed in the Albany area, in-cluding 14 in the West Albany auxiliarystores department.

10 THE CALL BOARD NEWSLETTER OF THE MOHAWK & HUDSON CHAPTER, N.R.H.S. November 1992

The Central, in a massive layoff, gavenotices on Tuesday, May 8,1951 to 1,060workers at tire West Albany shops effectiveFrida _fay 1L This date came to be knownto . Albany employees as "Black Tues-day, - In an effort to stave off this furlough,some poliri ians requested an investigationb the state Public Service Commission.Tbe rationale for such an investigation wasthat there had been two major train wrecksin _.ew York State within the previous 15months resulting in a number of deaths andpersonal injuries and that the Commissionhad a duty to investigate and protect thepublic interest.

Despite the general understanding thatthe layoffs at West Albany were the resultof the Central's dieselization program, thenew management of the New York Centralheaded by Robert Young and AlfredPearlman said that was only a partial cause.The railroad's announced rationale for thelarge layoff was that its business was downand that economy measures were neces-sary; once business returned to higher lev-els, workers would be re-hired. Further-more, the steam locomotive shop would beconverted to a diesel repair shop, and thatall of the approximately 1,000 workers laidoff would be eventually returned to work.

On Friday, May 11, 1951 the New YorkCentral laid off another 85 workers from itsAlbany area operations, bringing the totalnumber of idled workers to 1,230. Thislayoff affected 33 at the Rensselaer round-house and 52 at the Selkirk roundhouse.

Those laid off from Rensselaer includednine machinists and nine machinist help-ers, four boilermakers and four boilermak-ers helpers, two sheet metal workers andtwo helpers, two laborers and one electri-cian.

Mayor Erastus Corning met with NewYork Central officials on July 23, 1951 inan attempt to keep as much work as pos-sible at West Albany. Railroad officialsattending the luncheon meeting, which tookplace on a company business car in theAlbany passenger yard, were AugustusHart, General Manager of the New YorkCentral east of Buffalo, Fred Dawson, VicePresident of Operations, Kenneth Stone,General Counsel for the Central, FrankMitchell, equipment manager and Frank A.McNamee, local counsel for the railroad.At the meeting, Corning urged the officialsto keep as much work as possible at WestAlbany.

But were there any reasons other thandieselization for West Albany's demise?While the diesel was the principal culprit,there probably were other reasons: WestAlbany became "off the beaten path" tofreight locomotives in 1925 when SelkirkYard opened and through freights no longerroutinely passed through West Albany.Furthermore, as passenger traffic on therailroad plunged in the early 1950's, WestAlbany's passenger car shops were essen-tially excess.

In summary, West Albany's life mir-rored the life of the steam railroad in the

United States, which lasted about a cen-tury: the 350-acre West Albany site wasacquired by the newly-formed New YorkCentral in 1854 and finally closed in 1954.During this time it was responsible forbuilding the west end of the City of Albany,and for feeding, clothing and housing sev-eral generations of railroad families.

(Does anyone have a photo of the laststeam locomotive to leave the Delaware &Hudson's Colonie Shop? We'd like to seeone. Dick Barrett, 645 Second St., Albany,NY 12206)

Sources:Railroad Motive Power, by P. W. Kiefer,June 1947. Published by Steam Locomo-tive Research Institute,

Albany Times-Union, May 8, 1951.

Knickerbocker News, May 8, 1951.

Albany Times-Union, May 9, 1951.

Knickerbocker News, May 9, 1951.

Albany Times-Union, May 10, 1951.

Knickerbocker News, July 23, 1951.

Albany Times-Union, July 24,1951

Albany Times-Union, September 26, 1952

Paul Brustman (Mohawk & Hudson Chap-ter member and former New York Central

- employee)

Norman Taylor (former New York Centralemployee, Beach Grove, IN)

THE _

527""0 WestAlbany's Lest. . Steam Locomotive

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New York Central "Hudson" type steam locomotive #5270, the last steam locomotive to be serviced atWest Albany Shop, pauses before its finaJ departure from the shop on September 25, 1952. If you knowany of the employees in this photo, or if you or a family member worked at West Albany, we'd like to hearfrom you. (Collection of Dick Barrett)

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