Cylinder size on the 539 engine was 12 1/2" X 13". A 244 engine had 9" X 10 1/2" cylinders. The 567 engine had 8 1/2" X 10" cylinders. So what the 539 engine had as compared to engines of its era was considerable more weight per cylinder per horsepower developed.
Richard Steinbrenner in his book The American Locomotive Company A Centennial Remembrance states on page 179 that the ALCO engineers knew early on that “The height required by the in-line design-and a potential Vee version-was marginal relative to the space allowed in a practical freight unit carbody and that the 12 1/2” X 13" design’s horsepower-to-weight ratio simply was too low for future growth potential, and it would only get worse with additional cylinders."
ALCO designed a freight DL202-1 cab and DL203-1 booster with an 8V-539T producing 1300 horsepower, but the design was never built. The so-called Black Maria’s were built to specification DL202-2 cab and DL203-2 booster in 1945. The 12V-241 engines in these units failed because they were not fully tested. Eight cylinder versions of the 539T and 540T engines were built for stationary power supply use or in Navy vessels in the case of the 540 engines. Developmental work for uprating the 539 was halted toward the end of World War Two.
Simply put ALCO had an engine problem going in to World War Two. It was developmentally behind EMD and because of the war could not easily catch up. It manufactured what it had engineered prior to the war. Development work on the 241 engine continued during the war and an alternate 244 engine program was started during the war. Neither of these 9" X 10 1/2" designs was completly tested before production began on the 244 engines for the FA-1, FB-1, PA-1, PB-1 and RS-2 and RSC-2 models debuting in 1946.
My dad had a story about his experience with the ‘539’ while at the Navy’s Diesel Engineering School at Cornell. One of his classmates was out the day they tore down the engine, but was back for the rebuidling. My dad asked for the tappet rods - his classmate said all he could find were pipes and my dad replied that thise pipes were the tappet rods.
The Chicago NorthWestern had only one and they didnt like it because of its lack of traction effort and later had the prime mover removed and had an EMD prime mover put in its place. The Rock Island also had only one and Its named Christine after its prime mover was replaced with an EMD prime mover If Jeff is reading this he could give more information on the Rock Island unit Larry
Rock Island had four of these type of locomotives. They were the original DL103b which became Rock Island #624. A DL105 which became Rock Island #622, and two DL107s which were Rock Island #621 and #623. The Rock Island #621 is the one that was rebuilt with a pair of 12V-567B engines in June 1953 on EMD order #8500. Diesel data from DSG-2, A J Kristopans, and Wikipedia.
I thought I was the only person who thought they were one of the ugliest engines ever built. I never have understood the modeler fascination with onesy twosy type locomotives.
They were very rare and there were like only 50 built. There are few people who would recognize them. I guess their Alco prime movers were awful since the Rock Island repowered them with EMD’s in 1953 (the Rock’s good days were about over by that time).
A total of 74 DL109’s (cab) and 4 DL110’s (booster) were built. NH received 60 DL109’s, so they were scarce elsewhere. See this link: http://www.thedieselshop.us/Alco_DL109.HTML