This month is Railfan & Railroad’s annual homage to the diesels of the American Locomotive Company. Founded as a steam locomotive manufacturer, Alco entered the diesel-electric market in the 1920s and its achievements were many. Long before its rivals, Alco produced turbocharger-equipped locomotives, starting with the HH-900 switcher in 1937. The company pioneered the concept of the “road switcher” with the 1941 introduction of the RS-1. Its PA-1 passenger locomotive was an Art Deco masterpiece designed by Ray Patten — as a result, these were widely regarded as one of the most beautiful streamlined passenger locomotives of all time.
Yet Alco has been gone for more than a half-century, its U.S. operations closed in 1969. Its Canadian counterpart, Montreal Locomotive Works, persisted a little longer, with its designs produced by Bombardier until 1985. With this closure, the lifespan of the surviving Alcos shortened radically due to the lack of parts and trained service technicians.
In the railroad world, the lack of parts was a serious problem. It often resulted in the wholesale retirement of Alcos, even the newest, youngest examples. For example, Southern Pacific leased out its big C-628 and C-630 units in 1970 and converted some of them to lower-rated yard power units by the mid-1970s, before scrapping most of them by the end of the decade. Union Pacific, meanwhile, sold its big C-630s by 1974, not even 10 years old. The buyer, in this case, was Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range, a regional ore hauler.
They spent only a few years at Missabe, filling in as emergency stand-ins while waiting for newer, younger power to arrive.
Another possibility was to keep using Alco power for as long as the existing parts supply could hold out. Burlington Northern helped extend the longevity of its fleet by consolidating Alco power to Vancouver, Wash. This was formerly the main shops of Spokane, Portland & Seattle, which operated the largest fleet of Alco-powered locomotives in the Northwest, and its personnel were intimately familiar with keeping these smoke-belchers running. Yet, it was parts as much as personnel that drove this decision; by consolidating BN’s Alco power to a single maintenance base, the dwindling parts supply could be consolidated as well, maximizing the odds that an engine could be successfully maintained or repaired. As a result, BN managed to keep much of its Alco fleet in operation for another decade.
The recession of the early 1980s proved to be the last straw for many Alco fleets. With dwindling traffic, most railroads chose to sideline older, less reliable, or less economical locomotives — and the Alcos were at the top of the list. Most went to the scrapper’s torch. Some railroads chose to rebuild their Alcos with EMD prime movers and electrical cabinets, but this only prolonged the inevitable. Many of these oddballs met their demise in the 1980s and 1990s.
On smaller regionals and short lines, Alcos fared a little better, but often, these lines bought more power than they actually needed to maintain a sort of in-house junkyard source of parts. And, for those roads that still roster Alcos, this often remains the case, for there are few pragmatic alternatives. In many cases, scrap-line parts donors are the only reason any locomotives still survive in operating condition.
What might the future hold after there are no more donors to part out? In the automotive world, vehicles produced by long-gone marques continue to be viable because there are enough sentimental owners to support third-party parts suppliers. It is doubtful that there are enough Alcos left, much less sentiment in the railroad industry, to see something similar occur, especially as the government incentivizes more efficient diesels that meet stringent emissions standards. These programs often call for the destruction of the older, inefficient diesels in trade. Time will tell, but unless there is some drastic change in pollution policy, we may see the last few Alcos turn a wheel in revenue service within the coming decade.
—Alexander Benjamin Craghead is a transportation historian, photographer, artist, and author.
