Ferrocarriles Argentinos Baldwin No. 5037 seen at Plaza Constitución on September 23.
DARIO SAIDMAN
THE only operational Baldwin ‘Sharknose’loco in Argentina visited Plaza Constitución station in central Buenos Aires on September 23 as part of the city sponsored museums weekend. Unfortunately, due to a lack of cab safety equipment the loco, No. 5037, had to be hauled by another more modern diesel. The loco is preserved at the biggest rail museum in the city; the Ferroclub located in part of the Remedios de Escalada workshops site in the southern suburbs. The Ferroclub hopes to return it to main line use in due course.
No. 5037 was built by Baldwin in the US and was one of 51 locos delivered to Argentina’s state railroad Ferrocarriles Argentinos in 1953/54 (as Baldwin works numbers 75856-75906), numbered 5001 to 5051 designated as Baldwin model RF615E. The bodywork on the export loco varied slightly from‘Sharknose’designs built for US railroads. The six-axle locos were equipped with an eight-cylinder Baldwin 608-A engine producing 1500hp and six Westinghouse model 561-A traction motors.
They were used on Argentina’s General Roca broad gauge (1676mm gauge) network serving the south of the country until the early 1990s when the last one was retired; by then the locos had been renumbered 7001-7051. Three have survived –No. 5037 is operational and two others, Nos. 7044 and 7010, exist in storage at or near the Ferroclub site with some cosmetic restoration work being done to loco No. 7044.