Going back 90 years: Diesel Progress July 1959

Wagoner Transportation Co.’s Diamond T tractor and tanker combination was shown on the cover of the July 1959 issue. The Muskegon, Mich.-based petroleum hauler had 32 Diamond T trucks in its fleet. The truck on the cover used a Cummins NH-220 diesel engine and a Fuller R-960 RoadRanger transmission.

Starting with the May 1935 issue, Diesel Progress – or Power Progress as it’s known today – has covered engines and engine-powered equipment. Through those nine decades, the writers and editors of this publication have witnessed technology that was considered science fiction in the 1930s and they’ve praised (as proper non-biased journalists) the entrepreneurs and engineers that have facilitated those changes. It’s been – and continues to be — an amazing thing to watch. Throughout 2025, we will be celebrating those 90 years. With this department, we’re going back to some of the unique applications, forgotten firms and the companies that have been part of the industry and the publication from the beginning of both.

Diesel-powered tugboats

In the latest application of high power diesel movers to its fleet of tugboats, the Curtis Bay Towing Co. has placed the Carolyn in service in Baltimore Harbor, but with a significant new capability: in the conversion from steam – begun last October and finished in January – the boat gained 1,000 hp. Now, from her pier on Pratt Street in Baltimore, the 95 ft. tug – with 267% greater horsepower than she had late in 1958 – ranges the harbor, handling tows, dockings, and on occasion moving into the Chesapeake Bay to break ice.

The tugboat Carolyn worked the harbors of Baltimore, Md.

When the Carolyn moved to Curtis Bay’s yard at Norfolk last fall, she was powered by a Scotch boiler with a Skinner uniflow reciprocating steam engine. The system turned out 600 hp – sufficient at one time but no longer powerful enough to handle the larger ships plying the ocean routes leading to Baltimore. The conversion and refurbishing of the Carolyn, completed at Norfolk in January, gives the boat 1,600 hp for continuous duty. Replacing the steam engine is Alco Products Inc.’s 12-cylinder Model 251 diesel engine, driving a 102 in. bronze propeller through a newly developed Western Gear Seamaster PCMR reverse and reduction gear. For Curtis Bay, this was the fifth application of Alco turbocharged diesel power for tugboat duty. Still another conversion underway at Norfolk under the direction of CBC’s president, Captain H. C. Jefferson, is a sister tug of the Carolyn. ...This boat will carry the name H. C. Jefferson into service at Baltimore and again, Alco diesel-Western Gear will turn the screw.

The Carolyn was built in 1937 by the Pusey Jones Corp. at Wilmington, with an ice-breaking bow of three-quarter inch welded plate. This bow was later reinforced by the Maryland State Port Authority, which uses the boat to break ice in Baltimore Harbor and upper Chesapeake Bay. According to Curtis Bay, the Carolyn and H. C. Jefferson will see the bulk of their service towing Western Maryland Railway car boats between Port Covington and the Bethlehem Steel plant at Sparrows Point, Md. In that service, the company figures one tug can pull two 327 ft. car floats with each carrying 26 rail cars fully loaded with stone, ore or finished steel. In the past, Curtis Bay has used a single 700 hp tug to move one float.

Alco supplied the 12-cylinder 251 turbocharged diesel aboard the Carolyn and it has a maximum of 1,800 hp at flank speed. The engine is a four-cycle unit with a 9 in. bore and 10½-in. stroke, and it weighs 38,000 lb.

The tug’s chief engineer adjusts the Woodward governor on the vessel’s new 1,600 hp Alco diesel engine. Better known as a locomotive manufacturer, Alco had diversified its business by the time the Carolyn was repowered. Locomotives were 20% of the company’s business at that time. In 1970, the company’s engine business was sold to White Motor Corp. and eventually ended up in the portfolio of today’s Fairbanks Morse Defense. Incidentally, truck maker Diamond T was also acquired by White Motor Co. – in 1958.

This article originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of Power Progress.