Why do ALCOs keep rolling on?

I have read a paper from Indian Railways (they still have in widespread use broad gauge 251-engined ALCos), where they claimed fuel consumption of around 160 grams / kW, compared to modern diesels which burned 200+ grams/kW. This was achieved on V16 engines with lowered horsepower (I think they got around 2700hp out of each motor).

The notorious “ALCo smoke” when accelerating the engine happened most often in inadequately maintained locomotives, and a major reason was the delay of the turbo behind the rich fuel mix that entered the engine cylinders (not enough oxygen). When the turbo got up to speed, the smoke stopped.

This happened rarely with modern and fast-accelerating turbos.

N.F.

Here’s a sample from Western New York and Pennsylvania. Engineer Dumbuff gives a smokey salute at Watts Flats, NY

Wow! I can see why ALCOs were called “honorary steam engines”!

Seriously, I read an article a while back about the Grand Canyon Railway. While the steam engines get the publicity, the 'road also owns two ALCO FA’s. They love the things, the Chief Mechanical Officer calling them practically “bulletproof”. And there’s the Napa Valley Wine Train that runs behind FA’s as well.

The only really, really bad thing I’ve read recently about ALCOs was in the Morning Sun book “Trackside along the Erie and Connections” by Jim Kostibos, a veteran Erie engineer. Mr. Kostibos HATED the PA model, calling them “uncomfortable pieces of junk.” He did like the RS series ALCOs however, calling them “fun to run”.

By the way, the Kostibos book is a lot of fun, I recommend it highly.

What you’re say here reminds me of what I once read in Karl Zimmerman’s book about the California Zephyr. In it he said that Alcos never performed well on that train and he attributed that to the Denver and Rio Grande Western being in the EMD camp. Evetually EMD Fs took over on the CZ.

ALCo 16-251 based locos were manufactured under license in India till March 2012 from early 60s. They are robust and proven machines.

The Napa and GCR FA are FPA4 locomotives with V12 251 engines; the Erie PA’s had V16 244 engines; as noted above the 251 is a great engine, the 244 was not.

Ah yes, the 244 engine. I read the problem with the 244 was ALCO’s rush to get a diesel road engine immediately onto the post war market. They didn’t “wring out” and “torture test” the 244 enough to find all the possible bugs and remove them.

Well, they weren’t the first to rush a new product onto the market too quickly. They certainly wouldn’t be the last either. What’s that one of the other posters says?

“Learn from other peoples mistakes, you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself.”

As an EXPORAIL volunteer, we do operate a number of older Alco’s (MLW’s). one thing about a 251, you can always count on it to fire up even after a long period of sitting in the yard. Fill the water, batteries et all, pre-oil the engine and just crank it up! The big cloud of smoke usually happens when you notch the engine too fast for the turbo to spool up.

ALCO seemed to be more on the reactive side of things when it came to field issues…vs. EMD and GE. Perhaps finances limited ALCO’s ability to field test locomotives and component sets.

The 16-251 with single pipe exhaust manifold tends to generate more acceleration smoke as compared to the 12 cyl. w/multiple pipe manifold. Some of the 16 cyl engines were equipped with dashpots in the fuel linkage-which I suspect were removed in short order.

The turbos used with these engines (520,720,165) are now rather ancient compared to the technology available today.

Sorry I don’t have time to respond in more detail right now, the best I can do is add a link that has been posted here before; Alco versus EMD… A very interesting side that most of us don’t give much thought to.

http://utahrails.net/articles/alco-v-emd.php

So what you are saying, or what your linked article is saying, is that ALCo was in reality making a GE locomotive as the relied upon the GE electrical gear. ALCo had, say, 20 percent of the market, but then GE decided they “wanted in” and then they drove ALCo out and took over that 20 percent of the market?

Going back a bit on this thread. The reason the Alco PA’s were not liked on the D&RGW was simply that it is was the wrong locomotive for the job. FA’s would have been a better choice. The PA’s were built for high speed service on fairly level track, not for a mountain railroad, which usually gets best results from diesels with all axles powered. Thus the EMD F-units were a better choice. But note that four units were usual for the CZ. Th Alco passenger locos continued in reliable service on the Yampa Valle Mail, Joint-iine trains and the Scenic-Limited - Royal Gorge, and occasionally on the Prospector, all shorter and lighter trains.

That’s always been my understanding.

GVT loves their ALCo’s. Adirondack Scenic has two RS18u’s on line, and they’re working on getting RS3 8223 back on line as well. They’re good locomotives.

A real question in my mind is why so many late model ALCOs are still running when so few U-Boats are. Since ALCO was using GE electrical equipment what were the first generation GEs so bad at?

It isn’t so much the electrical equipment as it is parts availability for the prime movers. I’ve gotten the impression that it’s easier to get parts for 251’s than it is for earlier FDL’s.

Couple of things I read years ago in TRAINS:

Since Alco knew they had less of the diesel locomotive market than GM, they made a big effort to use parts other than prime movers, generators and traction motors (small parts) that were available on the open market, maybe even primarily used in other industries, for better parts availability. That could explain why so many older Alco’s are still running.

Another article discussed the amount of maintenance required by early GM, Alco, Baldwin and Lima-Hamilton diesels. If the amount of maintenance required by a GM locomotive was a 1, an Alco took about 1.5 and one of the other makes took somewhere between 1.5 and 4, and the other took 4. In other words, an Alco took about 1.5 times the amount of maintenance that a GM loco did, and one of the other makes took about 4 times the maintenance a GM loco did. If accurate, explains why Lima-Hamilton and Baldwin didn’t last long in the diesel locomotive business.

All this is according to memory, and corrections by anyone willing to dig up those articles (or with a better memory!) is welcome.

i knew a guy who was a mechanic for the Milwaukee Road, He said the GE engines didn’t load like EMD or ALCOS, Therefore they don’t do well in switching, which is what second hand or demoted units usually do. But they could run with the best of them. He said that’s why on the Milwaukee they generally used on the transcontinental trains where they could stretch their legs, Even the U-18s were a valiant try, but they didn’t work out too well. Ken used to say that you can switch with an SD45 if you have to, where a “U-Boat you put it in Run-8, put your feet up on the control stand and pull it back when you get to Seattle. That’s all they’'re good for.”

Alco certainly had some inventive foresight in being the first with the idea of a “road-switcher” diesel, which all diesels became.

The real problem with ALCos was the 241 fiasco killed their reputation. By the time they got the 251 out it was too little too late. That, and on a shortline situation where they can give them a bit of ‘tlc’ the additional maintenance isn’t as big a deal because the fuel savings are worth it. With a large fleet - that becomes an issue. That was one of the big reasons class ones stopped buying them.

I must respectfully disagree.

It is well documented in the various Alco PA books, including “PA Alco’s Glamour Girl” that at the time of introduction, the Alco PA-1 was superior to the current EMD offering, the F-3, in mountain service. The Alco PA had a stronger acceleration curve and the dynamic brakes as tested by Santa Fe were much better than what EMD had in the F-3. That is why Santa Fe and Southern Pacific placed large multiple orders for this locomotive model.

The PA was better in the mountains than the F-3, and forced EMD to go back to the drawing board, which did result in the F-7, which could be argued as being superior to the PA-1.

Remember, this was all before they were in service long enough for the turbocharger and crankshaft issues to destroy Alco’s reputation. As later well documented in the RS-27 book, the stigma of poor performance of the Alco PA on Santa Fe continued to be very damaging to both Alco and GE during the 1960’s.

Respectfully submitted–

John