Westinghouse experimental V-12

It is fairly well known in railfan circles that Westinghouse purchased rights to the Beardmore diesel engine, for use in railcars ("doodlebugs") and locomotives. This engine was originally 8-1/4 inch bore and 12 inch stroke, with exposed pushrods. Westinghouse developed the engine into a 9 inch bore by 12 inch stroke engine, more enclosed, and used this engine in a number of forms - inline and vee.

The largest was a V-12, which was used in three applications; one engine was used in a single-engine steeple-cab locomotive, while two of them were used in the large road switcher that Westinghouse built in the mid-1930's. This engine was as mentioned 9 x 12 inch, four stroke, and normally aspirated.

This photo, from an old and uncopyrighted volume in our collection, is the engine in question. Viewed from the auxiliary or pump end, we can see one of the two sets of ganged fuel pumps (six units here; six units on the opposite side of the engine) as well as the two water pumps. A railway style generator and end-mounted auxiliary generator are just visible. Note that the cylinder head design provides for intake on the outboard sides of the engine cylinder banks; here, a unit intake manifold is seen with air filters mounted at each end. Two exhaust manifolds are visible, one for the forward six cylinders and one for the rear; this matches well with pictures of the CGW center or "steeple" cab unit before repowering. This engine was rated 800 brake horsepower.

Much more interesting is the next photo.

This photo shows what appears to be an identical engine; however, immediately visible is a supercharger mounted above the generator. The intake manifold arrangement has been altered to accomodate feed from this two-rotor, very likely gear-driven blower. An earlier shot in the book labels a very similar looking blower as being a Connell Supercharger; it's unclear if this is that make or not. What is clear is that we've never read of a supercharged Westinghouse V-12 before. Westinghouse did build one unit with a supercharged inline 6, which raised the rating of the six-cylinder engine from 400 BHP to 530 BHP. If that correlates well, then the engine shown here would have been capable of over 1000 BHP. No data are given in this book- just two cryptically labeled photos. Interesting indeed!

Perhaps as interesting is the clear evidence that Westinghouse was using an extended engine bedplate to support, and thus align, the main generator. Had this knowledge been transferred from Westinghouse to Baldwin, the latter might have saved itself numerous headaches, in terms of engine failures in the field and warranty coverage.