When I was stationed at Ft Carson Colorado in the late 70's we had two FM's they were 1858 and 1860 not sure what they were, but maybe H-10-44's. I rode them several times and the crews loved them, because of their tremendous pulling power. They were always shut down when not in use, and I never saw them have any problem starting up. While I was there 1860 (much to the dismay of the operating crew)was shipped out and an EMD GP7L was brought in to replace it. The FM was much preferred over the EMD.

Good luck with your project.

This is not the original Fairbanks Morse company. FM Engines (which you reference above), Fairbanks Morse Pump, and Fairbanks Scale are spinoff or sell-off companies from the various incarnations of the conglomerate the original FM became a part of, the names of that conglomerate including Fairbanks Whitney, Colt Industries, Coltec Industries, BFGoodrich and Goodrich Corporation. Goodrich Corporation is the current corporate successor.

As to where the FM archives went, hard to tell but we would all hope that the appropriate parts went to the appropriate spin-off, but is such cases one never knows. For comparison I have been wasting a lot of time trying to track down the company that has information on an old Westinghouse motor and I keep getting bounced around between different companies that the Westinghouse motor business bounced through over the decades.

According to this article http://tinyurl.com/ke9bckp the Lake States Railway Historical Association has a large collection of F-M material.

Jim Tatum

Slide on Ebay of Southwest Portland Cement 66, which went to IRM in 1984.

Interesting thing -- the loco is jacked up and a truck has been slid out the side.

"Victorville, California on September 22, 1968."

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ORIGINAL-1968- ... SwbXZZwj7g

I was at a ceremony aboard USS Olympia (C-6) in Philadelphia. Part of the museum is USS Becuna (SS-319), a Balao-class diesel-electric submarine with FM diesels. At the ceremony I discussed engines with a retired USN Captain who had commanded a diesel submarine. He said submariners greatly preferred the FM OP engines over the GM 16-278A. [the 278A is slightly larger than a 567; like the 567, it is uniflow scavenged 2-stroke cycle and is also descended from the 201A; the model number is in the Winton/Cleveland series and does not reflect the displacement]

You can still buy a new FM OP:

http://www.fairbanksmorse.com/engines/o ... -model-38/

Phil Mulligan

Phil, I would concur with this. When I was in tugs, we tolerated the vessel with the 278A, and worked to the bone the vessel with twin FM's. The A's were notorious for low lub oil pressure on the head end. We put in an electric pressure-maintaining pump to keep the minimum above 35 psi. Once, an engineer eager to get home left the make-up pump on at shut down, emptying forty gallons of lube oil through the rear seal into the bilge. Brilliant.

I had the good fortune to rebuild the port FM. The captain said it had a gallop. Sure enough, when reassembly took place, I went back to my index marks on the top crank. I drove one deckhand to drink, barring the thing over with the jacking gear to check injector timing. The injector timing cam was off one gear tooth. We re-arranged the top crank accordingly and it purred on until retirement just recently.

There was also the opportunity to rebuild another ten-cylinder FM, but that's another story ... For years I was looking for an eight-cylinder cast-off, just to mount somewhere in the shop in order to hear the music. Miss Ann said, "Don't do that to me ... You'll keel over and I'll have this monstrosity to deal with."

Becuna has Clevelands, not OP's.

You can still buy a new 278A as well..

I am practically sitting on top of one as I type this. Very, very few OPs AND 278's left in the marine world..

Met with some Fairbanks Morse reps this week at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Arlington, VA. They had a booth set up in the exhibit area. The gentleman worked for them for 40 years and was very knowledgeable about the old Navy OP applications as well as ALCO. They are still supplying ALCO 251s around the world as well as supporting the Navy's existing units with spare parts, as well as providing new FM diesels for shipboard main propulsion.

I have read somewhere that the nuclear submarines have an FM diesel engine in them for back-up power.

The Coast Guard is a large user of the Alco 251, not sure on the regular navy anymore.

The USN 688/Los Angeles-class "fast attack" nuke subs have an OP in a rear compartment, with a "drop-down" propeller/vertical drive shaft arrangement. It's used for auxiliary propulsion. When I first saw one in 1974, I was a little surprised-- it was a direct "link" back to the WW2 boats; still using OPs after all those years, and thought it was cool.

Howard P.
EB, CT

I’m not sure of many 251’s left in service. The fleet is actually seeing some real modernization/replacement for the first time in a long time. The USCG has a reputation for making things last. That’s because they don’t get many chances to get new stuff. I know some guys miss some of the older boats that have been retired. Then again, what do I know? I was a CG boatswain mate for twelve years..... a knuckle dragging deck ape, not a snipe. The engineers would get real suspicious when I showed up in the engineering spaces.

Three of the U S Army H12-44s appeared at the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point (MOTSU) in the mid 1980s, long after FM diesel locomotives had just about disappeared from most railroad operations. I was a locomotive engineer in the U S Army Reserve 1205th Railway Services Unit and was introduced to the new arrivals during our 2 week annual training visit. The locomotives were 1852, 1858 and 1860. Not sure where they had been before MOTSU, but thanks to Loco Bill's post above I now know two spent some time in Colorado. 1858 went out of service and later disappeared - c. 1988. 1852 and 1860 continued in service and when I went on active duty at MOTSU Nov 1990-Dec 1991 I really got to know and like the FMs once I got used to the rather unique reverser/throttle combination. The cabs, controls and gauges were well laid out and could easily accommodate a 5-person crew. Other locomotives there at the time included EMD MRS1s, a pair of GP7Ls (I disliked these locos! But they are preserved at the Florida RR Museum), and GP10s. The FMs were assigned top the same tasks as the others despite the horsepower difference (FM 1200 hp, others 1500-1800 hp.) MOTSU cargo was largely class A and B explosives so fire protection was important. My greatest excitement was a stack fire that began when I was hauling about 20 loads of ammo. Once the flaming chunks started falling I had the crew quickly cut us off of the cars and get to a grade crossing to be met by the base fire department. They had us sit tight until the fire burned itself out and said we would be OK after that - so we went back to work without further incident. The two locos went on to civilian careers at NC Ports a few years later, and happily both are around today: 1852 was preserved at the Age of Steam Roundhouse in Ohio (thanks to the late Jerry Joe Jacobson) and 1860 is occasionally operated at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer.

Not to hijack this thread, but the USCG 270' cutters have 18-251s, while the 210' cutters have 16-251s. I've been given engine room tours on both classes by my son, who is an Electrician's Mate. Also, the Polar class icebreakers (one of the two is still in service-) have six 16-251s driving generators, for both main prop and ship's service.

Of course, the few 378s still in service have both O-Ps for cruising, and gas turbines for sprinting. I understand they are set with with a turbo ahead of the Roots blower, a very different approach to turbocharging a 2 cycle than EMD took.

Ah yes! You are correct, sir! I had F-M’s on the brain and not Alco’s. The old breaker Mackinaw had a belly full of F-M power. The 378’s are slowly being replaced by the NSC’s. The 210’s are getting up in age now too. Should be interesting to see if they replace the class at all. Too bad about the “Polar Rollers”/ “Wandering Arctic Garbage Barges”. The government needs to put some serious focus and funding into their role. Cannibalizing one to keep the other running isn’t a viable long term solution and the Healy wasn’t built to replace them.

Sorry to all for taking the topic to sea.

While the Coast Guard Cutters and Icebreakers may not be railroad, they still have a relationship to the railroad preservation, through their diesel engines.

The FMs are dying due to the lack of people who know how to work on them and are willing to. I tried to sell 6 large FM engines that were being removed from 3 towboat that were in operation on the inland waterways. They were replaced with EMD 16V645E3 turbocharged engines. The company purchased the towboats used and ran them for a year with NO problems, but they had trouble getting chief engineers that wanted to work on an FM powered boat, so they took them out.

Many 251 Alco engines are also being replaced with new Caterpillar engines in towboats as well. I have been told that some of these replacements are not working out too well or as advertised.

I recently saw a show or article on the 2 Polar class icebreakers. They do each have 10 Alco engines in them as well as turbines. One is being used for parts. Part of the reason for this is, the loss of a propeller and no spares. The one currently operating, is not operating at full capacity, because 2 of it's Alco engines have been torn-down and not put back together. They never said why they were not repaired, other then they are obsolete. This did not make any sense to me with the large number of Coast Guard cutter which use the Alco 251 engine and parts are readily available.

I do watch the government surplus auctions and have seen many Alco parts put up for sale, most new and still in their original shipping containers. I was able to purchase 8 new cylinder liners and 18 new pistons. I missed a sale once that had a crate full of piston ring sets, some were around 70 sets.

The government is very wastefull. Some of the material, they only retain in storage for 5 years and it is sold off. They are currently selling off a very large lot of Cat 6 cylinder diesel engine that are for the MRAP trucks, which we still use. These engines are only 5 years old and they were purchased for around $40,000 each and will sell for around $15,000 each.

The 2 Polar class ice breakers need to be rebuilt, there is nothing wrong with their hulls. What everyone is pushing for, is a number of new icebreaker to keep up with the Russians. If you remember, 2 icebreakers got stuck in the ice a couple of years ago, one a Russian, and who did they call? One of the Polar class.