American Locomotive Company


The American Locomotive Company was an American manufacturer that operated from 1901 to 1969, initially specializing in the production of locomotives but later diversifying and fabricating at various times diesel generators, automobiles, steel, tanks, munitions, oil-production equipment, as well as heat exchangers for nuclear power plants.
The company was formed by the merger of seven locomotive manufacturers and Schenectady Locomotive Engine Manufactory of Schenectady, New York. A subsidiary, American Locomotive Automobile Company, designed and manufactured automobiles under the Alco brand from 1905 to 1913. ALCO also produced nuclear reactors from 1954 to 1962. After World War II, Alco closed all of its manufacturing plants except those in Schenectady and Montreal.
In 1955, the company changed its name to Alco Products, Incorporated. In 1964, the Worthington Corporation acquired the company. The company went out of business in 1969, although Montreal Locomotive Works continued to manufacture locomotives based on Alco designs.
The ALCO name is currently being used by Fairbanks Morse Engine for their FM|ALCO line.

History

Foundation

The company was created in 1901 from the merger of seven smaller locomotive manufacturers with the Schenectady Locomotive Engine Manufactory of Schenectady, New York:
The consolidation of the seven manufacturers was the brainchild of financier Pliny Fisk Sr. of the brokerage house Harvey Fisk & Sons. The consolidated ALCO was intended to compete with Baldwin Locomotive Co. which controlled two-fifths of the industry.
The new company was headquartered in Schenectady. Samuel R. Callaway left the presidency of the New York Central Railroad to become president of Alco. When Callaway died on June 1, 1904, Albert J. Pitkin succeeded him as president of Alco.
In 1904, the American Locomotive Company acquired control of the Locomotive and Machine Company of Montreal, Quebec, Canada; this company was eventually renamed the Montreal Locomotive Works. In 1905, Alco purchased Rogers Locomotive Works of Paterson, New Jersey, the country's second-largest locomotive manufacturer behind Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Steam era

Alco produced more than 75,000 locomotives, including more steam locomotives than any U.S. company except Baldwin Locomotive Works. Railroads that favored Alco products included the Delaware & Hudson Railway, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, the New York Central Railroad, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Milwaukee Road. Among Alco's better-known steam locomotives were the 4-6-4 Hudson, 4-8-2 Mohawk, and the 4-8-4 Niagara built for the New York Central; and the 4-8-4 FEF, the 4-6-6-4 Challengers and the 4-8-8-4 Big Boys built for the Union Pacific.
Alco built many of the biggest locomotives ever constructed, including Union Pacific's Big Boy. Alco also built the fastest American locomotives, the Class A Atlantic and Class F7 Hudson streamliners for the Milwaukee Road's Twin Cities Hiawatha run. Among the ambitious state-of-the-art designs of the late steam era, Alco's Challengers, Big Boys, and high-speed streamliners stood out for their success in operations.
Alco built the second production steam locomotive in North America to use roller bearings. This was Timken 1111, a 4-8-4 commissioned in 1930 by Timken Roller Bearing Company and ultimately used for on 15 major United States railroads before it was purchased in 1933 by the Northern Pacific Railway. The Northern Pacific renumbered the Four Aces to No. 2626 and ran it on the North Coast Limited, as well as its pool trains between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, and excursions, through 1957.
File:Alco WDLR locomotive 1995.jpg|thumb|right|Narrow-gauge Alco locomotive built for the military service behind the trenches of World War I
During World War II, Alco produced many 2-10-0 Decapods for the USSR. Many went undelivered, and ten of these were sold to Finland in 1947. One, Alco builder's No. 75214, is preserved at the Finnish Railway Museum.
Though the dual-service 4-8-4 steam locomotive had shown great promise, 1948 was the last year that steam locomotives were manufactured in Schenectady. These were the seven A-2a class 9400-series Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad 2-8-4 "Berkshires." Their tenders had to be subcontracted to Lima Locomotive Works, as Alco's tender shop had been closed. The building was converted to make diesel locomotives to compete with those of the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors.
Joseph Burroughs Ennis was a senior vice president between 1917 and 1947 and was responsible for the design of many of the company's locomotives.

Alco automobiles (1906–1913)

The company diversified into the automobile business on July 1, 1905, producing French Berliet designs under license. The license was acquired for a duration of three years and covered the Berliet types G and H. With the payment of 500,000 gold francs, the production of the G and H types with engine outputs of 20 hp, 40 hp, and 60 hp was covered, as well as the supply of cast and forged parts. The successful licensing deal with Berliet led to a new logo for Berliet featuring a locomotive. However, Berliet's entry into the railway sector did not occur until the 1920s. Production was located at Alco's Rhode Island Locomotive Works in Providence, Rhode Island.
Two years later, the Berliet license was abandoned, and the company began to produce its own designs instead. An Alco racing car won the Vanderbilt Cup in both 1909 and 1910 and competed in the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, driven on all three occasions by Harry Grant.
ALCO's automotive venture was unprofitable, and they abandoned automobile manufacture in 1913. The Alco automobile story is notable chiefly as a step in the automotive career of Walter P. Chrysler, who worked as the plant manager. In 1911 he left Alco for Buick in Detroit, Michigan, where he subsequently founded the Chrysler Corporation in 1925.

Production models

  • Alco Model 60
  • Alco Model 40
  • Alco Model 16
  • Alco Model 3t Truck

    Electric locomotives

Alco made 60-ton center-cab electric freight motors from 1912 through the 1920s for electric railway lines in Oregon.

Diesel–electric locomotives

Already a leader in steam locomotives, Alco produced the first commercially successful diesel–electric switch engine in 1924 in a consortium with General Electric and Ingersoll-Rand. This locomotive was sold to the Central Railroad of New Jersey. It built additional locomotives for the Long Island Rail Road and the Chicago and North Western Railway.
The company bought the McIntosh & Seymour Diesel Engine Company in 1929 and henceforth produced its own diesel engines, though it always bought its electrical equipment from GE. The diesel program was largely overseen by Perry T. Egbert, vice president in charge of diesel locomotive sales and later president of the company.
In the early to mid-1930s, ALCo was the pre-eminent builder of diesel–electric switch engines in the United States. It was slower than its competition to develop reliable diesel power for full-size mainline trains, though it did provide motive power for the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad's Rebel streamliners in 1935.
In 1939, ALCo started producing passenger diesel locomotives to compete with General Motors' Electro-Motive Corporation. The following year, ALCo teamed up with General Electric for much-needed support in competing with EMC. In 1941, ALCo introduced the RS-1, the first road–switcher locomotive. The versatile road–switcher design gained favor for short-haul applications, which would provide ALCo a secure market niche through the 1940s. The entry of the United States into World War II froze ALCo's development of road diesel locomotives.
During that time, ALCo was allocated the construction of diesel switching locomotives, their new road–switcher locomotives, a small quantity of ALCO DL-109 dual-service engines and its proven steam designs, while EMD was allocated the construction of mainline road freight diesels. Still, ALCo ranked 34th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts.
Alco's RS-1 road switcher was selected by the United States Army for a vital task: rejuvenating the Trans-Iranian Railway and extending it to the Soviet Union. This gave the U.S. ally a new supply line at a time when the German air force and navy had reduced Allied shipments to the Soviet port of Murmansk. The U.S. Army chose as locomotives the RSD-1, a six-axle, six-traction motor variant of the light ALCo RS-1. Not only was the company prevented from selling these locomotives to mainline U.S. railroads, but the 13 RS-1s that had already been built were commandeered for Iranian duty and converted to RSD-1s.

Post-war era

The postwar era saw ALCo's steam products fall out of favor while it struggled to develop mainline diesel locomotives competitive with EMD's E and F series road locomotives, which were well-positioned from GM-EMC's large development efforts of the 1930s and its established service infrastructure. ALCo would prove unable to overcome that lead.
File:MCRY 7 20041010.jpg|thumb|200px|An ALCO S-1 diesel switcher at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum, North Freedom, Wisconsin
In 1946, ALCo controlled 26% of the diesel locomotive market. The ubiquitous S series switchers and RS series road switchers represented ALCo well during the late 1940s. Much of its success in this period can be tied to its pioneering RS locomotives, representing the first modern road–switcher, a configuration which has long-outlasted ALCo. The success of their switcher and road–switcher locomotives was not matched with the PA and FA-type mainline units, however.
The 244 engine, developed in a crash program to compete with EMD's powerful 567 engine, proved unreliable and sales of ALCo's mainline units soon went into decline. In 1948, ALCo-GE produced a prototype gas-turbine–electric locomotive to address the concerns of operators such as Union Pacific that sought to minimize the number of locomotive units needed for large power requirements. In 1949, ALCo embarked on a clean-sheet design project to replace the 244. 1949 also saw the introduction of the EMD GP7 road–switcher, a direct challenge in ALCo's bread-and-butter market.
In 1953, General Electric, dissatisfied with the pace of ALCo's efforts to develop a replacement for the troubled 244 engine, dissolved their partnership with ALCo and took over the gas turbine–electric venture that had started series production the previous year. In 1956, ALCo made long-overdue changes, modernizing its production process and introducing road locomotives with its new 251 engine. However, the benefits to ALCo were negated by bad timing; the market for locomotives was declining after the height of the dieselization era and EMD's GP9 was on the market as a proven competitor backed by a service infrastructure that ALCo, since the dissolution of the GE partnership, lacked. Sales were disappointing and ALCo's profitability suffered.
GE entered the export road-diesel locomotive market in 1956, then the domestic market in 1960, and quickly took the No. 2 position from ALCo, and eventually eclipsed EMD in overall production. Despite continual innovation in its designs, ALCo gradually succumbed to its competition, in which its former ally, General Electric, was an important element.
India during 1960s began gradual withdrawal of Steam locomotives from Indian Railways so the Diesel electric locomotive WDM series was developed by Banaras Locomotive Works with help of American Locomotive Company for Indian Railways. In 1962 Alco locomotives entered in service and since then Thousands of Alco class Locomotive WDM-2, WDM-3A
, WDM-3D would be manufactured and rebuilt which would make most successful locomotives of Indian Railways serving both passenger and freight trains and still retain operational status for Indian railways today
A new line of Century locomotives including the 630, the 430 and the 636, the first 3,600 horsepower locomotive, failed to keep the enterprise going. Third-place in the market proved to be an impossible position; ALCo products had neither the market position nor reputation for reliability of EMD's products, nor the financing muscle and customer support of GE. It could not earn enough profits. In the late 1960s, Alco gradually ceased locomotive production, shipping its last two locomotives, a pair of T-6 switchers to the Newburgh & South Shore Railroad in January 1969. ALCo closed its Schenectady locomotive plant later that year, and sold its designs to the Montreal Locomotive Works in Canada. The vast ALCo Schenectady plant was completely demolished by 2019, and its site is now occupied by a large industrial park.