When Lima was merged into Baldwin, production of Lima diesel locomotives was discontinued: the company's locomotive production went forward using the De La Vergne engine that Baldwin had been using before the merger. Kirkland, in his book on Lima and F-M locomotives ("The Diesel Builders, vol. 1") argues that this was a reasonable decision because the Hamilton engine was not sufficiently developed at that stage: it would have taken too long to work the bugs out of it. I believe that frequency of repair statistics (the New York Central had enough locomotives from all the main builders to generate meaningful statistics) confirm that the Hamilton engine… wasn't ready for prime time.
But it seems to me that, even had the Lima and Baldwin engines been of equivalent quality, there might have been a reason for preferring the Baldwin. The Hamilton engine was available only in in-line form. There is no reason in principle, I suppose, that a V-configuration couldn't have been developed, but as far as I know (yep, there's a question there!) no work had been done toward this. The in-line 8 was the largest version of the Hamilton engine available, and it yielded an output of only 1200 (or, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1250) horsepower: not enough for a single-engined road freight locomotive competitive with what other builders were offering. Lima DID plan a 1600 hp roadswitcher, but it was a centercab with two 6-cylinder engines. The Baldwin engine, in contrast, in its turbocharged 8-cylinder form, allowed a single-engined 1600 hp RF or roads wither unit.
Now, I think the twin-engined design, necessitating two generators and a more complex control system, would almost certainly have been more expensive to produce (and would have been perceived, I suspect, as riskier: twice as many subsystems that could go wrong!) than the single-engined design.
So, speculation. (I'd love it if someone had real historical information about the decision, but I don't have high hopes: too long ago.) The decision that BLH locomotive production would be based on Baldwin's designs rather than the Lima-Hamilton designs was as much based on the likely costs of twin-engined units as on the technical characteristics of the engines.
But it seems to me that, even had the Lima and Baldwin engines been of equivalent quality, there might have been a reason for preferring the Baldwin. The Hamilton engine was available only in in-line form. There is no reason in principle, I suppose, that a V-configuration couldn't have been developed, but as far as I know (yep, there's a question there!) no work had been done toward this. The in-line 8 was the largest version of the Hamilton engine available, and it yielded an output of only 1200 (or, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1250) horsepower: not enough for a single-engined road freight locomotive competitive with what other builders were offering. Lima DID plan a 1600 hp roadswitcher, but it was a centercab with two 6-cylinder engines. The Baldwin engine, in contrast, in its turbocharged 8-cylinder form, allowed a single-engined 1600 hp RF or roads wither unit.
Now, I think the twin-engined design, necessitating two generators and a more complex control system, would almost certainly have been more expensive to produce (and would have been perceived, I suspect, as riskier: twice as many subsystems that could go wrong!) than the single-engined design.
So, speculation. (I'd love it if someone had real historical information about the decision, but I don't have high hopes: too long ago.) The decision that BLH locomotive production would be based on Baldwin's designs rather than the Lima-Hamilton designs was as much based on the likely costs of twin-engined units as on the technical characteristics of the engines.
