Martin Blomberg

Anyone know of this guy? the name should be familiar to emd fans, since he was the man who had developed the Blomberg style truck that is found under almost all 4 axle locomotives

In about '97, EMD was celebrating an anneversary. Iwas living in Naperville, IL, working for BN then. I went ot an open house at La Grange then. I remember that the same time Trains ran a series of articles about the key people of EMD, isn the beginning. One was about Dick Dilworth, but one was also about Martin Blomberg. I think that he came from Sweden. He used to work for Pullman, specializing in truck design. At EMC/EMD, he designed the A1A passenger truck for the E series, plus the famous 2 axle design, dating from the FT. I like to see old technology that is still tops. EMD tried the Flexicoil, such as on FL9, and the HT-B. They even went for the cheap rubber pad, inplace of the leaf spring. Blomberg's origional design keeps coming up on top.

Those of us who have spent days, months, and even years of our lives operating locomotives appreciate Martin Blomberg's work very much.

The one thing I rememer most about that article, and get the biggest kick out of was the quote the author said about Mr. Blomberg:"Ve do it my Vay". He may have been Norwegian. But before any disagreement comes up about this, would someone please find the article again?

Wess,the article was written in the October 1994 issue of Trains Magazine.
The article was written by the late Max Ephraim Jr.
For his contributions in Railroad designs,Blomberg deserves his spot for famous people in Railroad history.

Martin P Blomberg specialized in carbody, underframe, and trucks for both Pullman and EMD. While the common LFM truck is named after him, he designed most of the trucks that are under EMD domestic and export models.

One would be amazed in the number of patents listing him as either the major designer or assisted with a design by another mech engineer at Pullman and EMD. The Pullman M-10000 is almost all his work.

sorry its been a long time since I checked this thread but thanx for the article. Yeah this guy was definitely one of the most creative minds behind modern railroad technology. It was definitely nice to see someone take that creative streak and run with it.

Some of his relatives were working in high possitions in a swedish railways work-shop in Örebro and an other as Distrikt chief in Göteborg.

I know of him, he's my great grandfather. sad thing is, beyond the designing of the diesel engine, and that he died of leukemia or cancer of some kind, and his son and grandchildren, I don't know a whole lot. and of course the ve do it my vey. I do know he trained for the olympics in sweden as a gymnast and did something good enough that the king of sweden gave him a pocket knife. of course that could be something nice his son told my mother so she could have a fond memory.

I'm glad to finally find out a little more about him. if anyone wants info about his life/family, I can give you what little I lnow.

Martin Peter Fredrick Blomberg, ja, Han var min fader, han. (he was my father). I see my grand daughter, binghamh, is supplying information to this site, so why not Martin Blomberg's son...now 82. I read from "bengt" about something new...that I never heard about. Perhaps he is referring to William, Martin's brother. I would like to know more about this. Martin did attend Örbro and graduated in 1912 as Engineer. That was the year he was to represent Sweden at the Olympics in gymnastics, but instead he left for North America arriving with a small trunk and fifty dollars. I spent a lot of time with him and know more about Martin personally than any of you, I am sure.
It is a pleasure to see my father honored this way. To Phil Hom, yes the number of patents filled 3 notebooks. I had all of these at one time, but are now lost.

I added and edited some additional material about Mr. Blomberg in Wikipedia. Also I'm adding patent numbers whenever I come across anything that is related to MPB.

Did you know the EMD AAR truck was designed by Blomberg, but yet we don't call it the Blomberg switcher truck.

Phil Hom.