In early 1900's Lima was major junction point for 5 major railways. It only makes sense that a locomotive plant
would also be there, and this plant was the Lima Locomotive Works. It officially opened in 1881 when the Lima Machine
Company bought the rights to manufacture Ephraim Shay's patented engine. The design would change many times over the next
several decades, but the manufacture of these engines really established Lima as a locomotive builder. It also carried the
company through its infancy until the beginning of rod-locomotive production in 1904. It was in this period that the company
bought an 85-acre tract of land in South Lima and built its new facilities. Twenty years later, those facilities would
include 2 acres of buildings and the 16-track, 6-story erecting shop where the massive Allegheny and Berkshire engines, for
which they are best known, were assembled.
From 1878-1951, Lima workers built 7,769 locomotives. This made Lima the third largest producers of locomotives in
the United States. These locomotives were exported worldwide, gaining Lima an international reputation. Lima was not merely
turning out some run-of-the-mill product either. It gained a reputation for both the quality of its product and the ability
to figure out new ways to do things that erased previous problems.
One of the most important things that made Lima so different from other plants was the fact that every workers mind
was valued. Each one was allowed and encouraged to be a thinker. Each locomotive was a custom product, built for specific
track or hauling requirements. This meant that each assembly required its own way of thinking and solving problems. Workers
were given a lot of flexibility to work out these problems. Changes were often made in design right on the shop floor with
chalk, based on experience as much as blueprints. This was not some micromanaged company being ran by a few geniuses and
using human robots to put it all together while being closely monitored. Lima workers were very skilled. This shows in the
molds and tools that they fashioned. These showed tremendous skill and even great artisanry. The Lima workers were, and are
, greatly respected by those both in and out of the industry, and rightfully so.
Work was a community affair at the Lima Locomotive works. Its stellar reputation and amazing production was the
result of friends, neighbors and friends cooperating both on and off the floor. It was rooted in family and neighborhood.
Fathers, brothers, sons, and neighbors worked together, extending their feelings of family towards other "brothers" in the
craft (crafts were associations of workers who had learned how to share and work together.) It wasn't unusual at all for
several members of a large family to work in the same department, such as foundry or boiler making. People worked and played
together. It was a sort of never-ending overlap, work became an extension of the neighborhoods in many ways, and the
neighborhoods became extensions of work in many other ways.
One result of this was the tremendous teamwork that was very evident in the plant. This teamwork was also due in
good part to the very small numbers of managerial specialists. Workers began working at the Loco Works in their teens as
sweepers. They then worked their way up to shop or bench work. If you did your work well, there was always possibility of
eventually becoming foreman or inspector. When workers know that you are promoting from within and not bringing in some
"management expert" they work harder. Supervisors who have been where the average worker is tend to understand both the work
and the worker better. Even if a worker does not like his foreman or inspector, he is still going to work his hardest,
knowing that if nothing else, he can get out from under him by getting promoted himself.
An offshoot of this teamwork and the neighborhood intertwining was a tremendous amount of camaraderie. This often
came through in the practical jokes that were an important part of every day. One of the machinists in the plant had
originally come from the coalmines of Kentucky. Because of the nature of work in the coalmines, always being dirty, he was a
real stickler for neatness now that he was free from the mines. One day, he came back from the restroom to find a long
ribbon of steel ran through and tangled around his machine. The pranksters had not messed with his settings or the machine
itself at all (that just wasn't right,) but they did want to tweak him a little. Another time, a crane operator pulled a good
joke on a "cracker of the pipe fitting crew". He used his crane to pick up the pipe fitting guy's tool bucket and put it in
a service bay two tracks over. He laughed to himself the rest of the day as he wondered how long it would take for the guy
to find his tool bucket.
A very interesting part of the Locomotive Works history is that there was no official training program like we think
of today. After a new worker had earned the right to move from sweeping to actual work, he learned from someone who had been
doing the job for quite a while and was one of the best at it. The same neat-conscious machinist that had that had the joke
played on him is good example. He had learned from an old German machinist. The old German never used a micrometer,
because HIS trainer never had. He eyeballed it with a hand caliper that had been passed down from his trainer and because he
had a good eye, developed over the years, he was always right. The German had done it that way for years until he finally
had to quit because his eyesight was going. Even after he was gone, however, the machinist did it the same way and carried
on the work, using the same set of calipers. Every time he used them, he was reminded of the old German and his trainer, how
they could really turn out the work, especially with a few nips from bottles they kept stashed in their lockers. The
history of the Lima Locomotive works is full of such stories. It goes against what we are taught today, but the pseudo-
apprenticeship training program that the plant used produced outstanding craftsmen.
Amazingly, parts for up to 16 separate locomotives could be assembled at one time in the plant. They were then
transported from the various shops to the erection shop, where it all came together. Frames were positioned while the trucks
and running gear were adjusted. The boilers were then brought in and lowered into place using 250-ton overhead cranes, like
the one used by the prankster mentioned earlier. A different gang handled each step of assembly. One put on the external
piping, another installed boiler cover sheets and other decorative sheet metal, and yet another installed the cab and all the
fixtures, like the bell, whistle and builder's plate. The most dramatic step was the final one, the joining of engine to
tender.
Lima workers took tremendous pride in their work. Workers of the 20s 30s and 40s like to say, "We built the best."
They contributed important new ideas in locomotive technology and solved vast numbers of technical problems involved in the
making of locomotives, ideas then borrowed by other plants. Contributions were built upon efforts of a community of
craftsmen, designers, skilled workers and inspectors. It was hard and often dangerous work. Eye injuries from flying metal
and crushing injuries were common. Workers could be fired on a whim too. Yet the workers worked through all this and
produced some of the finest locomotives ever built. The pride that Lima and its people feel in this can be seen both by the
exhibit at the Allen County Museum and by the name that the city's semi-professional baseball team carries, the Locos. How
incredibly appropriate that a community sports team honors a piece of Lima history that was integrally wrapped up in the
community.
American House Inc., Working at the Lima Loco: The Lima Locomotive Works and Its Workers, (Lima, Ohio, American House, Inc.
1988).
Hans Househower, "We Built the Best", Locomotive & Railway Preservation, March-April (1991).
|