[N&W] Re: N&W Alco question

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

No, the N&W didn't have any C430's. Alco only built 16 total. Pretty bad
total I gotta say. I have read they demonstrated on the NYC, and D&H. Other
than those two lines, it is unknown what railroads they demonstrated on.
The C630's were not turned into slugs. They were rebuilt to power slugs
built from older locomotives. Such as FM H24-66's the N&W inherited from the
Virginian, and Wabash. I have read that the N&W did lease their 10 C630's to
the CNW along with the C628's. For some reason, the CNW decided not to buy
the C630's. The CNW had bought several new GE U30C's a few years before they
picked up the N&W C628's. They really disliked the U30C's. This is probably
a big reason the CNW bought used Alco's instead of newer GE's. CNW didn't
buy anything from GE again until 1989. The Alco tri-mount trucks, and FM
tri-mount trucks were odd ball trucks in a fleet of EMD flexi-coil trucks on
the N&W. They had different springs, and other different parts that probably
cost the N&W more to maintain. Plus I have read they were hard on the track.
The Monon railroad traded all of their C628's back to Alco for four axle
C-420's. Also, I have read Alco wasn't very good with customer relations. GE
tended to listen to their customers better, and improve their products over
time. In the long run, it turns out Alco locomotives with 251 engines (like
many of N&W's Alco's had) have lasted much longer than GE's built during the
same time. Many short lines use RS-11's, T-6's, C-420's, C-424's, and
C-425's. Even a few C-430's still operate today. Very few railroads operate
any GE's built during the time Alco still built locomotives. One former N&W
C-425 with a hi-nosed can be seen in the movie "Planes, Trains, and
Automobiles." As far as I know, this locomotive is still used today. N&W
T-6's still operate on the Arkansas & Missouri railroad too. No former N&W
GE U series locomotives operate, or exist, that I know of.

Al Seever
_____________________________________________
A.J./Others:

Several points of further clarification on the Alco C628's and C630's!
While the N&W  did, in fact, try to sell the 630's, they were not successful
They kept the units; using them for the heavy yard work at both at the
Lamberts Point coal piers and in Roanoke!  Mated with a slug, these powerful
Alco units were were effective!  They were kept in service until the
mid-1980's.  The last units were retired in December 1985.  Have no record of
their being converted into slugs.

Jim Gillum
_____________________________________________
???????
  Can anyone explain exactly why the big Alco's were hard on the track or what
they did to the track to make them not be liked by management.

                                     Russell
______________________________________________
Sir,

Please check Withers & Bowers again, you will find that N&W rebuilt the 
C630 into
mothers for the slugs.  Most (but not all) of the slugs were built from FM TM.

I suspect that the TM were used because once the scrap dealers found out that
they were mostly concrete, the scrap value of a TM became very very low.  I 
have
no direct evidence to support this though.

Nigel
(nfmisso at flash.net)

A.J. Gemperline wrote:

 >  Therefore N&W had no real choice but to turn them into slugs.
 >
 > <snipped>