Why didn't more ALCO PA's land in US rail museums? Were they all traded in, or otherwise made unobtainable by the owners?

That's about right, the same as it would be for any other rail equipment we wish there was still more of.

In the case of the PAs (and other diesels, too), I think we can count in some other factors. One was that they were diesels, and were hated by the steam people who dominated railway preservation at the time (and I have to confess, I'm one who felt that way then). Another, as usual, was the lack of resources to pay for these machines, especially as they presented such attractive trade-in fodder for their owners and for GM and GE.

To put this in perspective, think of trying to get interest in preserving units like an SD-40-2, a GP-38-2, a GE B-something or other, an F40. or anything else that might be about 25 years old today. What was being built back in 1985-1990, and how much interest would there be in it right now?

Let's also recall that the four survivors were traded in to GE for a time, and were rescued by the D&H-something unusual to say the least. Give credit to a railroad president who thought his passenger trains were worth spending money on, and thought they should be a little more stylish than they had been.

At that, the PA preservation record is better than for some other diesels. Consider that we have only two Baldwin Sharks left, and it's almost inconceivable to me that we have exactly one EMD E7 left! Considering there were more Sharks built than PAs, and far more E7s, then the survival rate looks a lot better.

Now, if only we could get enough money and parts to rebuild that PB that's supposedly still around. . .

You can extend that "why so few preserved?" syndrome to a lot of first generation diesels. You can thank EMD's trade-in policy, which put everything that came in to the torch, for that dearth. GE and Alco also accepted trade-ins (being so forced by EMD's lead) but did allow a few to escape via resales. As mentioned, the preservation field was then dominated by folks eager to save the last few steam locos (and aren't we glad that they did?) and for whom the diesel was the enemy. They were only too happy to see those early units go to scrap. Thankfully, a few did see the light and for that we do have those few PAs, one E7, and a sprinkling of Baldwin and FM/CLC cabs. But wouldn't it have been nice if the PRR, which did a pretty creditable job at steam preservation, had done a similar preservation of their wonderfully diverse diesel fleet?

Such a diverse collection exists, albeit for a different railroad: The Santa Fe.

And that collection has been languishing, neglected and vandalized, "out back" of the California State RR Museum, for decades now.

"Be careful what you wish for, for you will certainly get it."

Let me be clear. The PA is my all time favorite passenger Diesel design. Pure class. (No accounting for individual taste, I also have a soft spot for Budd RDC's.) Having said that, there was a reason that the first generation minority-builder Diesels had rather short life-spans. They were pretty horribly designed and executed from a mechanical/electrical perspective. I was once told that Baldwin basically built it's Diesels the way they built steam locomotives - as a custom operation. The wiring harnesses might vary in placement from one unit to another. Things like that. I also recall that the PA's had an issue with catching fire. I believe one of the D&H PA's caught fire either on or right before a scheduled excursion in the '70's. Of course, it has been duly noted elsewhere that the current GE P40's and P42's also seem to have a propensity to become "crispy critters" for whatever reason. All I can say is thank goodness all four remaining PA's have been saved to one extent or another.

As for Baldwins, I believe the last Centipede lasted in Mexico into the 1980's. I remember seeing a slide taken of it by a fairly well-known Cleveland area slide seller right before it was scrapped. Story goes he put about six rolls of Kodachrome of it through his tripod-mounted, motor-driven Nikon F2 in a few minutes. Now, of course, one digital gives you an infinite number of good images.

It is sad that the best ever diesel-electric locomotive design with the best ever paint scheme doesn't exist anywhere on the planet earth.

SAD.

I tired back in the late 80's - failed.

I think we've pretty much summed it up here. Trade-Ins, poor design (As much of an Alco-fan I am, it pains me to say that most 244-powered locos were lemons), and animosity to diesels by the preservation community at the time. At the time diesels wern't seen as being worth of preservation. Similar to the disdain the Turbos got last year, or that some have for the F40PH, U-Boats, Dash-7 or SD40-2's among others. A friend of mine once said "Nothing after 1970 is worth saving", in the future we'll probably look back on those, like how we look at the PA now. Just be happy that 4 made it, that's 4 more than many other models.

They look great no matter how they're painted. Real icons of the streamliner era.


KATY Alco PA 2,000 horsepower A unit by torinodave72, on Flickr


New Haven Alco PA in green and gold by torinodave72, on Flickr


New York Central Alco PA 2, 2250 horse power by torinodave72, on Flickr


Alco PAs A-B-A set in Santa Fe Warbonnet colors by torinodave72, on Flickr

The same sort of animosity against diesels still exists. 2nd generation diesels, defined as being diesels made to replace 1st generation diesels, are underrepresented. While you see many locomotives like GP7/9s and GP30s represented in the country, locomotives such as the SD40,SD45,GP38,Etc. are almost not there at all. The opportunities are there to preserve some as well. NS has had two straight SD40s offered up for preservation for almost a year now, and I haven't heard of anyone even attempting to take them. NREX and LTEX have many locomotives in storage, like Dash 7s and Tunnel motors. Nobody seems to take note of the abundance of these types of locomotives, often until it is too late.

In keeping with the Alco PA topic, the same thing occurred as with the SD40s that NS is currently offering. Erie Lackawanna kept a PA in storage, and offered it to preservation. Nobody took it, and as many know, the 1970s were not kind to railroads,they needed cash, so they scrapped it. Many more examples of locomotives that could've been saved if someone took the chance, but DIDN'T can be named.

The time to preserve always should be prioritized in the present, not the future. 25 years from now, SD40-2s may still be plentiful, after all they are being rebuilt or given to leasers in mass, but the same may not and will not hold true for many other models.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can only think of one instance of a railroad picking up used PAs on the secondary market, and that's the four ATSF PAs that D&H bought, along with the one ex-NH PA they got from GE for parts.

I'd be curious too to know what percentage of PAs built were traded into EMD and never saw the light of day again due to EMD's extremely strict policy of scrapping all trade-ins. It's a blessing that GE's trade in policy was a little more liberal or we might have no PAs preserved at all given that D&H's quartet was traded into GE at one point and then re-acquired.

Whatever happened to Doyle's PA aka the NKP PA? ..I imagine the move set him back. The Santa Fe PA Project seems to be languishing.

The reason locomotives survive is due to to their inherent utility, rather than some perceived hostility by external parties.

When the Lehigh Valley dieselized passenger service, it did so with PA's. While there were mechanical problems, they apparently were able to "work through them" enough or had made a decision that was deemed irreversible to keep the fleet on-line enough not to turn the Maple Leaf, Black Diamond and John Wilkes over to other forms of power, like the PRR did when the Centipedes proved problematic on the Broadway.

When passenger service ended, they ran them in freight service, but only for a couple years until they started trading them in for Centuries. None of those units survived (even past the mid 60's). Uni-directionality and poor visibility for the engineer-plus unspeakable indignities to the guy on the ground would have killed them, even if they had spotless mechanical records.

If you look at what survives from "the Valley", its all stuff that had the ability to earn it's keep with another road, generally in less demanding service. A switcher, or hood unit was not only more useful to first owner in it's bread and butter (freight) but could work at smaller roads and industrial settings.

Minus any pretense of "style", the modern equivalent is an SD90MAC. Equally a special purpose machine, and with a similar "knock" about a powerful but temperamental prime mover.

There's at least four available now for about half what you'd pay for a GP38 or GP40 and about the same as I've seen much older Geeps and SD's go offered for sale.

Market value for industrial goods is determined by supply and demand. Demand is clearly driving the price for used SD90MAC's, because supply is limited. The longer they sit, the more likely the asking price will drop-and unless the owner subordinates economics to sentimentality, the more likely the owner will be to notice the gap between asking price and scrap is to small to justify waiting for a buyer.

Will they survive? It depends. Yeah you could raise the $130K price for an impressively large and powerful, but likely static engine, but that would mean you might forgo a 800 hp switcher that could actually run and fit in a reasonably sized engine house. There's always opportunity cost to consider.

I see them as future razor blades unless NS decides to redo their SD-80MAC fleet into an SD-80E and they buy the 90's to be used as "cores". Or perhaps somebody will grab them as cores to be used as testbeds for the new high horsepower medium speed engines from Cat (c175) or Cummins (QSK120). In any case, it's hard to see them "making it" without losing the 265H.

It's easy to attribute railfan motives to the railroads-surfing off one of the early posts in this thread I found some page stating that the reason baby-face Baldwins were ultimately sent packing was that they posed a "style" problem. Balderdash. When it comes right down to it, railroads treat locomotives like toasters-either they work well or they don't-and if they don't, they are gone-romanticizing by people who aren't economically involved with the company aside.

Supe's final paragraph has it just about right. When a locomotive doesn't do the job, off it goes. A shortline I worked for 20-odd years ago started out with some third-hand road engines that really weren't suited for the operation, but the price was right. We replaced them with some SW-8's, which were just about perfect. In the last couple of years, as needs changed and parts supply became an issue, the trusty pups were replaced by SW-1500's. It's all in the economics.

There may be a few other reasons why early diesels did not get saved. I believe there were tax credits available for purchasing new diesels, these required that the trade-ins had to be cut up. During the era of replacing first generation diesel locomotives, the diesel was emerging technology. Unlike steam locomotives, their parts were useful and worth a lot of money. These parts were valuable inside the railway industry and out. In that same line of thought, some of these used locos were exported. It has proven difficult to repatriate these locos. The group I was with in the late 1960 and early 1970s tried to save a Southern Pacific Trainmaster. The SP management said they would/could not give one away, but they would sell it to the Museum for the same price that they got for them for scrap, $24,000. That was more than every other car and loco in the collection had cost altogether. There was just no way to raise that kind of money in that era.

Very well thought out discussion on the subject. At the time Santa Fe traded their PA's to Precision National, and Precision was contracted to "kill" any and all trades, E-L was sending the last of the PA's and Trainmasters to (I think) GE. One of each remained stored in Hornell after the original trades. At the time, we hoped these two great specimens of Erie and Lackawanna locos would be placed into protective custody. It was not to be. Another ball dropped.