By Howard Snider, # 93064

During the years 1873 to 1949 Lima, Ohio was the home of The Lima Locomotive Works. Although not always know by this name , it produced in excess of 7500 Steam engines sold to a multitude of railroad companies, lumber mill’s, stone quarries, the United States Government and some were even shipped to foreign countries.

To understand how Lima became the home of this corporation, we need to examine the history of this section of Ohio. When settlers first came to this area it was known as the Great Black Swamp. It consisted of about 7000 Square Miles of flooded prairies and stands of hardwood trees. The higher elevations, although dry, were almost solid timber areas, while the prairies were covered in water with a depth of 6 inches to sometimes 3 Feet. Some of these trees were burned to the ground or cut down to make room for housing and villages. As hardwood trees were a commodity, lumber mills quickly became evident. However, little progress was made until after the defeat of the Indian Nations in the War of 1812. At the end of the war surveying parties set out to lay out counties and section out the swamp. Over 3000 miles of drainage ditches were excavated to drain the swampy prairies. As the drained land was very fertile, Farming and Lumbering were the prime factors for people to settle here. In 1842 Lima became a chartered city. Shortly thereafter, the Ohio & Indiana Railroad laid rails thru the city from east to west opening up new markets for items produced. This rail bed would become part of the New York to Chicago mainline of the Pennsylvania Rail Road. In 1858 additional markets were opened when the Dayton & Michigan Rail Road ran it rails thru Lima in a south to north direction placing the city at a junction of 2 major rail lines. At this time the railroads chose to utilize Lima as the site for their repair shops. One of the reasons for this was a foundry to forge parts and a new steel making process that produced superior journal bearings. A firm called The Lima Manufacturing Company, started by three local men, was at that time producing an oscillating sawmill that could cut both top and bottom of a board at the same time using offset blades, this meant the log didn’t have to be rolled over. One of their contracts called for their foundry to produce the repair parts for the D & M Railroad.

By 1870 less than half of the hardwood forests remained and the lumber companies started moving north to Michigan where large stands of White Pine trees were being harvested. To these lumbermen the ideal way to get these logs to the mill was floating them down the rivers. However, not all stands of timber were located next to a waterway, so the timber needed to be dragged to the water. As this was done by horses, this was an expensive process. Someone thought of putting the ends of the logs on wheels thereby making the hauling process much faster and easier. But there was a downside to this method, not all the lands were flat. Horses did fine on flat lands and even up hillsides, but as there was no reliable method of braking the weight on the down slopes, many lumbermen and horses were killed or injured by runaway logs. A lumber mill operator named Ephraim Shay designed a steam driven, geared wheel operated engine to take place of the horses. This would effectively control the speed of the logs on the down slopes. During the courses of this development, Shay sent out inquires to various boiler manufacturers for his power source.

Since it already produced boilers for sawmills and also parts for Steam Locomotives, it was a natural for The Lima Manufacturing Company to help in the design, and eventual manufacturing of the "Shay" locomotives. During the many years that followed they continued to improve and patent many types of "Shay" locos.

As the railroads in this country continued to develop and grow, the need for faster, more dependable, direct drive engines came about. As the "Shay" was proven to be a very dependable but slow engine, the Lima firm started to develop larger direct drive units.

From 1910 to 1949, they continued to manufacture and develop various models of the direct drive units. Many new innovations such as super-heaters, forged light weight drive rods, larger combustion chambers, etc. were patented and led to them becoming one of the 3 largest Steam engine manufacturers in this country.

Courtesy of Kettlevallyrail.org

During the years of WWII, they manufactured 768 steam engines for Cranes, Shovels, and steam locomotives. A total of 653, 2-8-0 engines were made and sold to the U S Government, most of which were sent to Europe to replace the war ravaged rail lines. At the same time some of the erecting bays were utilized to produce the M-46 "Patton" tanks as American Manufacturers geared up to produce war materials.

In the late 1940’s the railroad companies were investigating the cleaner, more efficient "Diesel" engines. The Lima Locomotive Works believing they could continue to produce more efficient engines delved very little into the research of these new diesel engines. In addition, as they manufactured most of the parts for the steam engines and would have to rely on others for parts for the new diesel engines, for monetary reasons they shied away from them. They did however manufacture diesel powered "switcher" engines as they at that time also made diesel powered cranes and shovels. They soon fell out of favor with the railroad companies and as a result the last steam locomotive bearing plate number 779, a 2-8-4 was delivered in 1949. ( 2-8-4 refers to the wheel arrangement, 2 being 2 wheels ahead of the driven wheels, 8 being the number of driven wheels, and 4 being the number of wheels behind the drivers.)

The Lima Locomotive Works was sold and became the Baldwin Lima Hamilton Corporation and sold again to become Clark Equipment, which produced primarily large lifting devices. When Clark shut down the Lima plant, the doors were shut never to reopen. Today little remains to display our proud heritage. Most of the old plant has been demolished and the land still mostly barren. The Allen County Historical Society has on display one of the "Shay" locomotives, and in the nearby town of Harrod , there is a 1905 "Shay". In the Lincoln Park train display, near the rally, site the last Steam Locomotive manufactured and delivered, the "779" is on display. Since Lima was founded, seven major rail lines have passed thru the city. The Nickel Plate; The Baltimore & Ohio; The Erie & Lacawanna; The Detroit Toledo & Ironton; The Pennsylvania RR; The Chesapeake & Ohio; ands The Norfolk & Western. Perhaps this is the main reason we refer to them as "Rolling Stoplights". To this day, I can still recall the sound of the steam whistle, feel the heat from the steam exhaust and hear the rumbling of the large steel wheels as one of those giant locomotives rumbled thru town. If you were near enough, you could feel the ground shake beneath your feet. As a child we always wondered about the many places those train were going to. There were four passenger terminals in town and people coming and going on every passenger train. I imagine many a newlywed couple left for their honeymoon on one of these trains. Can’t you just feel the romance of that trip, sleeping in a pulman car, eating meals while watching the passing scenery. I have and I will always remember those days.

Most of this information came from a book written by Eric Hirsimaki called "Lima The History" a history of the Lima Locomotive Works, published by Hundman Publishing, Inc. of Edmonds, Washington. Copyright 1986. goes deeper into the development of Steam locomotives.