Talk:ALCO PA

The first two units an A and a B were released for test from Schenectady on June 26, 1946. Units were tested on the Lehigh Valley then returned to Schenectady for work before sale to Santa Fe in September 1946. Data is from Richard Steinbrenner's The American Locomotive Company A Centennial Remembrance --SSW9389 23:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

American Freedom Train PA-1 #1776 operated from September 17, 1947 to January 1949. Unit was sold to GM&O as their #292. From Steinbrenner's book. --SSW9389 23:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

The last two PA-1s built in 12/49 were painted in CN paint #9077-9078, demonstrated in Canada from 2/50-5/50, were returned to Alco, rebuilt as PA-2s and sold to MKT! Steinbrenner p.274. --SSW9389 23:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Three PA-2s were exported in 1953 to Brazil's Paulista Railway #500-502. Several are still extant at this time! Steinbrenner p. 308. --SSW9389 23:39, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Steinbrenner has several notes on the PA nose design and its likely relationship with the Fairbanks-Morse Erie Built locomotive. Steinbrenner credits the industrial designer Raymond Loewy with credit for both. Steinbrenner p. 249. --SSW9389 23:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

One "major" book might be Andy Romano's PA: Alco's Glamour Girl, assuming it can be found. I think Jim Boyd had a hand in another book whose title escapes me---maybe Alco Passenger Diesels---but it deals with almost every group of PA/PBs bought by a railroad.--Foxhound 16:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

That "major" book has now been added. -- MakeChooChooGoNow 18:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

PA and PB-3????
The designation PA / PB-3 was for the never built 2400 hp version with the 251 engine.

All 2250 hp PA´s were named PA-2 (or PB-2), sometimes railfans call the later -2´s as -3 but thats not official.

As example Southern Pacifics locomotive classes DP-9 and DP-10.

DP-9: Built in April 1952, numbers #6023-6027 (PA) and #5920+5921 (PB). ·Equipped with the 244F diesel with aircooled turbocharger. ·Equipped WITH the rounded grille work directly behind the cab, looks like an PA-1! The other SP PA/PB-2 with the PA-1 design is the class DP-8, built August-September, 1950, #6019-6022 (PA) and #5918+5919 (PB).

DP-10: Built between May and July 1953, numbers #6028-6033 (PA) and #5922-5924 (PB) ·Equipped with the 244G diesel with watercooled turbocharger. So the stack was turned 90 degrees to the F-version. ·These units were also equipped with nose mounted MU receptacles. ·Delivered without a pilot, upon delivery SP´s Sacramento shop installed also an SP built pilot / snowplow. ·NOT equipped with the rounded grille work directly behind the cab and the portholes behind the shutters.

In September/October 1953 the SP got the last series of PA´s, design similar to the DP-10, only 12 cab units, class DP-11, #6034-6045

'All four classes DP-8 to DP-11, were named as PA/PB-2 by SP and others. The third DP-10 B-unit #5924 was named as the last built PB-2.'

If the designation PA/PB-3 would be correct, the DP-9 were PA/PB-2 and the DP-10 were PA/PB-3 but both were PA/PB-2.

SP PA units with numbers between 6055 and 6066 were the 12 former T&NO PA-1´s, with the number 6067 and 6068 the two former Cotton Belt (SSW) PA-1´s. The two SSW´s PA-1 make sometimes confusion because their class is the higher DP-13 but the T&NO units are the low class DP-6, thats because they were built together with SP´s PA-1´s #6011-6016, class DP-6, and were identical to them. The oldest PA-1´s were class DP-5, #6005-6010. But there was never a PA-3 /PB-3 listet.

Under "External Links" is the link to Dieselshop. There are only PA-1´s & PB-1´s and PA-2´s & PB-2´s listed, no PA-3 or PB-3

The "new" original buyers paragraph accounts for 303 units when only 297 were built. I think we were better off with the roster that we had previously. Also two railroads that owned PAs are not mentioned at all those two roads being the St. Louis Southwestern and the Pittsburg & Lake Erie. --SSW9389 12:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Pittsburgh & Lake Erie sublettered units are New York Central PA-1s # 4204-4207 and New York Central PA-2s #4213-4214. --SSW9389 (talk) 19:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The PA-2 PB2 demonstrators were built for General Electric's "More Power to America" Train. The units were sold to New York Central #4212 & #4308 after a 15-month cross country tour. Data from Steinbrenner p.307.

While it is true that the Cotton Belt and Texas & New Orleans units were built concurrently by ALCO, they are not identical because the Cotton Belt units lacked the nose signal light and had 1900 gallon water tanks, while the T&NO units used 1800 gallon water tanks. The Cotton Belt units were leased to the Southern Pacific in December 1959 after all Cotton Belt passenger service ceased on November 30, 1959. SSW9389 00:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Honorary Steam Locomotive
You've made the "honorary steam locomotive" claim more inaccurate and misleading.

"Possibly" is NOT an encyclopedic term. It was not David P. Morgan.

The actual quote was made by Professor George W. Hilton (possibly in a caption to a photo in a book by Lucius Beebe) and then editorialized by David P.Morgan in his Trains Magazine.

The actual quote will have to be researched and referenced in the article.

Since the present revision is misleading, I will revert back to the original statement, until such time someone can reference the actual quote. trezjr (talk) 13:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Trains Magazine has been invited to refence this quotation. trezjr (talk) 14:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

DONE!!! trezjr (talk) 21:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Removal of unciteds.
Uncited references removed until verified.trezjr (talk) 12:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Alco - GE partnership & transition question
refer to GE- ended partnership in 1953, began building their own locomotives & Alco's demise by 1969

Note 1 - article has no references for these statements

Note 2 - Unfortunately I have no references either, and I also have no first-hand knowledge. However, my memory of things in the 1963-64 time frame cause me to question the article on these items. I am NOT offering this as a proposed change as my information is too weak to make such a suggestion.

I cannot speak for the Alco-GE partnership. However, I understood that Alco continued to use GE electrical gear until about 1962 or 1963. At that point Alco decided that to be more cost competitive with GM EMD, they would cut GE out of the picture, building their own electrical equipment. This lead to their eventual demise in two ways. First, GE was not happy with the change. Second, it cut Alco off from their only source of technology advancement at a time when GM EMD was beginning to make several innovations.

As a result, GE, having one or more old locomotive shops, had everything they needed to enter the diesel-electric road locomotive business against GM EMD and Alco. Everything except the prime mover diesel engine. I believe they turned to Perkins (English) for the engines.

I'm guessing that it was late 1963 or early 1964 that I first heard a GE U-25B on the NY Central in Lansing Michigan. Sound caught our attention, as it was neither an EMD nor (rarer) Alco engine sound, being the raspy breathing sound of (I believe) the Perkins engine that GE used. Other engines one did not hear the breathing, but heard the exhaust instead.

My recollection is that GE went from not-in-the-business to #2 in a year. In order to not bring out a new locomotive with a lower model number than GE, EMD renumbered their locomotive in development as the GP-30 (compared to GE's U-25B), touting "30 improvements." The GP-30 was in production for only 18 months, followed by the GP-45, so intense was the technical competition between GE and GM.

As mentioned, Alco dropped from #2 to #3 in the race within a year. They soon dropped from the US locomotive market, but continued in the export market before closing. The year mentioned in the article, 1969, sounds familiar, but I am unsure of whether it was their total exit from the US market or their closing (closing implied in the article).

I think it would be great if someone with first-hand information, or, even better, references, could clarify this. Again, I am not proposing any changes in the article at this time.

24.4.9.178 (talk) 16:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)Orv Barr 24.4.9.178 (talk) 16:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)OrvBarr@Juno.com

The details of the ALCO-GE break up are in Richard Steinbrenner's Centennial Remembrance Chapter X The Diesel Boom, see page 317. The GE road diesel with the Cooper Bessemer engine was first built in 1954 for demonstration. GE began marketing and selling the Universal Series of Road Diesels in 1956 as export locomotive. GE built the two XP24 Demonstrators in 1959 which became the U25B that was introduced in 1960. Hundreds of Universal Series locomotives were sold abroad before GE started sellilng in the United States. ALCO used GE electrical parts up to the very end in 1969. See Steinbrenner's Chapter XII New Competition and the Century Series. SSW9389 1545! 07/18/2010

Albany train yard connection and date confusion
"Of the D&H units, two are in the United States, No.16 and No.18. These units returned to the U.S. in 2000 after years of storage at Empalme, Sonora, Mexico. No.16, which was heavily damaged in a derailment while in Mexico, was planned to be cosmetically restored into its original "Warbonnet" colors for the Smithsonian Institution." 2000? I remember riding the school bus by the Albany, Oregon train yard around 1993 - 1996 and there were TWO Alco PA's up on wooden blocks along side a siding. They were sitting at 44.630993, -123.098680. At what point were they moved from Albany to Portland? (Or at least the engine that became #190 to Portland, and the other one elsewhere) --98.246.156.76 (talk) 01:29, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Photo caption
The second photo on the page (of the PAs in Santa Fe livery) is captioned "The ALCO PA-1 ABA set at New York's Waldorf-Astoria in September, 1946."

This photo is most definitely not underground in Grand Central Terminal, but rather outside somewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Staypuftmshmlomn (talk • contribs) 16:39, 19 February 2014 (UTC) The Waldorf Astoria event was September 22-24, 1946. There was a ceremony on September 18, 1946 at Schenectady. The next day the units were sent to New York and the Waldorf Astoria event. It appears that publicity photos were taken at D&H's Mohawk Yard on September 19, 1946 just before the PAs were shipped out. The units were at the Waldorf Astoria from September 20 to September 25, before shipment to another exhibit in Chicago. See Steinbrenner pp. 256-257. --SSW9389 18:12, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

PA Traction Motors
There is a discussion on railroad.net about which GE traction motors were used on the PA locomotives. See http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11709 in the Alco forum. You will have to sign up for the forum, but the discussion is well worth while. The gist of the discussion is that if the GE 726 traction motor was used it was only in very early production. The GE 726 may have been used on the first two units that tested on the Lehigh Valley in June and July 1946. Early production points to the GE 746 traction motor being used up until late 1946 or early 1947. The GE 752 traction motor was developed from the GE 726 and became available in late 1946 or early 1947. The GE 752 was used on all following PA production. --SSW9389 11:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Per WP:UGC, contents from user forum discussions will absolutely generally not be incorporated as contents into the prose. Graywalls (talk) 12:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * They will if a reliable source exists which substantiates the discussion, and I've often found that to be the case. Good heavens, what's the harm in pointing someone at an online discussion? They're often a good source of research advice. Obviously railroad.net itself isn't a reliable source. Mackensen (talk) 12:46, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

External links modified
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Addition of contents, or modification asserting "new information is more correct" without supporting sources
Contents must be verifiable. One editor claims existing information is incorrect, therefore the information has been challenged. Per WP:V, it is required that anything added MUST BE VERIFIABLE by RELIABLE SOURCES and the burden is on the editor adding or restoring the contents. Graywalls(talk) 07:50, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * User 96-230.1.216 added a better format to the roster, then cobbled that up with some incorrect quantity numbers. I applaud the format, but not the incorrect quantities. There appears to be a problem with how to handle subsidiary owners. There are at least five subsidiary owners of PA type locomotives: CNO&TP, IGN, P&LE, SSW and T&NO. The contents of my edits are supported on the Diesel Shop website, but not necessarily on the same pages of that website. The subsidiary companies are not completely broken out on the PA production page: http://www.thedieselshop.us/AlcoPA.HTML, but if you go to the individual fallen flag pages (http://www.thedieselshop.us/INDEXFF.html) for Southern, MP and NYC there are references as to ownership of those subsidiary units. --SSW9389 (talk) 08:16, 6 December 2019 (UTC) User Graywalls has removed The Diesel Shop webpage from references. That webpage is published by Alco Diesel Historian R. Craig Rutherford. The PA production page is backed up by data from Extra 2200 South. The individual roster pages, in this case on the Fallen Flags part of the Diesel Shop webpage are also created from information in Extra 2200 South. Graywalls has reverted references from locomotive historian and published authors R. Craig Rutherford and Don Strack. --SSW9389 (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Please continue discussion about the use of that thediselshiop.us source to Reliable_sources/Noticeboard so we can keep the discussion at one place. The result of this discussion has more implications beyond this article. In regards to some other rail fan site that is being courtesy hosted by Don Strack on some other dude's WebTV page: you failed to provide evidence of his status as a recognized (not by railfans, but through formally published materials) expert. Graywalls (talk) 12:31, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of photographs as sources
Please see the last sentence of this talk discussion as it is relevant. Even though it's done exceedingly commonly in rail related articles, reference to rail fan photos is generally not an acceptable source of supporting a claim made within the article. Graywalls (talk) 18:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Refimprove?
Do you think we need more sources to cite such a page like this? After examining the info, I'm starting to think that it would be a good idea to tag this with the ref improve template because there is a lot of speculation and quite a good amount of unreferenced sections.--Davidng913 (talk) 01:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * if it's speculation, I personally favor removal. Wikipedia is not a place for editors to jot out their personal knowledge and "ref improve" is never an excuse to load up articles without having references. Graywalls (talk) 03:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Also, which reliable source provided the support for the newly inserted statement "Due to persistent issues with the ALCO 244 engines, Sante Fe set #51L, 51A and 51B" ? Graywalls (talk) 16:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That was a personal statement based on the paragraph talking about the problems the ALCO 244 engines provided to the PAs. At this point, I'll leave it as is, as I also agree that we don't know which what exactly caused the set to be re-engined. The article itself said (or used to said) that the ALCO 244 caused issues, so that was my theory as to why the set was repowered.Davidng913 (talk) 13:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Please see WP:PRIMARY, WP:RS. Personal statements NEVER go in the article, and this is not limited to this article. It applies to every article. Graywalls (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Will do. Thanks again for everything. Davidng913 (talk) 22:39, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Also... if the only real difference between FA and PA were gearing, I think the two articles should be merged together. Graywalls (talk) 04:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We'll think about it. If anything start a debate and see what people see. There are some differences, with one being primary freight and one being primary passenger, but I do agree that they are indeed similar to each other. Davidng913 (talk) 04:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking move this page to ALCO PA/PB, then merge PB into there. Solomon's book does reference to this train car as "ALCO PA/PB" Graywalls (talk) 03:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreeable. If an official book says so, it would be a great idea. Probably the same with the ALCO FA page: move it to "ALCO FA/FB". As for merging the FA and PA as one, I'll need to dive into more sources to see if there are any other specific differences. The other strong reason to merge the two pages (if ever) is that railroads used PAs and FAs for both passenger and freight service, although I would guess that PAs were mostly used in passenger service while the FAs were split between the two.--Davidng913 (talk) 17:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

PA and FA Similarities and Differences
After looking at the last edit, I can gladly tell you where I got it from: the ALCO FA page. Here is what the FA page currently says in its second paragraph: "Externally, the FA and FB models looked very similar to the ALCO PA models produced in the same period. Both the FA and PA models were styled by General Electric's Ray Patten. They shared many of the same characteristics both aesthetically and mechanically. However, they were not as successful as the locomotives they competed with."

What I just put in bold is the primary reason why I put it in the PA page. Already I have tagged the FA paragraph with the citation needed tag.

I also removed this from the FA page: "It was the locomotive's mechanical qualities (the ALCO 244 V-12 prime mover) and newer locomotive models from both General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) and General Electric (the partnership with ALCO was dissolved in 1953) that ultimately led to the retirement of the FA/FB locomotive model from revenue service." That was already unsourced and removed from the PA page as well.

Currently the PA page states that the PB was shorter than the PA, and were not as successful as the F7s. What about the FAs and FBs? Were the FBs also shorter than the FAs? And if they weren't as successful as something, what was it? Now that I'm finally seeing this, we need to find sources to the FA page's second paragraph as well.

This discussion is also on the ALCO FA talk page.

Davidng913 (talk) 13:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC)


 * , have you had a look through this? Citing_Wikipedia In your edit summary, you mentioned you referenced what you put into this article from another Wikipedia article that in itself was not referenced. So if it says so in another Wiki article and that statement has a WP:RS, you could reference THAT source, but unattributed statement in another Wikipedia article shouldn't be brought in, because that could very well be the original thoughts and reflections of the person who edited the page. Graywalls (talk) 16:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look now. This actually relates to an edit I did with the UP FEF Series page, where I moved info from the UP 844 page to the FEF Series page. Thank you. Davidng913 (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Merge Delaware and Hudson 16
Proposal of the merger of page Delaware and Hudson 16 with this page, as it is small enough to fit on this page as well (much like the NKP 190 page). Discuss thoughts here.--Davidng913 (talk) 18:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)