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  • Alco RSD-16

  • Discussion of products from the American Locomotive Company. A web site with current Alco 251 information can be found here: Fairbanks-Morse/Alco 251.
Discussion of products from the American Locomotive Company. A web site with current Alco 251 information can be found here: Fairbanks-Morse/Alco 251.

Moderator: Alcoman

 #1173752  by arielemd
 
Hi all, today I present to Alco RSD-16

Built in Schenectady plant between 1957 and 1958, is basically a variation of the RSD-12 model. Its specification is DL-540 model and Argentina was the only buyer of this model. The purchase order was 130 units, of which only now are operating a 60/70 units, the others were radiated or scrapped. The remaining service operate freight trains on the mainline and switches, local passenger trains (Metra type), long distance (type Amtrak) and regional.

Data sheet:

Engine: 251-B Alco 12 cylinder

Vel. Max. : 120 kmh ( 74 mph )

Weight: 108.000 kgs. (238.099 lbs)

Axle: 18 tn

Starting tractive effort: 22,500 kg ( 49.570 lbs)

Continuous tractive effort: 19,250 kg (42.410 lbs)

Brakes: 6-SLAV Westinghouse. And here it make a clarification. Although the original design establishes the air brake and vacuum brake locomotive for freight cars and passenger cars, currently not all locomotives kept the original system. The original system that keep the air-vacuum is operating passenger trains, while the load were modified to stop the air freight cars. This is a result of the modernization of freight cars in the 90s, which received air systems for braking.

In the era of state railway: 1957-1992

http://ar.fotolog.com/quetrenquetren/10495530/

http://www.expresobsastucuman.com.ar/im ... 8237_2.JPG

http://mdttrenes0.tripod.com/alco_rsd16 ... 27?i=0&s=1

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/191/8510efea.jpg

http://www.todotren.com.ar/grandescatastrofes/mda_2.jpg

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/7760/4 ... 316840.jpg

The RR was privatized freight and passenger: 1992 to present:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... radero.JPG

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1455/8 ... 030811.jpg

http://imageshack.us/scaled/landing/37/1copiamz.jpg

http://usuarios.multimania.es/ferroarge ... 0spurr.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JUdbshYEF1s/S ... 1600/2.jpg

http://www.hobbiesfa.com.ar/fotos/lo_al ... l8506c.jpg

http://ar.fotolog.com/ferrocentral/45624957/

http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/categorie ... 0824-2.jpg

http://www.hobbiesfa.com.ar/fotos/lo_al ... etb815.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy7qnDzaYBM

Age of RR Passenger government controlled 2007- at present:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2406/3copiaa.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57CAWiOZpM4

http://ar.fotolog.com/ferrocentral/45626564/

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JUdbshYEF1s/S ... 1600/1.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JUdbshYEF1s/S ... 1600/2.jpg

Hope you liked there.

Ariel.
 #1176983  by arielemd
 
tgibson wrote:Thanks for the details. :)
You're welcome, nice collaborate on the railfan world.
 #1582793  by RRATSTJ.
 
All,
Would anyone here happen to know if there is a Brochure which is Printed in ENGLISH on the ALCO RSD 16 ? The one I found is not. I'm in need of the PRINTED ENGLISH Version!

Tom
 #1582900  by Allen Hazen
 
Thanks for posting all that! (North American rail fans tend not to know very much about railways in the rest of the world, and there is a dearth of readily available information.)
---
The Wikipedia article has a link to a data page (en Español, but not too hard for us Anglophones to decipher). A couple of interesting differences from the comparable North American RSD-12:
---weight per axle is given as 18 tons: I assume metric tons, so roughly 40,000 pounds. So the same machinery, marketed to U.S. railroads, would be on a platform at least one and a half times as heavy (per axle).
---traction motors are listed as GE 761. This is a "skinny" traction motor: it was designed for use on metre-gauge locomotives (and has been used on many, many, Alco and GE export units), but in technology is comparable to the GE 752 motors used in North America. Maybe about, roughly, as a first approximation, sort of, at a guess... two-thirds the rating of a 752. But, of course, this is a six-motor locomotive: the same engine (and GE 581 main generator) were used on the four-motor domestic RS-11 (= Dl-701). So spreading its power over six axles (each with a bit under two-thirds the weight) and six motors (each with about two thirds the rating) makes good sense. The 761 was almost certainly cheaper (a lot less copper) and lighter in weight than the 752, so it was an obvious choice for this export design: for, one assumes, the same reasons, it was used in two roughly contemporaneous Australian locomotives, the New South Wales Class 43 (General Electric design, built under license in Oz, with an Alco Diesel engine) and (the first batch of) Class 44 (Alco design, built under license in Oz, with the same 251 engine as the RS-11 and RSD-16).
In terms of performance... the domestic RSD-12, with its much greater adhesion weight and big, 752, traction motors would have been better at low-speed drag freight (so, for example, the Lake Superior and Ishpeming wouldn't have been tempted to substitute RSD-16 units in its iron-ore business), but in passenger and general freight... perhaps about equivalent to an RS-11.
 #1583357  by Pneudyne
 
RRATSTJ. wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:33 am All,
Would anyone here happen to know if there is a Brochure which is Printed in ENGLISH on the ALCO RSD 16 ? The one I found is not. I'm in need of the PRINTED ENGLISH Version!

Tom
According to a brief “Publications Received” entry in Diesel Railway Traction (DRT) 1957 November, Alco issued a brochure covering its eight standard models of the time, presumably including the DL-540. Finding a copy would likely be the hard part.

DRT 195711 p.439 Alco.gif
DRT 195711 p.439 Alco.gif (346.68 KiB) Viewed 1451 times



The “eight model” range had been advertised in DRT since 1957 June:

DRT 195706 p.11.jpg
DRT 195706 p.11.jpg (213.12 KiB) Viewed 1451 times

And the DL-540 for Argentina was advertised from 1958 December:

DRT 195812 p.05.jpg
DRT 195812 p.05.jpg (210.35 KiB) Viewed 1451 times


Cheers,