The company has no relation to the E.M. Baldwin and Sons of New South Wales, Australia, a builder of small diesel locomotives for sugar cane railroads.

Matthias W. Baldwin, the founder, was a jeweler and whitesmith,[2] who, in 1825, formed a partnership with machinist David H. Mason, and began making bookbinders' tools and cylinders for calico printing.

The Camden & Amboy Railroad (C&A) had already imported their John Bull locomotive from England, and it was stored in Bordentown, New Jersey awaiting assembly when Baldwin inspected it, noting the principal dimensions of the parts.

[3][4] Without the benefit of modern machine tools the cylinders were bored by a chisel fixed in a block of wood and turned by hand; the workmen had to be taught how to do nearly all the work; and Baldwin did a great deal of it himself.

Some rates have remained unchanged for the past twenty years, and a workman is there more highly esteemed when he can, by his own exertions and ability, increase his weekly earnings.

[24] After the boom years of World War I and its aftermath, Baldwin's business would decline as the Great Depression gripped the country and diesel locomotives became the growth market on American railways towards the end of the 1930s.

[31] The early, unsuccessful efforts of Baldwin-Westinghouse in developing diesel-electric locomotion for mainline service led Baldwin in the 1930s to discount the possibility that diesel could replace steam.

[33] Baldwin's vice president and Director of Sales stated in December 1937 that "Some time in the future, when all this is reviewed, it will be found that our railroads are no more dieselized than they electrified".

[17] At the invitation of the owners of the Geo D. Whitcomb Company, a small manufacturer of gasoline and diesel industrial locomotives in Rochelle, Illinois, Baldwin agreed to participate in a recapitalization program, purchasing about half of the issued stock.

This action would lead to financial losses, an ugly court battle between Baldwin and William Whitcomb, the former owner of the company, and bankruptcy for both parties.

[37] As the 1930s drew to a close, Baldwin's coal-country customers such as Pennsylvania Railroad, Chesapeake & Ohio, and Norfolk & Western, were more reluctant than other operators to embrace a technology which could undermine the demand for one of their main hauling markets.

Baldwin's steam-centered development path had left them flat-footed in the efforts necessary to compete in the postwar diesel market dominated by EMC and Alco-GE.

Longtime GM chairman Alfred Sloan presented a timeline in his memoir that belies this assumption,[38] saying that GM's diesel-engine R&D efforts of the 1920s and 1930s, and its application of model design standardization (yielding lower unit costs) and marketing lessons learned in the automotive industry, were the principal reason for EMC's competitive advantage in the late 1940s and afterward (clearly implying that the wartime production assignments were merely nails in a coffin that Baldwin and Lima had already built for themselves before the war).

In 1943 Baldwin launched its belated road diesel program, producing a prototype "Centipede" locomotive which was later rebuilt to introduce their first major product in the postwar market.

In 1954, during which time they were being virtually shut out of the diesel market, Baldwin delivered one steam turbine-electric locomotive to the Norfolk & Western, which proved unsatisfactory in service.

It was also well known for the unique cab-forward 4-8-8-2 articulateds built for the Southern Pacific Company and massive 2-10-2 for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway.

New Zealand Railways (NZR) was a major customer from 1879 when it imported six T class based on the Denver & Rio Grande locomotives due to their similar rail gauge.

Like all American locomotives produced at the time, the Baldwins had 'short' lifespans built into them but the NZR were happy to re-boiler almost their whole fleet to give them a longer life of hard work.

A private Railway operating in New Zealand at the time exclusively purchased Baldwin products after facing the same difficulties with British builders the NZR had.

Unfortunately, many of these engines were unpopular with the crews due to their designs being atypical, and many, including all of those built for the three standard gauge British railways and the Lynton and Barnstaple's Lyn, were scrapped when no longer needed.

In 1917, the locomotive was sold to the Argent Lumber Company in South Carolina where it worked along with the 6 in swamp trackage, hauling logs to the mill in Hardeeville.

[51] In the late 1960s, they were all purchased by Disney imagineers Roger Broggie and Earl Vilmer for $8,000 each and rebuilt to operating condition, while significantly altered from their original appearance to resemble steam locomotives from the 1880s.

As well as railway locomotives, Baldwin built street tramway steam motors in large numbers for operators in the United States and worldwide.

Between 1947 and 1948 Baldwin built three coal-fired steam turbine-electric locomotives of a unique design, for passenger service on the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O), who numbered them 500 to 502 and classified them M-1.

The 6,000 horsepower (4,500 kW) units, which were equipped with Westinghouse electrical systems and had a 2-C1+2-C1-B wheel arrangement, were 106 feet (32 m) long, making them the longest locomotives ever built for passenger service.

Thanks to their robust Westinghouse electrical gear, they were excellent haulers, but the diesel prime movers were less reliable than comparable EMD and Alco products.

The company remained fond of steam power and was slow to make the jump to building reliable diesel road locomotives.

By the late 1940s, Baldwin's main diesel competitors – Alco, EMD and Fairbanks-Morse – had each settled on four or five standard locomotive models, which were suitable for assembly-line construction.

This put Baldwin at a competitive disadvantage since it was unable to benefit from economies of scale, consistent quality control, or the evolution of each model, which its competitors enjoyed.

In April 1950, Baldwin and Westinghouse completed an experimental 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) gas turbine locomotive, numbered 4000, known as the "Blue Goose", with a B-B-B-B wheel arrangement.