Farrel-Birmingham was yet another prominent WWII (and before) era manufacturer of reduction gears and the like. During WWII, Farrel-Birmingham would supply gears for hundreds of tugs, ships, ferrys and every many other pieces of floating plant. In the post war years, working with GM, thy would supply the reduction gears for almost every Diesel Electric tug powered by Cleveland Diesel right up until the 1960’s.

The setup shown above was originally used in the tug “Raymond Card”, a 95′ tug powered by a Cleveland 12-567, with a 615kW Generator. In turn, this powered the 750HP 600V DC propulsion motor, that fed the Farrel-Birmingham 3.75:1 reduction gear. This same setup would be used on other tugs of the same design later on.

Farrel-Birmingham would exit the gear market in the 1960’s. They still exist today as the Farrell Pomini company, specializing in plastic manufacturing equipment.