I had immediate family who worked for the Rock Island as an engineer. He told me the brace of Alco's FA and FB's the rock bought were intended to compare to the EMD FT's. He told me the Alco four unit set would out pull the four unit FT set. But later the higher horse power EMD units began to make a better showing.
If only ALCo had put as much care and quality into their diesel prime movers as they did their steam locomotives, the locomotive world would probably be a lot different today.
Everybody goes on about the same stuff but the New Haven had a fleet of Alco DL 109 that were working 24 hours a day pulley freight trains at night and passenger service in the daytime and running up the miles Left Right & Center with 2539 Motors. The performance of the ALCO DL 109 totally surprised the railroad and their availability within 97th percentile meaning that they just stopped to change the oil and get fueled up and then they went back out on the road and they hauled a lot of freight during the war as well as passengers.
The Alco Diesel is one of my favorite engines from having bad cams right from the factory most of them all had to be rebuilt & in fact they were designed by wash machine designers... Awesome video thanks 👍😎
The FA morphed into something very much wanted, the export DL500 with the 251 engine used by the RENFE, OSE, NSWGR, SAR, Indian Railways, Pakistan Railways and in Argentina
I've had the pleasure of riding a train at the Monticello Railway Museum pulled by one of the Alcos. It was a great day and a great memory. The unit had been repainted in the original green CN livery.
The RS-1's "drafted" by the US government during WWII did NOT operate on the Trans Siberian, or any other railway in the Soviet Union. They ran on the Trans Iranian railway (standard gauge), feeding supplies and war materiel to the Soviets from a port on the Persian Gulf to a port on the Caspian Sea. They were needed to increase line capacity, as the route had several murderous ruling grades requiring several steam locomotives for each short train. Add to that, water was in scarce supply, and diesels were the answer. The Soviets were so impressed by the performance of the Alcos that they ordered 70 near-duplicates of the militarized RS-1's, the notable difference being a standard cab instead of the low clearance cab on the "RSD-1's". They were classed Da for "Dizel Alko" and were intended to replace steam in the dry areas of the Soviet Union such as Turkmenistan, but found such favor with Stalin that some were ordered to the Moscow Region and were used to pull his private train. USSR's first production diesel loco was the TE-1-20, a direct copy of the Da class.
@@rearspeaker6364 no, the Russians went a different route to get 2 stroke cycle diesels. They reverse engineered Fairbanks Morse engines from leased US minesweepers. They became the core for 3 generations of Soviet locomotives that were produced in the tens of thousands from the 1950s.to the early 1990s. Far more successful than FM in the US. Kind of disproves the railfan myth that FM diesels were unsuitable for locomotive use. Thousands are still working to this day.
Living in Canada, I never knew WHY I liked Alco so much over 50 years, over GM. Now I know. As they say in the military, "great gen" in this video; I appreciated the technical exlpanations so much!
I watched your series again today. You have the unique talent of gathering technical research and film clips (maybe from others, but who cares as long as you give credit). Finally, presenting it with authority. You could make 100K subs.
My favorite looking front end of all American diesel-electric locos was the EMC E1 and E3 - E6 series. That heavily raked nose is a reminder of the earlier beauty, the Burlington Zephyr.
As an Australian, who knew members of the Easybeats I'll let you in on a little story. Happened in London when the Easybeats were over there. The BBC played their song, Friday On My Mind, and who should he listening to the BBC, on his car radio right then? One Sir Paul Mc. Cartney. He stopped the car, called the BBC and demanded they play it again, and I mean now. The Easybeats had it all in front of them, the late Ted Albert, had America in his sights, when Stevie Wright, the vocalist, called it a day. So no more Easybeats. I've seen them live a number of times, you yanks missed out on something special. Oh, and by the way, George Young, guitarist, had 2 younger brothers, who did ok for themselves, Angus and Malcom Young, does that ring any Hells Bells?
@@alcobufff Easybeats, great Australian group, getting back to trains you may be interested in this, including the Licence built Alco DL500 the 44 class of the NSWGR and the 930 Class of the South Australian railways.th-cam.com/video/zKs5yUebT3M/w-d-xo.html
I remember very well seeing one of these on the Katy in the early 60's, my cousin and I thought they were cool looking. Come to find out by this time it had been allegedly remanufactured by EMD with a 16-567. Have fond memories of talking to a Katy engineer on a Baldwin road switcher a few years later, he pointed out the EMD tag on it. In the old Eureka yard (or whats left of it) is also a Baldwin switch engine- just like my American Flyer - that was still being used recently, also redone by EMD.
Great vid. Not only the actual video content but your narration was superb, giving us the honest meat and potatoes of truth rather than just some Alco cheerleading. Very nice.
I always have been fascinated and loved the look of the ALCO Locomotive. How unfortunate and sad that ALCO didn't have more pride in their finished produce.
No wonder there were no 244B's saved. The C&O had RDS7's with 244B prime movers in them. There's no sound recording of the motor running. Would've been nice so we could use it for our DCC models.
I think when UP's FA's went out with cracked engine blocks that was pretty much the last straw. You might want to check out AC at "Trains 21", he covers the D & L in great detail. Great series.
What didnt help ALCO as far as quality, was their Union Contracts with their shops! Employees were paid by the number of units manufactured.Not hourly! also their heavy reliance on GE for electrical equipment!
@@gregrudd6983 In the early 1990s I rewired the main harness of an RS-3. When an engineer from the railroad that it came off of visited, he wanted to know how I got it to run so smoothly as it never had when they had it. That harness was over 50' long and when finished, barely fit in the original conduit. The difference, better quality wire and an increase in the wire gauge of the wires. Was not fun soldering all the wires into the connector at the cab end and then tagging and shrink wrapping each joint in clear plastic. But the results spoke for themselves. Hopefully the AEI supplied kit had better quality wiring.
Well you do or have done a video on MLW rs-23 new to your channel and also a alco nut I worked with rs 23 in Minneapolis for Minnesota commercial a very nice looking locomotive only 1000 hp 6 cylinder but a good one
"GM&O ordered the first, NYC ordered the most, and CN ordered the last and fastest of the locomotive that promised a million miles between overhauls". I remember the TRAINS article vividly. Another awesome video. Have you ever considered doing one on the ill-fated C-643DH's?
If I’m not mistaken, the FPA4 that was scrapped by Cuyahoga railway, had its Cab roof donated to Alco PA1 former AT&SF #59L that is currently undergoing a full restoration in Texas.
I LOVE The GREEN BAY AND WESTERN FA-1 in the 500-series, with bright red bodies like fire engines. And the wide Gray stripe along the body. And the black and white checkerboard stripes along the frame. And the silver trucks. I Hope and Pray that one of the other excursion trains could please repaint 2 of their FPA-4 Units into the GBW Colors to have a matched set running together. Or one on each end of the coaches. Better yet, please send one of these FPA-4 Units over here to Green Bay because I wanted to start a new excursion here for many years!! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022 A.D. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!!!!! ALLELUIA!!!!! AMEN 🙏.
aaayyyy the FA's are not unloved..... My Grandfather, Russel Decho. Decho Scale Models, has built many many FA's even FA ABA sets!!! in half inch "live steam" scale. I remember as a kid seeing a full FA ABA set in the Santa Fe Warbonnet livery it was friggen BEAUTIFUL! lol. and a crap ton of RS-3's in 1/2 inch 'live steam' scale He had also made a few 'live steam' locomotives as well as far as I know 908 is still at the Illinois Live Steamers
Alcos look cool, they were just crap....could yall imagine if GE and Alco had stayed together? what kind of 10,500 hp units they could have been turning out? it would be like the new "Alco-GE "Century" 1050" the best wiring, frame, prime mover, the new and improved 7fdl16 TURBO ISSUES RESOLVED! teir 4 class, trucks that could take a container train 80-95 + mph! ...this thing would be a monster!!
I've run ALCo RS-1s, RS-3s, and S-2s. All have outlasted EMD engines in use. Sad thing is, the RS-1 got a modern control stand which took away the mechanical throttle. Did not like it as well as an S-2 with the mechanical link to the governor. With the S-2, if you needed 5 extra HP, you only needed to bump the throttle open a hair. Can't do that with an EMD control stand. Wiring from the factory of the RS-3 was garbage but after rewiring ran as smooth as could be. No more hunting for the engine as it held the speed it was set at. I blame GE for that part.
Yep with many of them dyeing of old age instead. But here in Australia that might have a lot more to do with the licensee A.E.Goodwin than Alco themselves.
What was that say again .... _Haste Makes Waste._ This is typical of bean counters taking over engineering. Trouble is, this always costs a company, both in real terms and crucially, in their reputation. Once that is lost, it is almost impossible to get it back. And yes, Baldwin went the same way.
One thing your commentary ignores is the fact that the ALCO suffered mainly a lot of abuse at the hands of the Railroad Earth because they were replacing Steam I knew some guys who made a bet at the Eyrie to see how many cars it would take to overload the traction Motors and set them on fire on an rs2 any answer is 128. In the Train club I Heard lots of guys who love to blow up brand new diesel locomotive engine so they could go back to steam and get paid more. There were many many railroads you had fleets of 244 and 539 engines that still run today in third hand and exclusive service. Many railroads were completely Alco baste and were well served by their locomotive Fleet and it was only changing Economic Times that caused them to go out of business, when your customers don't need locomotives and that's your only business you're more or less Sol. When you had a failure on an Alco or a Baldwin they would scream about it but if you had the same type of failure on an EMD they would whisper about it. PA cranks with go bad with service because of being so long they would start to whip but no one knew this because no one was building diesel engines. When the same thing happened did the EMT SD 40-2 20 cylinder engines nobody made a big thing about it.
What a ridiculous angle to take for ALCO - "running the locomotives hard". Well that is what a locomotive does. It's the sole reason for its existence, it is meant for hard work. 🙄 Casting the engine blocks with the bearing housing out of alignment doesn't help, either.
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The PA and FA are impressive looking but reliability is what matters. Interesting ALco history.
I had immediate family who worked for the Rock Island as an engineer. He told me the brace of Alco's FA and FB's the rock bought were intended to compare to the EMD FT's. He told me the Alco four unit set would out pull the four unit FT set. But later the higher horse power EMD units began to make a better showing.
The fact the Rock Island re-powered their with EMD prime-movers says a lot...
If only ALCo had put as much care and quality into their diesel prime movers as they did their steam locomotives, the locomotive world would probably be a lot different today.
Everybody goes on about the same stuff but the New Haven had a fleet of Alco DL 109 that were working 24 hours a day pulley freight trains at night and passenger service in the daytime and running up the miles Left Right & Center with 2539 Motors. The performance of the ALCO DL 109 totally surprised the railroad and their availability within 97th percentile meaning that they just stopped to change the oil and get fueled up and then they went back out on the road and they hauled a lot of freight during the war as well as passengers.
The Alco Diesel is one of my favorite engines from having bad cams right from the factory most of them all had to be rebuilt & in fact they were designed by wash machine designers... Awesome video thanks 👍😎
Alco history at it’s best. 🤠👍
The FA morphed into something very much wanted, the export DL500 with the 251 engine used by the RENFE, OSE, NSWGR, SAR, Indian Railways, Pakistan Railways and in Argentina
I've had the pleasure of riding a train at the Monticello Railway Museum pulled by one of the Alcos. It was a great day and a great memory. The unit had been repainted in the original green CN livery.
The RS-1's "drafted" by the US government during WWII did NOT operate on the Trans Siberian, or any other railway in the Soviet Union. They ran on the Trans Iranian railway (standard gauge), feeding supplies and war materiel to the Soviets from a port on the Persian Gulf to a port on the Caspian Sea. They were needed to increase line capacity, as the route had several murderous ruling grades requiring several steam locomotives for each short train. Add to that, water was in scarce supply, and diesels were the answer. The Soviets were so impressed by the performance of the Alcos that they ordered 70 near-duplicates of the militarized RS-1's, the notable difference being a standard cab instead of the low clearance cab on the "RSD-1's". They were classed Da for "Dizel Alko" and were intended to replace steam in the dry areas of the Soviet Union such as Turkmenistan, but found such favor with Stalin that some were ordered to the Moscow Region and were used to pull his private train. USSR's first production diesel loco was the TE-1-20, a direct copy of the Da class.
good thing we never sent any NW2's to the trans- iranian railway back then.
@@rearspeaker6364 no, the Russians went a different route to get 2 stroke cycle diesels. They reverse engineered Fairbanks Morse engines from leased US minesweepers. They became the core for 3 generations of Soviet locomotives that were produced in the tens of thousands from the 1950s.to the early 1990s. Far more successful than FM in the US. Kind of disproves the railfan myth that FM diesels were unsuitable for locomotive use. Thousands are still working to this day.
@@fmnut the TE10--that's my favorite locomotive, have watched over 1000 videos of them.
@@fmnut And the TEM-7 bares a direct relationship to the RSC-1s. If you close your eyes when one is running, it still sounds like a 539 engine.
@@gravelydon7072 because it is just an unlicensed copy!
Living in Canada, I never knew WHY I liked Alco so much over 50 years, over GM. Now I know.
As they say in the military, "great gen" in this video; I appreciated the technical exlpanations so much!
John New Haven rebuild program in the early sixties took place while the railroad was in receivership
Thank you for having us aboard.
But found it's element moving countless freight and passenger cars on Lionel layouts everywhere. :D
I watched your series again today.
You have the unique talent of gathering technical research and
film clips (maybe from others, but who cares as long as you give credit).
Finally, presenting it with authority.
You could make 100K subs.
Thanks!
My favorite looking front end of all American diesel-electric locos was the EMC E1 and E3 - E6 series. That heavily raked nose is a reminder of the earlier beauty, the Burlington Zephyr.
*Could you do something on the ALCO DL-109? Love the look of that loco, with the center window...*
He did a DL-109 video recently.
I have one Lionel alco from 1957, and now I know a little bit more about the real thing...thanks
As an Australian, who knew members of the Easybeats I'll let you in on a little story. Happened in London when the Easybeats were over there. The BBC played their song, Friday On My Mind, and who should he listening to the BBC, on his car radio right then? One Sir Paul Mc. Cartney. He stopped the car, called the BBC and demanded they play it again, and I mean now. The Easybeats had it all in front of them, the late Ted Albert, had America in his sights, when Stevie Wright, the vocalist, called it a day. So no more Easybeats. I've seen them live a number of times, you yanks missed out on something special. Oh, and by the way, George Young, guitarist, had 2 younger brothers, who did ok for themselves, Angus and Malcom Young, does that ring any Hells Bells?
Cool info! its too bad most people in this country don't know and or may never know they existed.
Great Song 🎵
Acca Dacca, seen them live with Bon up front.
@@alcobufff Easybeats, great Australian group, getting back to trains you may be interested in this, including the Licence built Alco DL500 the 44 class of the NSWGR and the 930 Class of the South Australian railways.th-cam.com/video/zKs5yUebT3M/w-d-xo.html
@@wezza60 Yes when they had a proper singer. Later known as crappa dacca
LIRR on the Montauk branch used FA2 shells as control and HVAC units in the 80's...I toured inside one at the Speonk yard. Dark and noisy. Excedra.
I remember riding behind them in the 80s and possibly early 90s. In the late 1990s they were still present at the Morris Park shop.
Missouri Pacific FAs were fitted with steam generators.
An excellent video. Hello from the Tracy Mountain Railway in Colorado. 💙 T.E.N.
Thanks
At least one of Cuyahoga Valley's FPs has been re-engined with a non-Alco prime mover.
I remember very well seeing one of these on the Katy in the early 60's, my cousin and I thought they were cool looking. Come to find out by this time it had been allegedly remanufactured by EMD with a 16-567. Have fond memories of talking to a Katy engineer on a Baldwin road switcher a few years later, he pointed out the EMD tag on it. In the old Eureka yard (or whats left of it) is also a Baldwin switch engine- just like my American Flyer - that was still being used recently, also redone by EMD.
The 251 engine has been used in marine power plants fir a long time. We had a lot of them in the Coast Guard.
Easybeats!!!!! Friday on my mind " !!!😁😁😁🎸🎸🥁🥁🎼🎼🎼🎤🎤🎤
Great vid. Not only the actual video content but your narration was superb, giving us the honest meat and potatoes of truth rather than just some Alco cheerleading. Very nice.
I'm glad you like my narration and the video in general! Thank You!
I always have been fascinated and loved the look of the ALCO Locomotive. How unfortunate and sad that ALCO didn't have more pride in their finished produce.
nobody gonna talk about how it looks like it is a smiling diesel with a large bucktooth lol
Those were some good looking engines. Personally I think they looked better than the E and F units.
I agree! Thanks for watching!
No wonder Class 1s ditched their ALCO diesels!ALCO wasn't testing their engines before selling them - that's a road to Chapter 7.
I have an original photo from the 50’s of a CP FA climbing it’s way to Richford out of Newport Vermont. Looks bad ass leading the lash up.
No wonder there were no 244B's saved. The C&O had RDS7's with 244B prime movers in them. There's no sound recording of the motor running. Would've been nice so we could use it for our DCC models.
I think when UP's FA's went out with cracked engine blocks that was pretty much the last straw.
You might want to check out AC at "Trains 21", he covers the D & L in great detail.
Great series.
What didnt help ALCO as far as quality, was their Union Contracts with their shops! Employees were paid by the number of units manufactured.Not hourly! also their heavy reliance on GE for electrical equipment!
Their export units built in Australia used British AEI kit to get around the GE problem.
@@gregrudd6983 In the early 1990s I rewired the main harness of an RS-3. When an engineer from the railroad that it came off of visited, he wanted to know how I got it to run so smoothly as it never had when they had it. That harness was over 50' long and when finished, barely fit in the original conduit. The difference, better quality wire and an increase in the wire gauge of the wires. Was not fun soldering all the wires into the connector at the cab end and then tagging and shrink wrapping each joint in clear plastic. But the results spoke for themselves. Hopefully the AEI supplied kit had better quality wiring.
@@gravelydon7072 They worked well very well indeed. Particularly the DL-531's
In Ternopil ,Ukraine
going industrial locomotive RSD ALCO.
Well you do or have done a video on MLW rs-23 new to your channel and also a alco nut I worked with rs 23 in Minneapolis for Minnesota commercial a very nice looking locomotive only 1000 hp 6 cylinder but a good one
Thank you for the videos. I really like the old school layout. It reminds me of my childhood.
Thanks!
The early ann arbor railroad roster when they were a subsidiary of the wabash was entirely FAs and RS1s.
I recently bought an Alco at a train show “S” scale didn’t know what it was I 😂as looking for a F diesel, now I know thank you…
"GM&O ordered the first, NYC ordered the most, and CN ordered the last and fastest of the locomotive that promised a million miles between overhauls". I remember the TRAINS article vividly. Another awesome video. Have you ever considered doing one on the ill-fated C-643DH's?
The fa's look good as a Lionel model that's like the only good thing about them xD
Well done AG👍I run a CP FA2 on the layout from time to time🚂🇨🇦🇺🇲
If I’m not mistaken, the FPA4 that was scrapped by Cuyahoga railway, had its Cab roof donated to Alco PA1 former AT&SF #59L that is currently undergoing a full restoration in Texas.
There was more FA's sold then the PA's
I LOVE The GREEN BAY AND WESTERN FA-1 in the 500-series, with bright red bodies like fire engines. And the wide Gray stripe along the body. And the black and white checkerboard stripes along the frame. And the silver trucks. I Hope and Pray that one of the other excursion trains could please repaint 2 of their FPA-4 Units into the GBW Colors to have a matched set running together. Or one on each end of the coaches. Better yet, please send one of these FPA-4 Units over here to Green Bay because I wanted to start a new excursion here for many years!! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022 A.D. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.!!!!! ALLELUIA!!!!! AMEN 🙏.
15:03 - anyone else notice the Goodyear blimp flying in the background?
yes
*Thoze silver Budd cars - Classic! - **13:25** , **17:34*
CN/VIA content is always appreciated...thanks eh!
Customers decide what they want. Customers decide what they need. Customers decide what they will accept. Alco failed because they weren’t listening.
Not in India.
Video is great, sorry audio very bad😢
aaayyyy the FA's are not unloved..... My Grandfather, Russel Decho. Decho Scale Models, has built many many FA's even FA ABA sets!!! in half inch "live steam" scale. I remember as a kid seeing a full FA ABA set in the Santa Fe Warbonnet livery it was friggen BEAUTIFUL! lol. and a crap ton of RS-3's in 1/2 inch 'live steam' scale He had also made a few 'live steam' locomotives as well as far as I know 908 is still at the Illinois Live Steamers
Alcos look cool, they were just crap....could yall imagine if GE and Alco had stayed together? what kind of 10,500 hp units they could have been turning out? it would be like the new "Alco-GE "Century" 1050" the best wiring, frame, prime mover, the new and improved 7fdl16 TURBO ISSUES RESOLVED! teir 4 class, trucks that could take a container train 80-95 + mph! ...this thing would be a monster!!
I've run ALCo RS-1s, RS-3s, and S-2s. All have outlasted EMD engines in use. Sad thing is, the RS-1 got a modern control stand which took away the mechanical throttle. Did not like it as well as an S-2 with the mechanical link to the governor. With the S-2, if you needed 5 extra HP, you only needed to bump the throttle open a hair. Can't do that with an EMD control stand. Wiring from the factory of the RS-3 was garbage but after rewiring ran as smooth as could be. No more hunting for the engine as it held the speed it was set at. I blame GE for that part.
I love a smokin' alco.
Guessing you've never worked on one of those smoking pieces of shit. You would have a different opinion
The footage at 4:15, where is it from?
Excellent!!!
Nice Blimp @ 15:00 mins.
Funny thing they used the body put it on co co and sold it as a world loco
Yep with many of them dyeing of old age instead. But here in Australia that might have a lot more to do with the licensee A.E.Goodwin than Alco themselves.
What was that say again .... _Haste Makes Waste._ This is typical of bean counters taking over engineering. Trouble is, this always costs a company, both in real terms and crucially, in their reputation. Once that is lost, it is almost impossible to get it back. And yes, Baldwin went the same way.
What was the price difference between a hood unit and a FA when new?
Love the videos keep the good work going
Excellent information as always 👍
Thanks!
The only thing worst than Beatles around a guitar 🎸 is crabs around a organ.
@15:00 there is a Zeppelin moving across the sky.
Nope, it is a Goodyear Blimp.
One thing your commentary ignores is the fact that the ALCO suffered mainly a lot of abuse at the hands of the Railroad Earth because they were replacing Steam I knew some guys who made a bet at the Eyrie to see how many cars it would take to overload the traction Motors and set them on fire on an rs2 any answer is 128. In the Train club I Heard lots of guys who love to blow up brand new diesel locomotive engine so they could go back to steam and get paid more. There were many many railroads you had fleets of 244 and 539 engines that still run today in third hand and exclusive service. Many railroads were completely Alco baste and were well served by their locomotive Fleet and it was only changing Economic Times that caused them to go out of business, when your customers don't need locomotives and that's your only business you're more or less Sol. When you had a failure on an Alco or a Baldwin they would scream about it but if you had the same type of failure on an EMD they would whisper about it. PA cranks with go bad with service because of being so long they would start to whip but no one knew this because no one was building diesel engines. When the same thing happened did the EMT SD 40-2 20 cylinder engines nobody made a big thing about it.
great info and an excellent video.
Thanks
I am quite an FA bug, and I am not terribly taken with your narration. Good topic, but you are all over the place with content.
Sounds like they had Boeing designing their loco’s
Please get quality control in your sound quality.
15:09 Blimp Alert
What a ridiculous angle to take for ALCO - "running the locomotives hard". Well that is what a locomotive does. It's the sole reason for its existence, it is meant for hard work. 🙄 Casting the engine blocks with the bearing housing out of alignment doesn't help, either.
I'm confused about something. these companies like alco emdc ge did they make train cars?
This video made had hurt...
Too bad you only had automotive engine manufacturing videos available.
Too many innaccuracies. (Example: The requiitioned RS-1's were used on the Trans-Iranian Eailway. Not Trans-Siberian.) Also, use of models.
The engines being serviced looked like automotive ones.
Lolcringeclickbaitconjecture