What would ALCO be today?

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"Alco's Demise"

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12598


Some other reasons are covered in my response to the other question you posed.

ALCO would be just as dead today as they already are.

m.x.data

mxdata wrote:ALCO would be just as dead today as they already are.

m.x.data

except of course, if they werent.
Im going to pretend they are thriving and building state of the art modern locomotives.

(one fictional history is just as valid as any other! )

Scot

Towards the end Montreal Loco Works/Bombardier was building as state of the art and modern locomotives as they could but couldnt get railways that always bought from them to buy more than token numbers of them. Not in North America or in the rest of the world. The reality is that the gold standard for four axle locomotives is the GEEP. And EMD cant compete (for new engine sales)with engines they built decades ago. Its a tough market.

First of all, Alco did not close Schenectady, S-W did. Had they not, the only way Alco would have made it was if the C-636 demos were stellar performers. And from what I have heard, the only major thing preventing this from happening was a defective part, which happend to be on the only one of them still chuggin. Had this not happened, I'm sure that ATSF and SP would have bought some.

So MLW/Bombardier was building S.O.T.A. locomotives in the end? Not so. The HR616 and HR412 were by no means. Like Alco, they didn't listen to their customers and, not to mention, had trouble delivering on time.
The LRC's tilting system wasn't perfected...
The M-640 wasn't throughly tested.
I think railroads would prefer the HiAd truck over the Dofasco. Note what Mt. Newman Mining/BHP did. They specified their M-636s with HiAds until it was no longer possible. They kept and rebuilt the HiAd equipped locomotives but scrapped all of those with Dofasco trucks.
MLW/BBD also ceased to offer the standard cab, which was a turn off to most US and Mexican railroads.
I don't know if being in Canada helped much, either.

GE built crap and still hasn't gotten much better. But they were open, and listened to their customers instead of blaming them.

What would Alco be today? Out of business..............

I have a bunch of padlocks here that are just beggin to be used......

Well that was useless.

I have a bunch of padlocks here that are just beggin to be used......

Where'd you get them? A small railroad near me lost about 14 of them for switches in January. Do yours take an AT&SF key?

I purchased them at my local True Value Hardware. The clerk offered me some with some "funny" lettering on them. I did indeed look like railroad style locks...mmmmmmmmmmm.

Fellas I hate to rain on a parade here, but I believe Alco was like Penn Central - there isn't one specific fault, or even a specific handful of faults, that caused the downfall. Instead, it was a perfect storm of factors hitting the builder from all directions that caused the downfall of Alco. It's funny that S-W shut down schenectady and tried to run the business from canada, because they knew that was a bad idea from when they shut down Studebaker here in Indiana and but kept open their Ontario line - it failed just like MLW did, and for similar reasons. In many ways, I view Alco/MLW as the studebaker of the locomotive industry.

Tadman wrote:Fellas I hate to rain on a parade here, but I believe Alco was like Penn Central - there isn't one specific fault, or even a specific handful of faults, that caused the downfall. Instead, it was a perfect storm of factors hitting the builder from all directions that caused the downfall of Alco. It's funny that S-W shut down schenectady and tried to run the business from canada, because they knew that was a bad idea from when they shut down Studebaker here in Indiana and but kept open their Ontario line - it failed just like MLW did, and for similar reasons. In many ways, I view Alco/MLW as the studebaker of the locomotive industry.

MLW was doing ok until Bombardier took them over, According to a former MLW employee that I spoke with in Montreal. The problem was that BBD wanted to change everything at once including employees which resulted in people who knew the business getting the boot. That plus the fact that BBD did not listen closely to its customers and their needs, had a couple of strikes, and once again introducing a product that was not tested enough(LRC). I also understand that they blamed product failures on the customer in spite of the fact that the problem was indeed the product itself(16-251F engine) which resulted in unhappy customers. Shades of Alco all over again. Last but not least, the export bank stopped loaning them money which resulted in lost export sales.

Hi Alcoman,

Well now, I remember that Alco was taken over by MLW, and the engines now had an M in front of their designations. However, I did not know that MLW was taken over by Bombardier. That somewhat explains a few things. It also poses a few questions. What happened to the Bombardier ex-MLW engines ? Also, are the people that are with Bombardier now the same group that was with MLW and before that Alco ? Are you telling me that the Metrolink Bombardier bilevel railcars are actually Alco in disguise ?

pennsy wrote:Hi Alcoman,

Well now, I remember that Alco was taken over by MLW, and the engines now had an M in front of their designations. However, I did not know that MLW was taken over by Bombardier. That somewhat explains a few things. It also poses a few questions. What happened to the Bombardier ex-MLW engines ? Also, are the people that are with Bombardier now the same group that was with MLW and before that Alco ? Are you telling me that the Metrolink Bombardier bilevel railcars are actually Alco in disguise ?

Its the other way around...Alco took over MLW, a wholly owned subsiderary.
MLW had continued on its own after Alco left the business. This is why they added the M to the locomotive models i.e C630Mand later M630.
Bombardier continued the M line for a few more years and then created the HR line of locomotives. This HR =High Revenue which was an improved locomotive over the M line. It didn't work out that way however.
The BiLevel cars have no heritage to Alco at all. BBD bought out a car builder whos name I can't think of right now.
BBD tried to develop a new diesel engine called the B2400 which was under testing when BBD sold everything to GE. GE in turn sold the 251 rights and locomotive design to FM/Alco who gave NRE the rights to locomotive building. FM/Alco still owns the rights to the 251 engine which all that remains of Alco at this point.
NRE has done some Alco rebuilding, but no new Alcos locomotive have been designed so far.
I hope that help answer your questions.
Alcoman