From page 24 of the book Lehigh Valley In Color by Robert J. Janosey (1989, Morning Side Books, Edison, NJ, ISBN 0-9619058-5-9), there is a photo of LV engine 635 with the following caption:
… LV 635 stopped its westbound charge there. 635 was the former Monon 402 which had been returned to Alco in 1967 because it was roughing up the midwestern road’s tracks too much. Curiously, Valley which apparently couldn’t resist a bargain, was to find out the same thing in a few more years and tried to keep the big pawed Alcos out of New Jersey as much as possible.
I can’t distinguish one Alco locomotive from another, but according to the Lehigh Valley Diesel Roster, 635 was an Alco model C628.
While I can understand how big drivers on steam locomotives can pound and damage rails, it is not clear to me how a diesel locomotive can have the same effect.
Why was the Alco C628 so rough on Monon’s and LV’s rails?
They may have had more weight on the “drivers” than most LV steam locomotives, and the three-axle trucks were probably not the best for a struggling railroad that had long since gotten rid of its heavier locomotives.
As for the Monon, they’d never seen anything that heavy before, and also had had at close to twenty years since the track had been gone over by long-wheelbase steam locomotives; these were their only six-axle units ever, as far as I know. I’m sure CSX has a little better luck now, running over what’s left of the Monon.
The problem is the Tri-Mount trucks, they have an offset King Pin, and required a larger than common amount of force to rotate them, and of course a heavy locomotive makes it worse. The same truck had fewer problems under C&NW and MILW light weight RSD4 and RSD5 models.
Those units were nothing but trouble for their owners. The tri-mount trucks had an uneven weight distribution that put more weight on the outboard truck’s lead axle (does this make sense?) that meant that when one of these brutes went into a poorly maintained facing point switch it was anyone’s guess as to what would happen. I had seen a Valley C628 split a switch trying to get into Suspension Bridge yard in Niagara Falls, NYSSR. Now, there was another thing they did. On curves the “heavy” lead axle would slam into the outside rail on a curve and either break it, or roll it over if it was not well maintained and in good condition. In any event, the result was the same, a derailment.
A selling point for Alco in the early 1960’s was both the horsepower and ease of maintenance of their locomotives vis-à-vis competing models from GM, I have subsequently learned. The offset truck king pin appears to have been a compromise. To have centered the king pin over the trucks probably was not possible to accommodate easier access to the diesel engine.
In those years, both the LV and Monon were in decline, and they may not have kept their tracks as highly maintained as the other roads that operated, apparently successfully, the Century 628 models. One such line was Atlantic Coast Line; the 628’s there were in use for many years. 628’s are in use today in Mexico, pulling both passenger and freight consists.
The location of the king pin has nothing to do with access to the prime mover or anything to do with the prime mover.
I’ve never heard in all my years that Alco marketing was touting easier maintenance than GM, but if they were, I can only imagine the guffaws of laughter from the shop floor. Alco offered somewhat higher horsepower at various times compared to EMD but since the availability rate of an Alco compared to an EMD was in the range of 1.5 to 1, it hardly mattered.
C628s have been removed from service in Mexico for, what, a decade now? KCSM, Ferromex, Ferrosur, and FCS do not roster any. Passenger service in Mexico is, with a couple of very small exceptions (e.g. Copper Canyon tourist trains), sadly dead.
I almost worked on C628s once. At the time I was disappointed that the railroad went with SD40s but now in retrospect I am very glad the railroad saved me from what would have undoubtedly been another bad experience I don’t need.
I have a copy. It’s one-sided, angry, and biased. Technically it’s not a history; it’s
hagiography. History requires at least an honest effort to be objective.
Albert Churella, From Steam to Diesel, Managerial Customs and Organizational Capabilities in the Twentieth-Century American Locomotive Industry, Princeton University Press, 1999.
Albert Churella, “Corporate Culture and Marketing in the American Railway Locomotive Industry: American Locomotive and Electro-Motive Respond to Dieselization”, Business History Review, Vol. 69.
Harold B. Crouch, “Of Generator Flashovers, Ground Relay Problems, and a 3-Cent Repair: Keeping New York Central Diesels Rolling,” Trains January 1986.
Vernon L. Smith, The Diesel from D to L: An Explanation of the Machine that Rejuvenated Railroading, Kalmbach Publishing Co., June 1979.
Albert Churella, “Death by Diesel,” Trains September 2001.
Don Strack, “Union Pacific Double Diesels,” Diesel Era, January/February 2001.