Age and other railroad industry trade journals made abundantly clear, steam locomotive producers thought in terms of horsepower. If more power could be crammed into a single steam locomotive, then so much the better. Since railroad executives disliked the “doubleheading” of steam locomotives (because of communications difficulties, the need for two separate locomotive crews, etc.), they responded favorably to large, high-horsepower steam locomotives, even when those locomotives shook their physical plant to pieces. Steam locomotive builders also advertised the undeniable fact that a steam locomotive cost only one-third as much, per horsepower, as a diesel. Electro-Motive adopted a far different. | 22 CHAPTER I Age and other railroad industry trade journals made abundantly clear steam locomotive producers thought in terms of horsepower. If more power could be crammed into a single steam locomotive then so much the better. Since railroad executives disliked the doubleheading of steam locomotives because of communications difficulties the need for two separate locomotive crews etc. they responded favorably to large high-horsepower steam locomotives even when those locomotives shook their physical plant to pieces. Steam locomotive builders also advertised the undeniable fact that a steam locomotive cost only one-third as much per horsepower as a diesel. Electro-Motive adopted a far different approach one that recognized the different performance characteristics of diesels. Its advertisements stressed that the advantages of the diesel lay in operating expense reductions not in initial cost. Since diesels could repay their purchase price in as little as three years an impressive 33 percent annual return on investment price was of little consequence. While diesels could not outpull steam locomotives they had far more flexibility since any number of low-horsepower diesels could be coupled together and operated easily by one crew. As such particularly during the 1930s steam and diesel locomotive builders were largely talking past each other but railroad customers were increasingly listening to the latter and ignoring the II Internal-Combustion Railcars Springboard to Participation in the Diesel Locomotive Industry The self-propelled railcar rather than the large diesel locomotive provided the first opportunity for the internal-combustion engine to prove itself in railroad service in the United Railcars similar in external appearance to conventional railroad passenger equipment generally contained an engine compartment a control stand and passenger and baggage compartments. These units were .
