Ex-Canadian ALCO units - status/performance

These are all very informative posts and certainly the Alcos are classics.

But they are heavy fuel guzzlers on a snail speed railroad. Certainly these six axle beasts must be wrecking havoc on the sections of track which are very curvaceous and/or contain pre-WW2 shabby 100 lb. stick rail.

My vote would be for second or third hand GP40 series locos. GP40s are probably a dime a dozen, simpler to maintain and operate.

BlockLine_4111 wrote:These are all very informative posts and certainly the Alcos are classics.

But they are heavy fuel guzzlers on a snail speed railroad. Certainly these six axle beasts must be wrecking havoc on the sections of track which are very curvaceous and/or contain pre-WW2 shabby 100 lb. stick rail.

My vote would be for second or third hand GP40 series locos. GP40s are probably a dime a dozen, simpler to maintain and operate.

To the contrary, these units are good pullers especially at low to moderate
speeds and they are NOT fuel guzzlers. They are much better pullers on
the type of grades that the Susquehanna has than a GP-40 is. On a fast
and relatively flat railroad the GP-40 would run rings around the six motor
Alcos but on the NYS&W, the Alcos will outpull and outperform a GP-40.
For the naysayers, there are a fair number of Alco's from the 1960's still running, more than GE's from the same period. Far better engine to
operate than the stinken GE control stands too.
I think one reason the NYS&W got these engines is because they are not
fuel guzzlers.
Noel Weaver

Where's the shabby 100 lbs stick rail? Most of the So Div is CWR.

I think the MC tracks are recycled stick rails from various sections of the southern division but its not that much.

There is 110 pound four bolt stick rail all through Hawthorne. I dont know how far west or east it extends from there. As far as I know, all sidings are stick rail as well.

washingtonsecondary wrote:I think the MC tracks are recycled stick rails from various sections of the southern division but its not that much.

Noel Weaver wrote:

BlockLine_4111 wrote:These are all very informative posts and certainly the Alcos are classics.

But they are heavy fuel guzzlers on a snail speed railroad. Certainly these six axle beasts must be wrecking havoc on the sections of track which are very curvaceous and/or contain pre-WW2 shabby 100 lb. stick rail.

My vote would be for second or third hand GP40 series locos. GP40s are probably a dime a dozen, simpler to maintain and operate.

To the contrary, these units are good pullers especially at low to moderate
speeds and they are NOT fuel guzzlers. They are much better pullers on
the type of grades that the Susquehanna has than a GP-40 is. On a fast
and relatively flat railroad the GP-40 would run rings around the six motor
Alcos but on the NYS&W, the Alcos will outpull and outperform a GP-40.
For the naysayers, there are a fair number of Alco's from the 1960's still running, more than GE's from the same period. Far better engine to
operate than the stinken GE control stands too.
I think one reason the NYS&W got these engines is because they are not
fuel guzzlers.
Noel Weaver

Make no mistake; Wally bought the pukemonsters for one reason, they were DIRT CHEAP. If Wally really wanted to get good power for Sparta Mountain, he would have bought the LLPX SD38-2's.

n01jd1 wrote:

Noel Weaver wrote:

BlockLine_4111 wrote:These are all very informative posts and certainly the Alcos are classics.

But they are heavy fuel guzzlers on a snail speed railroad. Certainly these six axle beasts must be wrecking havoc on the sections of track which are very curvaceous and/or contain pre-WW2 shabby 100 lb. stick rail.

My vote would be for second or third hand GP40 series locos. GP40s are probably a dime a dozen, simpler to maintain and operate.

To the contrary, these units are good pullers especially at low to moderate
speeds and they are NOT fuel guzzlers. They are much better pullers on
the type of grades that the Susquehanna has than a GP-40 is. On a fast
and relatively flat railroad the GP-40 would run rings around the six motor
Alcos but on the NYS&W, the Alcos will outpull and outperform a GP-40.
For the naysayers, there are a fair number of Alco's from the 1960's still running, more than GE's from the same period. Far better engine to
operate than the stinken GE control stands too.
I think one reason the NYS&W got these engines is because they are not
fuel guzzlers.
Noel Weaver

Make no mistake; Wally bought the pukemonsters for one reason, they were DIRT CHEAP. If Wally really wanted to get good power for Sparta Mountain, he would have bought the LLPX SD38-2's.

Second hand SD-38-2's are not necessarily the best power for freight
trains, they are basically yard locomotives and mostly where very heavy
drags are handled. Not enough HP for the motors and they are quite
limited in their speed and they use more fuel than the Alcos do.
Maybe the Alcos were cheap but they were modern Alcos and in Canada
were quite well equipped and maintained.
Walter Rich is a very sharp operator and I think he knows good power
when he sees it.
It is easy to find fault with Walter Rich for one reason or another but if he
had not been on the scene, the NYS&W would be just another abandoned
roadbed by now and most likely the Southern Tier between Binghamton
and Port Jervis would be just two pieces of very rusty rail with lots of
weeds growing around them and no more trains.
Noel Weaver

SD38-2's were the primary road power for the B&LE, DM&IR, EJ&E and Reserve Mining for many years. While I do not know what kind of railroad Reserve Mining or the EJ&E has, I know for a fact that the B&LE and DM&IR are mountain railroads that run very heavy trains. The only railroad that I know of that bought SD38's new specifically for yard power was the Penn Central. it has been said that the LLPX SD38-2s were the best locomotives that Wally leased. The reason Wally didnt buy them was they had a hefty price tag as any locomotive considered premium power would. There is a reason most railroads got rid of their Alco's and MLW's and why ALCO and MLW were forced out of the locomotive market. Alco's/MLW's need too much TLC. If Alcos/MLW's dont get that TLC they become tempermental in no time flat. This is the reason for recent rash of stalled trains at Midland Park and Butler. EMD's on the other hand can be abused and still have high availability rates. Simply put, Wally bought the Alco's because they were cheap and because he is thinking like a railfan instead of thinking like the CEO of a prosperous regional carrier.

Noel Weaver wrote: Second hand SD-38-2's are not necessarily the best power for freight
trains, they are basically yard locomotives and mostly where very heavy
drags are handled. Not enough HP for the motors and they are quite
limited in their speed and they use more fuel than the Alcos do.
Maybe the Alcos were cheap but they were modern Alcos and in Canada
were quite well equipped and maintained.
Walter Rich is a very sharp operator and I think he knows good power
when he sees it.

n01jd1 wrote:SD38-2's were the primary road power for the B&LE, DM&IR, EJ&E and Reserve Mining for many years. While I do not know what kind of railroad Reserve Mining or the EJ&E has, I know for a fact that the B&LE and DM&IR are mountain railroads that run very heavy trains. The only railroad that I know of that bought SD38's new specifically for yard power was the Penn Central. it has been said that the LLPX SD38-2s were the best locomotives that Wally leased. The reason Wally didnt buy them was they had a hefty price tag as any locomotive considered premium power would. There is a reason most railroads got rid of their Alco's and MLW's and why ALCO and MLW were forced out of the locomotive market. Alco's/MLW's need too much TLC. If Alcos/MLW's dont get that TLC they become tempermental in no time flat. This is the reason for recent rash of stalled trains at Midland Park and Butler. EMD's on the other hand can be abused and still have high availability rates. Simply put, Wally bought the Alco's because they were cheap and because he is thinking like a railfan instead of thinking like the CEO of a prosperous regional carrier.

Noel Weaver wrote: Second hand SD-38-2's are not necessarily the best power for freight
trains, they are basically yard locomotives and mostly where very heavy
drags are handled. Not enough HP for the motors and they are quite
limited in their speed and they use more fuel than the Alcos do.
Maybe the Alcos were cheap but they were modern Alcos and in Canada
were quite well equipped and maintained.
Walter Rich is a very sharp operator and I think he knows good power
when he sees it.

Please advise me and the others on here as to your familiarity regarding
locomotives. Do you work on them?, operate them? or what do you do
with them?
I had a forty one year career on the railroad and I am quite aware of
what locomotives can co and what they can't do. How about you???
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:

n01jd1 wrote:SD38-2's were the primary road power for the B&LE, DM&IR, EJ&E and Reserve Mining for many years. While I do not know what kind of railroad Reserve Mining or the EJ&E has, I know for a fact that the B&LE and DM&IR are mountain railroads that run very heavy trains. The only railroad that I know of that bought SD38's new specifically for yard power was the Penn Central. it has been said that the LLPX SD38-2s were the best locomotives that Wally leased. The reason Wally didnt buy them was they had a hefty price tag as any locomotive considered premium power would. There is a reason most railroads got rid of their Alco's and MLW's and why ALCO and MLW were forced out of the locomotive market. Alco's/MLW's need too much TLC. If Alcos/MLW's dont get that TLC they become tempermental in no time flat. This is the reason for recent rash of stalled trains at Midland Park and Butler. EMD's on the other hand can be abused and still have high availability rates. Simply put, Wally bought the Alco's because they were cheap and because he is thinking like a railfan instead of thinking like the CEO of a prosperous regional carrier.

Noel Weaver wrote: Second hand SD-38-2's are not necessarily the best power for freight
trains, they are basically yard locomotives and mostly where very heavy
drags are handled. Not enough HP for the motors and they are quite
limited in their speed and they use more fuel than the Alcos do.
Maybe the Alcos were cheap but they were modern Alcos and in Canada
were quite well equipped and maintained.
Walter Rich is a very sharp operator and I think he knows good power
when he sees it.

Please advise me and the others on here as to your familiarity regarding
locomotives. Do you work on them?, operate them? or what do you do
with them?
I had a forty one year career on the railroad and I am quite aware of
what locomotives can co and what they can't do. How about you???
Noel Weaver

I see you have chosen to attack me since you cannot prove anything that I have said in my last post to be wrong or have chosen not to. Fine, I do not have a forty one year railroad career. No I was never a locomotive engineer or locomotive mechanic. That being said, there is a reason ALCO and MLW are no longer in the locomotive business. ALCO's and MLW's have reliabilty problems when not maintained to high standards. This happens on a regular basis on the NYSW where one or more of the ALCO's or MLW's shut down for whatever reason resulting in a stalled train at Midland Park or Butler. I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to the scanner at night and hear the NYSW dispatcher and crews talking about trying to get one or more of the Alco's restarted and then resorting to having the night local to Sparta (usually powered by a GP18 or GP20) give them a shove over the mountain since the Alco's could not be restarted. I have also seen the posts of an NYSW engineer regarding his personal experiances with the ALCO's It was this engineer that coined the terms "Pukemonsters" and "Things". Needless to say he does not think the ALCO's are good power. In fact today's SU-100 has been delayed due to problems with one of the ALCO's. In your last post, you stated that an SD38-2 is a yard engine. However, it does not take a railroader of forty years to realize that this not entirely the truth. Yes, the Penn Central and its sucessors have used SD38's as yard power. However, the Bessemer & Lake Erie, the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range, the Elgin Joliet and Eastern, and Reserve Mining used SD38-2's in road service up until recent times. The fact that the B&LE and the DM&IR used non turbocharged six axle EMD's in the form of SD18's and SD38-2's almost exclusively proves that SD38's are no slouches when it comes to heavy haul mountain railroading. As for the reason Wally bought the ALCOs, it had to be cost and it is well known that Walter Rich is a railfan and has wanted a fleet of big, six axle ALCO's for years. Back when the NYSW was restoring Sparta Mountain and just starting to run the Sea Land stack trains Walter Rich wanted to buy some ALCO C-636's to run the trains. CSX, and BN basically told Walter Rich that would have to buy more reliable (EMD) power so he bought the SD45's instead. When Walter Rich bought the former Cartier ALCO"S there were newer, better and more reliable locomotives available on the market. Prime examples of this are former SD50's from Conrail and UP and former UP SD60's that have been recently put out to pasture. BN has also been selling off a fair number of SD40-2's as well. I am certain he could have bought any of these locomotives and gotten better results. While it is nice to see ALCO/MLW's operating in the 21st century, I think we all can agree what the NYSW really needs is a fleet of reliable locomotives to move the freight and to satisfy their customers. To paraphrase a good friend and railroad engineer, Its really bad when people with no knowledge of the railroad industry recognize that there is something wrong with the power when trains stall every other night. Now, if you would like to dispute anything I have said here, please use that 41 years of railroad experience, firsthand knowledge and facts and explain why I am wrong, not critcize my railroad experience or lack therof.

Please advise me and the others on here as to your familiarity regarding
locomotives. Do you work on them?, operate them? or what do you do
with them?
I had a forty one year career on the railroad and I am quite aware of
what locomotives can co and what they can't do. How about you???
Noel Weaver

Noel,
if you werent a "regular" your behavior could be considered that of a troll.
constantly picking fights..and STARTING fights where there were none before.
it grows very tiresome and boring.
this was a nice calm discussion until you felt the unnecessary need to get adversarial..
why must you do that??
its really annoying.
Scot

I spent my early railroad years on the New Haven Railroad and until the
McGinnis/Alpert disaster years, we did not have any EMD's. Some of the
EMD's that came during the above eras weren't too bad, the SW's and the
GP's were good engines but the FL-9's replaced old electric motors that
would outperform them in every respect. The main reason that the FL-9's
lasted all these years was simply that until the GE's dual mode "Genesis"
engines came, there was nothing that could run passenger equipment in
and out of Grand Central Terminal.
So the NHRR ran with a lot of Alco's over the years, switchers, road
switchers, road freight and road passenger units of many descriptions. I
worked on most of them either as a fireman or as an engineer or both.
They were not perfect but they did their job on the NHRR and we got
where we needed to go and did what we needed to do.
After Penn Central and later on Conrail came into the picture, we
continued to work on Alco's only now we had additional models that the
NHRR did not have. So I guess you could say that I had an Alco
bringing up.
It is generally agreed that the 251 series diesel engine was/is an
improvement over the 244 series diesel engine although my experiences
do not always echo that situation.
EMD also made and still makes many fine locomotives but the locomotives
that have been mentioned on here as being good for the NYS&W are not
necessarily so. As I stated earlier the GP-40 was basically a New York
Central type locomotive, good on lines where speed is very important
such as hot intermodal trains and where the trains tend not to be monsters
in nature. SD-38's have only 2000 HP with an old 567 series diesel engine
although the dash 2 has the 645 engine. 2000 HP is just simply not
enough HP for road service with six axles, not so bad with four axles but
a major disadvantage with six axles.
The six motor Alco's that the NYS&W got have much more HP than an
SD-38/SD-38-2 has and thus are a better all around engine for road
service. The six motor Alco is a very "gutsy" engine and will pull for all
that they are worth on grades and with heavy trains. Penn Central and
later on Conrail used their six motor Alco's mostly around Mingo Junction
in their later years where their ability to lug came in very handy on the
coal and ore trains that were operating in that area at that time. I had
six motor Alco's on both the River Line and on the Maybrook Line/Beacon
Branch and they generally did a decent job with the train. Don't forget,
Penn Central was not noted for good locomotive maintenance especially
during their later years.
When the NYS&W Alcos were running in Canada, they were hauling heavy
ore trains over a remote, mountain railroad and reliability was and is a
must in this area. The NYS&W bought very decent second hand engines
that had good maintenance, many upgrades and were well equipped for
their type of operation
Some of EMD's products were not perfect and had reliability problems too,
I can remember well the SD-50's, when they were fairly new and running
right, they did a beautiful job but they acted up their fair share of trips and
often weren't worth their weight on the train. Some railroads have given
up on their SD-50's while still running their older SD-40-2's. One problem
with the SD-50 is that EMD tried to jam too much HP in them for what
they were capable of. They tend to be slippery at times too and do not
hold the rail as well as the six motor Alco's do.
I have taken a fair amount of time and space here to try to explain to you
the differences between some types of locomotives.
I know the two people who are criticizing me on here are likely not really
familiar with what diesel locomotives can and can not do. Most likely
neither of you have had any LEGAL rides on locomotives, I do not want to
hear about illegal rides on locomotives, but I have been there and done
that.
I am not trying to take a pot shot at you but only to explain to you that
there is a lot more to locomotives than what you hear on a scanner or
what you read in a magazine or newsletter.
Finally, I am not a troll, I always sign my name on here and I do not have
a lot of patience with railfans who dispute what I say about locomotives.
Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Noel Weaver

no1jd1...... you raise some interesting points in your post but I think you may misunderstand NOEL. He, like myself have many years expierence running every conceivable type of electric and diesel locomotive in every type of service. Now I cant speak for him but I do agree the SD-38 is not a good road locomotive. Yes, they were used in heavy haul service by those steel railroads. Were they geared lower than the standard 62:15 freight ratio ? Perhaps only capable of 45-50 mph, well suited to slow drag single purpose mineral hauling. IIRC they were all U.S. Steel or Transtar roads perhaps with a single ( CMO ) Chief Mechanical Officer who felt heavily ballasted, low horsepower, low geared non turbocharged SD-18's and dash 2 SD-38's fit his companies operating plan ie; slow drag, heavy switching.

It was explained to me many years ago by a Conrail mechanical officer why turbocharged EMD GP and SD units were ill suited for lowspeed switching work. Apparently the turbo does not engage until the throttle is advanced to the no.3 position. A chain and clutch system than physically engages the turbocharger and the exhaust gas speed takes over from that point up to WOT ( Wide Open Throttle ) or no.8. When switching and operating at low speeds the constant jockeying of the throttle back and forth causes the engaging system to wear prematurely or break all together. The Geep 40,SD 40 and 45 were designed to run at high throttle posistion in long haul, heavy haul and high speed service. The name of the game is Horsepower and the more the merrier.

I really dont know anything about the Susies mechanical department so I am unable to deduce why the ALCO's are dropping off line on that westbound grade. Rest assured they pulled for years up in Canada and if Walter can put some money into them I believe they will become more reliable. You also have to realize he only wants to run one road train and not call another to reduce tonnage hence they hook everything in the yard to the tail of those old goats including the yard office. BTW SD-50s did not have a good rep among many old freight heads who were lulled by earlier bulletproof EMD SD-40s, GP-40s and SD-45s. In defense of NOEL I have a great deal of respect for a locomotive engineer with 41 years under his belt. I always enjoy his posts. Scotty lighten up we ALL get testy at times on these forums including myself. All and all a good thread.

Question. For a hotshot, high priority, high speed, long distance expedited train such as TOFC (aka TV's) and COFC's would the six axle Alcos perform well in such service or would EMD be preferred power say back in hey day?

BlockLine_4111 wrote:Question. For a hotshot, high priority, high speed, long distance expedited train such as TOFC (aka TV's) and COFC's would the six axle Alcos perform well in such service or would EMD be preferred power say back in hey day?

On Conrail for many years, GP-40's and GP-40-2's were the preferred
power on the vans. After the B-36-7's and B-40-7's came on board, they
were also extensively used on the van trains.
Eventually, some brains somewhere decided that they could do just as
well with two six packs as they could with three four packs. That did not
work as well as they had hoped but they did save fuel but less tractive
effort and less horsepower does not me increased train speeds or even
as fast as previously. Eventually, they decided to add more six packs to
these trains but the four axle, high HP units were better on the vans where
speed was important.
As I stated earlier, the six axle Alco's were good on heavy freight trains,
coal, ore and other heavy unit trains and also good on the grades.
Still think they are ideal for the NYS&W and in time, they will probably
work out quite well.
Noel Weaver