Editing Baldwin Locomotive Works (section)

== Growth and Global Reach ==

Baldwin Locomotive Works grew rapidly during the second half of the 19th century as railroads expanded across America and around the world. The company built locomotives for every major American railroad and exported engines to railways in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Baldwin engines hauled passengers and freight across the transcontinental railroad, powered sugar cane railways in Cuba, and climbed mountain passes in the Andes. The company's product line expanded to include locomotives of every size and type, from small switching engines to massive freight haulers, standardized designs and custom-built machines for specialized applications.<ref name="westing"/>

The company's factory complex expanded to meet demand. The original shop in downtown Philadelphia gave way to increasingly larger facilities, eventually concentrated in a massive complex covering multiple city blocks in the Spring Garden neighborhood. The works included foundries for casting iron and steel, machine shops for precision manufacturing, assembly halls where completed locomotives took shape, and supporting facilities from pattern-making to painting. The complex employed over 20,000 workers at peak production during World War I, making it one of the largest industrial facilities in the world. The scale of operations required sophisticated management systems and represented the cutting edge of industrial organization.<ref name="brown"/>