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I started out my railroad career as a machinist and we still had some ALCOs of various types, including the RS3. It always seemed like we never had enough parts for them. EMD seemed like they were more agressive about parts supply. ALCO went through a bunch of different owners also, so there was a lot of corporate turmoil. It took the railroads about 30 years to discover that the 4 cycle engine is more fuel efficient and I think about the old ALCOs every time I hear one of the new GE's.

oldwarrant4 1 month ago

Sounds right to me! Although the fuel efficiency is pretty damn close, the 710 engine considered.

SpeakerPolice 4 weeks ago

@SpeakerPolice I was walking past a GE C44 last night and if I had closed my eyes I could have sworn I was walking past an RS3. The engine was making that exact burbling, coughing sound like it was winding up to do something spectacular! It's a good thing I didn't close my eyes because I would have tripped over a rail!

oldwarrant4 3 weeks ago

Go to my Channel and do a search for 'GE B40-8 Startup'. The hidden ALCo!

SpeakerPolice 3 weeks ago

Now THAT'S a proper diesel! Awesome sound.

251CE 3 months ago

Agreed!

SpeakerPolice 3 months ago

Good idea. :P

SpeakerPolice 4 months ago

Note the fuel dripping from the rearmost cylinder's top deck at :42. ALCO stands for "Always Leaking Coolant and Oil"...and fuel, and whatever can break will break. Another killer of all 244s until the G model: BAD crankshafts. It was the crankshaft issue that soured most RRs on Alco even before the 251 was out on the market. Not that the early 251s were all the great, either. Burned piston crowns were a regular 251 feature until the steel crowns came out, and by then, it was too late.

DeserTBoB93535 11 months ago

I keep looking, and can't seem to target the dripping fuel you mention. I see oil all over the place, though. (It's possible you see a reflection as the locomotive moves.) It's true, the later 251s were too little, too late for ALCo...so sad.

SpeakerPolice 11 months ago

@DeserTBoB93535 The 244 block would have been a great engine had ALCo not pushed the R&D so fast. I guess it was a postwar rush to sales thing. The crankshaft going catastrophic was definitely the "Achilles's heel" of what was one of the sweetest sounding engines of dieseldom...

2A3A66 10 months ago

So I hear. It's a shame...

SpeakerPolice 10 months ago

The 244 was a piece of garbage rushed to market in '46 to compete with EMD. They had a far better engine available, the McIntosh & Seymour 243 design, but Alco execs went ahead with their "in-house" 244. It almost sunk the company. The 251 was based largely on the 243 design, and was far more successful. Biggest problems were poor water ciruclation due to the "wet block" design and, as with all Alco, really poor fuel management. "Hot spots" in the upper cylinder area was common killers.

DeserTBoB93535 1 year ago

I wouldn't call the 244 an outright piece of garbage; rather, it was designed to be used in marine and stationary applications. It was ill-suited for railway service.

SpeakerPolice 1 year ago

@SpeakerPolice You're probably right. "Old" AT&T headquarters on 5th Ave, NYC, has a 12-244 as an emergency genset prime mover since 1946, and it's still holding up...somewhat. But in RR service, the 244 WAS a piece of scrap. Alco management knew this going in, after they started disintegrating out on the road, which is why the 251 project was authorized in 1951. The 251's a fair engine, save for the lousy GE governor and the overweight Eliot turbo. By that time, the EMD 567 was the winner.

DeserTBoB93535 1 year ago

I would love to see that generator; I wonder if anyone has any video or photos of it? I am still surprised that, for a time, the 539, 244, and 251 were all being manufactured at the same time.

SpeakerPolice 1 year ago

@SpeakerPolice I've been gone from AT&T for many years, and AT&T no longer owns the building. I'll talk to some of my other pensioned-off buddies and see if any of them took some pix of it. We serviced this engine, including torquing the heads, back in 1995. The exhaust stack ran the WHOLE HIEGHT of the building! When we finally got it cranked up, there was a black pall of smoke visible from Brooklyn! The genset hadn't been run since 1979!!!

DeserTBoB93535 11 months ago

That sounds so cool. 8D

SpeakerPolice 11 months ago

What is it that creates the "Knocking" sound in four-stroke diesels like this one?

TankCrusher210 1 year ago

It is the inherent four-stroke design, in this case coupled with the ALCo engine design process. I'm not exactly sure what causes it, but someone else here could probably explain better than I. xD

SpeakerPolice 1 year ago

Comment removed

JonFinnerud 3 months ago

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@TankCrusher210 The "Knocking" sound is the diesel fuel combusting in the cylinders. You can hear this on most diesel engines, but it varies from design to design.

JonFinnerud 3 months ago

@TankCrusher210 That 'knocking' is the fuel igniting in the cylinders when it's sprayed in. ALL diesels do it, it's just more noticeable on 4-cycles. It's even more noticeable on these large engines due to the fact they only run about 1000 RPM or so wide open. Idle about 250. If you listen REAL close to an idling EMD you can hear it, and an idling GE it's very pronounced as well.

slamdvw 2 months ago