How about a "What if?" question?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Those always seem to generate a good bit of debate (usually fairly civilized debate, too), and can be a lot of fun.

I propose this one: “If GE had never entered the loco market themselves, and only kept supplying ALCo with components, what would the loco builder industry look like today?”

There’s a lot of possibilities here, and I think it would be fascinating to hear what you all think. Would it just be EMD and ALCo here today? If so, which would be the dominant brand? Would another third party enter into competition? Would another company have snatched up the Cooper Bessemer engine design that GE used for their FDL engines and entered the market? Would Japan have made some kind of jump into the loco world in the 1980’s when they were coming on strong?

As a side note, I was really reminded of the ALCo/GE thing recently when Sony entered the Digital SLR realm after hooking up with Konica Minolta. Why? Because Sony supplies the imaging sensors for Nikon, who is now one of their main competitors in the market. Kind of interesting, especially with what we as railfans know of the history of what happened between GE and ALCo, don’t you think?

I’ll be looking forward to hearing your responses.

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Alco C446?

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Alco’s fate has to be one of the sadder, if not the saddest, in railroading supply history. But, GE decided in 1952 that as soon as their agreement with Alco ended in 1953, that would be it for their “partnership”. Alco erred badly in that it did not seek another electrical equipment supplier, and did not stop production of the 244-series engine until an improved model engine could be introduced. The market, however, was not going to be around forever and Alco knew that. That they failed to make a clean break from GE, was a fatal error, that was not evident until it was too late! Their spirit lives on, however in the “honorary ALCO” AC6000CW! Imperfect too,because the engine was not right when it was offered to customers. GE didn’t read either of the histories of Alco! ( Steinbrenner or Kirkland)

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oh man. now i cant stop thinking!!!