MOBIL REFINERY WHITCOMB SWITCHER

The museum’s Whitcomb industrial switcher is a model GM-30-2 that was produced in 1934 by the George D. Whitcomb Company of Rochelle, Illinois. It was powered by a 174-horsepower, six-cylinder, gasoline engine and had a top speed of slightly more than 10 miles-per-hour.

 

This locomotive was first sold to a private company in New York that operated the New York Interborough Rapid Transit Company, a predecessor of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) subway system. In May 1944 it was sold to Texas Co. (TEXACO) and used in Claymont, Delaware. It was sold again in March 1949 to the Mobil oil refinery in East St. Louis, Illinois. The locomotive received a new six-cylinder gasoline engine in 1955 and new Westinghouse air brakes in 1960. Mobil installed a six-cylinder, 230 horsepower, Cummins diesel engine in August 1969. In 1972, the locomotive was moved to Mobil’s Augusta, Kansas, refinery, where it operated until the facility closed in 1984. It was donated to the museum in 1986.

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Currently under restoration, the Whitcomb was previously used to move equipment in the museum’s yard, including Santa Fe steam locomotive 3768 and Santa Fe diesel-electric locomotive 93.

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Whitcomb produced its first locomotive in 1906. Until 1929, Whitcomb produced only gasoline-powered locomotives. Its first diesel was produced in 1929. Two years later, the company was acquired by Baldwin Locomotive Works. In 1952 Baldwin moved Whitcomb locomotive production to its Eddystone Works in Pennsylvania. The Whitcomb name was used until 1955, with subsequent locomotives carrying the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton name. More than 5,300 locomotives were produced under the Whitcomb name, with over 2,000 powered by diesel engines.

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