Yes since MK remanufactured these units years ago and modified the frame mounts to take a 12-251 that is what would go back in. It is a much more supportable engine to run. Also the 16-244 is considered extinct. The last one was believed scrapped a few years ago from a gear company test facility in eastern Pennsylvania.
This is why Doyle picked up the M420 for his.

A RTO 12-251 was listed on RailSwap for $10,000 back in June. Others are available for similar cost. I have been involved with rewiring three older locomotives, one of them a C420. Second hand parts for any of them was well under $10,000. The rest is time - a lot of it. With prints, a bit of training and several willing hands it can get done.

EMD D87 TM/Wheel combos are presently listed for $5500 on Railswap. Similar GE 752 TM/wheel combos should be similarly priced.

IF the main structural members of the frame are not bent then the bent outer steel seen in the photos is not that significant. I have worked on reskinning both EMD and Alco cab units. This steel is relatively small structural members. A couple good welders with a good place to work could cut that out and replace in kind in relatively a short amount of time.

If you have a group of people eager to dig in, get hands dirty and have a good workplace you would be surprised what can be accomplished with minimal funds.


If you need to hold many meetings, pay for studies for what ever and hire high priced contractors for everything then it will cost you a boatload of money. You can't be negative but you do need a group of people you can count on and you need to problem solve. Most everything on that PA can be replicated except the trucks which is why finding those castings was so critical.

The ARHS recieved a shell (no engine, generator, compressor or traction motors) of an F3 from the BAR in 1986. It is fully operational as "DL&W 664" today.

Richard Jahn
ARHS

I think if Doyle had been saddled with both PA's, neither one would be as far along as No. 18, er, 190, is at this point. No. 190 is being worked on by Doyle and a few other guys, and since their main responsibility is the maintenance of SP 4449, work on the PA has been done on a time-available basis. Perhaps more money, time, and bodies would have been available if Doyle and company were also working on No. 16 on a contract basis, but there is also the matter of very limited working space at Brooklyn.

Walt Lankenau

Thanks Richard. It does seem quite doable if someone really wants to.

I hope there's a 16-244 sitting somewhere that can be saved and put in a museum just as there are 12-201A's, an 8-201A and even an 8-201 saved outside of equipment.

Steve

There have been reports of a couple of 16-244 engines recently in existence not related to the one previously mentioned. I'd have to contact some folks to see if there is any chance one of them is left. Either way, I'd wire it like a more modern Century series. A set of C420 or 424 drawings would suffice.

Mike

16-244 for museum preservation, definitely. For a PA already altered to "PA4" no way, for reasons already cited.

Steve

Well every museum in the US had a shot at the 16-244 from Philly Gear through the eBay auction, and none of them bid on it. There was a lot of discussion on this site and other discussion groups about the engine, and plenty of e-mails were exchanged with museum curators over the engine. It was subsequently offered on a used equipment registry for a while and then dropped out of sight. Agreed a 16-244 would be a great floor display but it is a 37,000 lb. piece of machinery with an 11,500 lb. generator and another 1000 lb. of amplidyne and aux. gen hung on the back. That is not cheap or easy to rig or to transport.

Used machinery has scrap value, and the outfits that own them are businesses just like museums are businesses. So it is often a question of whether your museum is willing to come up with the scrap value and transportation for an item (unless you are lucky enough to get it contributed, increasingly unlikely nowadays), and whether having that item in your collection is likely to provide enough of an attraction to justify its acquisition cost.

Preservation is unfortunately an industry and a hobby of great ideas and really thin wallets.

By the way the 244 is an incredibly impressive engine done as a cutaway, it is a much more complicated machine than the 251 as is evident from the engine cross section diagrams in the various Alco manuals. The cutaway 244 on display at the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush, New York is not very widely known in the industry, it is an absolutely superb display, and is well worth the drive to see.

The cutaway Alco 244 is shown at this link:

http://tugboatenthusiastsociety.org/Pag ... arious.htm

And by the way, talking about the need to "work together", how many railroad preservation groups bother to mention other groups' outstanding and unusual exhibits like the cutaway 244 on their websites? What a relatively inexpensive and effective way that is of providing mutual support and generating inter-organization cooperation, it takes a little bit of work. A page listing "outstanding exhibits at other museums", is something to add interest to your own website and help your colleagues in preservation. Seen anybody who bothers to do it?

PC

Poor ALCO betting the farm on the wrong engine. Of course they still might have succumbed to GE anyway but maybe GE might have stayed as a partner or taken over ALCO. We'll never know.

On the other hand ALCO earned some cash from Lima for essentially valueless steam patents. Poor Lima!

Steve

After reading all of the comments in this thread, I now have no doubts as to how the terms "foamers" and "whistledicks" came about. But, hey, it's good for a grin or two. Keep 'em coming.

And who knows, someday after the PA is restored and operating, some of the organizations in this hobby may even figure out how to edit their websites so they can keep them up to date and inform the public of what they are doing.

Wouldn't that be an absolutely incredible achievement?

One step at a time......

PC

It is a matter of metal, money, time, and skill. Those who write it off as ridiculous leave me wondering how anything is accomplished against the odds.
We've seen burned out WM Geeps undertaken, we've seen LIRR FA power cars, restored (partially, if not totally), we've seen NZ steam locos hauled out of lagoons as rip-rap and run. What is so insurmountable?
I'm not being a glib "Pollyanna" here. Nothing worth doing is easy, but there is plenty of intelligent opinion in the above thread to help guide preservation of an ALCO PA.