Another thing I doubt Alco (amd MLW/Bombardier) had access to was GE's full catalog of electrical gear. That "partnership" of Alco/GE gave Alco (and the others) no incentive to do R&D to the degree that GM and GE did, let alone actual production in-house electrical gear.
As for being "pullers" didn't the Westinghouse gear in BLW and FM locomotives give them the rep for being better than EMD at low-speed/high-tonnage work? Especially drag and transfer work?
Desert Rat As for being "pullers" didn't the Westinghouse gear in BLW and FM locomotives give them the rep for being better than EMD at low-speed/high-tonnage work? Especially drag and transfer work?
Westinghouse traction motors had six poles as opposed to the four poles used on GE and GM motors (with the orignal GM motors being more or less copies of GE motors). For a given frame size, this should allow for a higher flux density on the poles, which would translate into a higher torque for a given armature current.
As far as the R&D disadvantage for Alco, they were the first of the big three to use traction alternators instead of generators.
- Erik
erikem - Erik
This statement needs some qualification. Alco was the first of the big three to use a traction alternator in a production locomotive: ACL C630 #2011 built in July 1965. That Alco locomotive was built after EMD test locomotives #462 F9Am, 433 GP40X, and 434, 434A-H SD40X, all were equipped with traction alternators.
Another thing I doubt Alco (amd MLW/Bombardier) had access to was GE's full catalog of electrical gear.
Alco was the first of the big three to use a traction alternator in a production locomotive: ACL C630 #2011 built in July 1965.
Apart from the obvious conflict of those statements, MLW continued to get support from GE up to the end of their production. In Australia, locally built electrical equipment to designs from AEI iin England was often used in place of GE to the extent that there were equivalent motors and generators, an AEI 165 being equivalent to a GE 752. AEI equipment, and licence built copies were also used by DLW in India rather than GE equipment. Given the extensive and continuing building of Alco designs in India, up to this current year, AEI and its Indian licensee may have supplied more equipment than GE... Towards the end in Australia, MLW design locomotives used Mitsubishi electrical equipment.
Peter
ACL #2011 was a guinea pig for GE's traction alternator. The C630 used the GTA-9 alternator. Alco's second and third units with traction alternators were ACL #2012 and 2013 built in December 1965. By that time EMD had built 40 New York Central GP40s, the first SD45 demonstrator and was about to announce the 40 Series. General Electric was working on the even better GTA-11 traction alternator. A drawing of the stub nose U28 was printed in the November 1965 Trains Magazine on page 14. GE's response with traction alternator equipped UBoats started in May 1966 with the four U30B demonstrators. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased 15 U28Cs with traction alternators in September 1966. Production of GE's U30B and U30C would soon follow.
SSW9389 ACL #2011 was a guinea pig for GE's traction alternator. The C630 used the GTA-9 alternator. Alco's second and third units with traction alternators were ACL #2012 and 2013 built in December 1965. By that time EMD had built 40 New York Central GP40s, the first SD45 demonstrator and was about to announce the 40 Series. General Electric was working on the even better GTA-11 traction alternator. A drawing of the stub nose U28 was printed in the November 1965 Trains Magazine on page 14. GE's response with traction alternator equipped UBoats started in May 1966 with the four U30B demonstrators. The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased 15 U28Cs with traction alternators in September 1966. Production of GE's U30B and U30C would soon follow.
One thing I have always pondered. Why are most locomotives only electrically started?
Back in the Gen 1 days when prime movers were rarely shut down outside of shop areas, how they were started was not that big of a deal.
Now we are in the world of fuel conservation. Prime movers on multiple unit locomotive consists can be shut down a number of times during their trip if the delay at meets is expected to exceed a hour. Locomotives for locals at oulying locations are shut down as long as the expected low temperature before the next use is no lower than 40 degrees F.
What are the problems of equipping locomotives with BOTH electrical and AIR starters. As we all know, from time to time batteries have their own issues and don't give full voltage required to start the engines. If the batteries are dead, locomotives do not carry jumper cables to permit jumping from a currently running locomotive. However, operating locomotives always have operating air compressors and air pressure available to be routed to an air starter.
I am certain the bean counters look at having both forms as a waste of money, however as a operating person - a locomotive that can't be started is an even bigger waste of money.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD One thing I have always pondered. Why are most locomotives only electrically started? Back in the Gen 1 days when prime movers were rarely shut down outside of shop areas, how they were started was not that big of a deal. Now we are in the world of fuel conservation. Prime movers on multiple unit locomotive consists can be shut down a number of times during their trip if the delay at meets is expected to exceed a hour. Locomotives for locals at oulying locations are shut down as long as the expected low temperature before the next use is no lower than 40 degrees F. What are the problems of equipping locomotives with BOTH electrical and AIR starters. As we all know, from time to time batteries have their own issues and don't give full voltage required to start the engines. If the batteries are dead, locomotives do not carry jumper cables to permit jumping from a currently running locomotive. However, operating locomotives always have operating air compressors and air pressure available to be routed to an air starter. I am certain the bean counters look at having both forms as a waste of money, however as a operating person - a locomotive that can't be started is an even bigger waste of money.
Before I retired 5 years ago, the newest EMD's did have air starters. And the start/stop systems on both the EMD's and GE's were programmed to restart the diesel when certain parameters were met, including a decreased air pressure or battery voltage so that the system WOULD be able start the diesel before it couldn't.
So your point is a good one and the designers already thought of it.
DAVID GRIMM1So your point is a good one and the designers already thought of it.
Unfortunately my 'point' was brought about by too many outlying local freights whose engines would not start when the crews came on duty, as well as a few road trains that were handling max tonnage for their power that were delayed at a meet and in accordance with instructions in effect they shut down power other than the lead unit for fuel conservation. When it came time to get the train's moving again the shut down power would not restart and the train was now overloaded for its route. Plan B!
One advantage of an air starter, at least in a workshop environment, is that you are likely to have a supply of sufficiently high pressure air to continue to try to start a reluctant locomotive after emptying its air system. However, the air starter on a C636 was noisy, and everyone in the shop knew what was happening when you had a unit that was hard to get to fire.
Some turboprop airliners used air starters. I remember a Bristol Britannia at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport starting for its flight to London in the late 1950s. In those days there was just a wire fence between farewelling visitors and the aircraft. I think it was the first time we hadn't gone to the docks to see a ship sail for that purpose. I think the air starter on the Bristol Proteus was the noisiest thing I'd ever heard to that time. The designer of the Proteus said "we designed the engine to be the most economical aero engine in the world, regardless of size and weight. I can say that we met the size and weight criterion".
The Allison engines in Lockheed Electras were also started by air. An Electra freighter came to Port Hedland during my time with Mt Newman, with the computer control system for the port conveyer belts (in those days you needed a four engined aircraft to carry a computer). The area was, (and still is) very flat and there was nothing in the five or so miles between my office and the Electra on the hardstand with one engine still running for a couple of hours since there was no air starter north of Perth. Given a choice, I'd have preferred to have the air start system in town.
Now there are probably big ore stockpiles for at least two other mining railways to mute the sound.
My hubby's reading this over my shoulder and has a good one on air starters. He was getting a full DOT inspection done at Truckee in 99. Driver next to him was also. Well came time to restart their engines while the DOT officer was still under the truck to check for oil and coolant leaks. The driver next to him had an air starter on his truck. He hit his button to fire it up and the DOT officer comes flying out from under the truck cussing like a Chief in the Navy. The other driver went what's wrong officer forgot I had an air starter on here.
I have heard of incidents which found the weak points in both air and electric locomotive starters.
Last year a consist was parked while the crew was on mandatory rest. One locomotive (a newer GE) either had defective batteries or AutoStart went to sleep. The crew came back on duty and the unit would not start. So another crew had to be called and a booster cable brought from the next terminal over.
A couple years earlier a train powered entirely by SD70M-2's was parked to wait for a rested crew. As per our fuel conservation instructions at the time the incoming crew manually shut down all the locomotives. This action disabled the AutoStart program. By the time the new crew came on duty the MR air pressure had leaked off and there was not enough left to start any of the engines. So they had to wait for the next train to arrive, stop and hook up the MR hose to recharge the dead units, which then started without incident. After that a notice was put in our operating manual to NEVER manually shut down consists composed entirely of SD70M-2's.
CN orders units with a battery charging plug located under the frame near the cab, no need for alligator clips. This plug design has been in use since the early 1900s on passenger equipment and I have yet to see a CN diesel unit without it. I have never seen a foreign unit with one though.
Didn't the SD80MAC's come with both air and electric starters?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Getting back to the original topic, it depends on who you ask.
If you ask a line used to EMD or GE power, they will say yes, Alco's are bad.
Ask a line like the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville, or Western New York & Pennsylvania, they will say no, they are great.
According to every crew I've spoken with on the WNYP, the Alco's pull better than GE units, and load better than any EMD they've ever ran. (And one pointed out that Alco's beat both on fuel efficiency too.)
So, at least according to them, the Alco units they run out perform on almost every level the competition.
But, they also know how to care for them, while a EMD or GE mechanic probably won't. Therein lies the biggest difference, I think. Most railroads are more used to EMD or GE mechanical work, so they do the same on the Alco, and that just doesn't work.
Kind of like how most of us would be lost trying to work on a Lamborghini. It just isn't going to turn out well.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Shops tend to maintain things by word of mouth rather than according to manufacturer instructions or service manuals. If the institutional knowledge is not there when problems come up, then repairs will be ineffective and the units will get bad reputations.
M636CSome turboprop airliners used air starters. I remember a Bristol Britannia at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport starting for its flight to London in the late 1950s. In those days there was just a wire fence between farewelling visitors and the aircraft. I think it was the first time we hadn't gone to the docks to see a ship sail for that purpose. I think the air starter on the Bristol Proteus was the noisiest thing I'd ever heard to that time. The designer of the Proteus said "we designed the engine to be the most economical aero engine in the world, regardless of size and weight. I can say that we met the size and weight criterion".
The Proteus was a gas turbine tuboprop engine, also used by the British Electrical board for "Pocket Power staions" in the SW. Definitely LOUD!
SOU RR had 6 PAs assigned to trains 45 & 46 Tennessean Bristol = Memphis. #s 6900 - 6905 sub lettered NO&NE. Only 4 required for operation of train and if one failed could ferry from Chattanooga - ATL for maintenance. Even so only about 80% of time would 2 PAs make it to Bristol. Reliability ? ? ?
Was told that often an "F" unit assigned Chattanooga <> Memphis with a PA.
While it has been well documented that the 244 engine was not properly developed, I would surmise that the PA's assigned to the "Tennesseean" also suffered from being Alcos on an EMD railroad.
Ulrich Some railroads, like Spokane, Portland, and Seattle and BC Rail purchased predominantly Alco products...they must have had reason to beleive that they were the better locomotive...
Some railroads, like Spokane, Portland, and Seattle and BC Rail purchased predominantly Alco products...they must have had reason to beleive that they were the better locomotive...
Yes, many railroads prodominantly Alco. The LV had many RS-2, 3, and 11 locomotives, C628s and C420s, and several other Alcos. They only had a few Geeps. The biggest area lacking Alco was the switching department, with EMD pups (SW/NW) making the bulk of the fleet.
Modeler of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Bethlehem PA, 1971 and railfan of Norfolk Southern's Lehigh and Reading Lines of the modern day.
http://hohobbyist.weebly.com
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIYnPo26Y8nsXyKhtpvSWwA
http://instagram.com/lvrr_hoscale
http://twitter.com/lvrr_hoscale
"When railroading time comes you can railroad...but not before."
- Robert A. Heinlein
Bad, no, they just behind the 8 ball so to speakand rushed the 244 into production before it was field tested enough. Railroads do NOT like to be the beta testers as failures on the main line are frowned upon at the highest level. The later 244's had the issues resolved and even a few are in use today on some shortlines like the Delaware & Lackawanna in their RS3's and on the Battenkill RR. The 251 prime mover that was in later RS and the Century series also so lots of use in standby and marine use. Many tug and tow boats still run Alco 251's as thier main engines. EMD just figured out the reliablity side of things quickly and maintained that level. This is what the big railroads craved, high reliablity. Especially when crossing the desert southwest in the heat and high altitudes. IF Alcos were so bad, then why do several larger shortlines and regionals run mostly all Alco power. Alcos were known for better slow speed "lugging power" over the same EMD models. Love them or hate them, Alco's left their mark in locomotive history. Mike the Aspie.
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Why the Alco engine wasn't more popular goes back to WW2. Alco wasn't allowed to build anything diesel powered beyond the MRS1 for the US military. EMD however was cranking out their 567 models for the Navy and in the FT series of engines. The 567 was used in submarines LST smaller ships like minesweeper and fleet support craft. So when WW2 was over and all the machinist mates needed a job with the railroad that ordered EMD locomotives well they already knew what to do when they broke. With the Alco engine they're starting from scratch with nothing and learning on the fly.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe 567 was used in submarines LST smaller ships like minesweeper and fleet support craft. So when WW2 was over and all the machinist mates needed a job with the railroad that ordered EMD locomotives well they already knew what to do when they broke.
As happens, my best childhood friend's father was a 567 diesel mechanic during that war (among many other things, he was the one who taught me a fingerprint on part of the injector mechanism would preclude ability to reinstall it) and I suspect the government's wartime training was widespread, accurate, and reasonably good in being memorable to students from 'many walks of life', to be a bit euphemistic.
With the Alco engine they're starting from scratch with nothing and learning on the fly.
The problem with this neat little interpretation, of course, is that any practical Alco since ... well, about halfway through the initial era of dieselization would be equipped with a 251 and not a 244. And that design (as the year part of the code indicates) was manifestly well postwar, so a dieselizing railroad's mechanical forces would be just as 'starting from scratch' and 'learning on the fly' as any other's. The same would be true even more forcefully for any sort of Cooper-Bessemer design (not to mention evolution -- pun intended) of the design in large road power) in General Electric locomotives, on which EMD had an even longer 'head start' backed up with the best parts management and supply chain in the world. There is a large following of 251 engines elsewhere in the world, notably in India; there is a large and experienced technical community who know how to work on 251s in stationary and marine applications. I think you need to go elsewhere to explain Alco's ultimate 'failure' as a locomotive producer many years after introduction and then progressive improvement of the 251 powerplant.
I think SOTC had a good point why Alco wasn't doing better in the immediate post-WW2 era. The development effort that was allowed for the 567 during WW2 was a huge obstacle to overcome, though part of that could be traced back to Alco for not starting work on a lightweight V-12 or V16 diesel engine earlier.
In the final years, the "honorary steam locomotive" reputation didn't help when air pollution was becoming a major concern.
While GE eventually beat out EMD in the locomotive business, it took several decades of work on GE's part along with GM slacking off on investing in EMD's future.
Shadow the Cats owner Why the Alco engine wasn't more popular goes back to WW2. Alco wasn't allowed to build anything diesel powered beyond the MRS1 for the US military. EMD however was cranking out their 567 models for the Navy and in the FT series of engines. The 567 was used in submarines LST smaller ships like minesweeper and fleet support craft. So when WW2 was over and all the machinist mates needed a job with the railroad that ordered EMD locomotives well they already knew what to do when they broke. With the Alco engine they're starting from scratch with nothing and learning on the fly.
M636CEMD built a couple of Winton engine designs that used many 567 components and features, but these used a single camshaft in the vee and pushrods rather than the 567 overhead camshaft arrangement.
Please tell me what these are. My understanding was that the Cleveland 248 and 278 both had the camshafts right at the rockers, just to the inside of the V (unlike the 201A which had them in the block outside and just below the cylinder bores). This is the cross-section of a 278A:
I've also never heard of 567's in submarines.
WWII era submarine engine installations in the USN with the Gato/Balao/Tench class submarines were FM designs, 16-248's and 16-278A's, and some terrible Hooven-Owens-Rentschler engines in a few Gato's (And some prewar subs) that were a disaster. Repowerings of prewar construction also stuck to the same FM's and GM engines to my knowledge. 567's seemed to mostly go into LST's and tugs.
And I bet those Southern PA's never got the Alco retrofits developed in the mid 1950's or so after Santa Fe grew tired of their problems. I've forgotten the details on the work, but it turned around reliability for the Santa Fe and enabled their fleet of early examples to turn in reliable performance until passenger train discontinuances in the late 1960's allowed them to be retired.
That goes a long way in explaining why only one A/B/A set of ATSF PA's was repowered with 567 engines in the 1950's.
Leo_Ames WWII era submarine engine installations in the USN with the Gato/Balao/Tench class submarines were FM designs, 16-248's and 16-278A's, and some terrible Hooven-Owens-Rentschler engines in a few Gato's (And some prewar subs) that were a disaster. Repowerings of prewar construction also stuck to the same FM's and GM engines to my knowledge. 567's seemed to mostly go into LST's and tugs.
My dad went through the USN diesel engineering school in early 1945 and mentioned the FM's, GM 24 cylinder diesel, Alco 539 and HOR's. He specifically said that the engines were usually referred to by the acronym, though the machining was top notch.
To reinforce what Peter said about GE turbochargers, Pratt & Whitney was having a bad time with the GE turbocharers used on the Wasp Major. This would have been the same time frame as the 244.
CSSHEGEWISCHThat goes a long way in explaining why only one A/B/A set of ATSF PA's was repowered with 567 engines in the 1950's.
Something that goes a longer way is the performance 'hit' involved in replacing a 16-cylinder turbocharged 244 with a Roots-blown two-stroke that has no volumetric compression advantage at altitude.
To put it a bit more poignantly (in light of the engine acronym just mentioned) Rock Island was not the only railroad with a "Christine".
It would have been interesting to see the result if, even a few years later, a set of PAs were re-engined with turbo 16-645s (or even turbo 12s!). But by then the show would have been largely over for PAs anyway.
The "ramp" up to the Moffett Tunnel is, I understand, a 2% grade?
More years ago than I care to admit to, I was skiiing in Winter Park. The skiiing at Winter Park was always a lot of fun, but maybe the best part of the outing was watching a passenger train go up that hill, although it seems that was the only train we saw when we were on the slopes.
I am guessing it was early 1970s pre-Amtrak, although the D&RGW opted out of Amtrak and ran some kind of Rio Grande Zephyr train for some time after the 1971 changeover. The consist in question was 7 lightweight-type passenger cars with a goodly number of dome cars, with 5 (yep, five) F units in front. The train seemed to be moving oh-so-slow.
They needed 5 Diesel units for 7 lightweight passenger cars? They needed 600 tons on 20 powered axles to pull another 450 tons up that hill? Dad was teaching engineering at Boulder, and he had worked with train cars at GATX. He told me that "half of the weight of the train is in the locomotive", but this may have been a formula for European steam-powered express passenger trains where he grew up? With many fewer power axles?
Maybe they were getting 800 naturally aspirated 16-cyl 567 HP per unit in the mountain air or a total of 4000 HP? That amount of power can move the train up the 2% at about 35 MPH? The train seemed it was going a lot lower than that, but up on the ski slope and seeing the train like it was a model on a train layout, maybe that is what they were doing?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.