American Locomotive Company

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American Locomotive Company

logo
legal form Company
founding 1901
resolution 1984
Reason for dissolution Breaking up and selling
Seat Schenectady , USAUnited StatesUnited States 
Branch Mechanical engineering , nuclear energy

The American Locomotive Company ( ALCo ) was an American company of the locomotive - and mechanical engineering and later the defense industry and the nuclear energy industry . It was created in 1901 from the merger of seven steam locomotive manufacturers with the Schenectady Locomotive Works in Schenectady , New York , United States .

These seven locomotive builders were:

The ALCO were the second largest steam locomotive builder in the world and produced over 75,000 locomotives, 63% of which were built in Schenectady alone. In 1964, ALCO was bought by Worthington Corporation . In 1968 the renamed Alco-Products was dissolved into several subsidiaries.

history

Beginnings

In 1848 the American Locomotive Company was founded as "Schenectady Engenie Manufactory" in Schenectady and delivered its first steam locomotive , called "Lightning", in the first year ; she was given to the Utica & Schenectady Railway . Three years later, in May 1851, the company was renamed for the first time. It was now called "Schenectady Locomotive Works". After the first major orders from 1861, in which 84 steam locomotives were delivered to the US Army , parts of the plant burned down in 1866. On June 24, 1901, the Schenectady Locomotive Works merged with seven other locomotive works to form the American Locomotive Company (ALCo) to compete with the Baldwin Locomotive Works .

Expansion of activities

With the merger of the eight locomotive works, it was possible to add other companies to the American Locomotive Company. In 1904, control of the Locomotive & Machine Company of Montreal Ltd., later known as the Montreal Locomotive Works , was taken over. Just a year later, the Rogers Locomotive Works were bought. In addition to the locomotive construction, which in 1910 the 50,000. The company entered the automotive industry in 1906 . Two years later, the first automobile was developed and built under license from a French manufacturer in the American city of Providence . For reasons of profitability , the construction of automobiles had to be given up in 1913. Nevertheless, in 1917, ALCo was the 61st largest company in the USA. In the following years technical innovations were driven forward: In 1924 the first commercially successful shunting diesel locomotive from the 1000 series (Bo'Bo ', 54.4 t, 300 hp) was built. This made possible the purchase of the Railway Steel Spring Company (1926) and the McIntosh & Seymour Diesel Engine Company (1929), which the year before had produced the first diesel-electric passenger locomotive in the USA with its own 900 hp V12 diesel engine.

In the 1930s, the American Locomotive Company participated in various projects, such as the construction of the tunnel under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan (1930) and the construction of remote-controlled and watertight doors and windows for ocean-going ships (1936). In the field of locomotive design new vehicles were introduced: in 1935 the first two streamlined steam locomotives of the Class A of the Milwaukee Road , designed by Otto Kuhler (1894-1977) and the diesel-electric trains a freight train line locomotive (1939). During the Second World War , the company produced 7,362 tanks, 3,314 tank destroyers, 2,300,000 projectiles of all kinds, 410,000 bombs, 2,574 rifle frames and finally 4,488 locomotives for the US armed forces. For this purpose, it was agreed with General Electric that from 1940 only their electrical equipment would be used in return for GE foregoing diesel locomotive construction. In 1953, however, GE ended the agreement and again built its own diesel locomotives.

The Milwaukee Road 261 , a 2'D2 'h2 steam locomotive 1944

In the course of these major ventures, the American Locomotive Company achieved a production record of 1,354 locomotives in 1944. One of the largest steam locomotives in the world, the " Big Boy " / Series 4000 / (2'D) D2 '/ approx. 544 t / 7000 hp, built. The second half of the 1940s was marked by the purchase of the Beaumont Iron Works Company (1945), which produced petroleum equipment, and the manufacture of the 75,000. Minted steam locomotive (1948). In 1949, the company also received a major order from the United States Atomic Energy Commission for the production of tubes coated with nickel. As in World War II, the company supported the military in the Korean War with the production of thousands of tanks and aircraft engine containers, and in 1953 they participated in the development of the US Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine (“ Nautilus ”). In the same year, Bituminous Coal Research Inc. was founded to develop a pulverized coal turbine for locomotives. However, after building and testing a prototype, the project was stopped for lack of money.

The second half of the 1950s was marked by innovations. Not only was the name of the company changed from ALCo to Alco Products, Inc. in 1955 and the new Alco 251 diesel engine officially launched as a replacement for the Alco 244 the following year, but the first was not in 1957 as part of the Army Nuclear Power Program US experimental nuclear reactor (APPR-1, later renamed SM-1) built. With the construction of the third nuclear reactor manufactured in 1962, the company was for a short time the largest supplier of nuclear plants in the world, before all activities in the nuclear technology sector were discontinued in 1963 and all developments in this technology were transferred to the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation , Blaw-Knox and Struthers-Dunn were sold. The company was able to maintain its market leadership in the construction of locomotives for export. In 1958 the company manufactured 80% of the locomotives exported overseas. In addition, the first diesel-hydraulic freight locomotive and the first diesel-electric 5500 hp locomotive were built in 1964.

Acquisition, dismantling and end of the company

The Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) ALCo DL537 diesel locomotive in Corinth , 2007

Nevertheless, on December 31, 1964, Alco Products, Inc. was bought by the Worthington Corporation, which three years later merged with the Studebaker Corporation to form Studebaker-Worthington, Inc., whereupon the American Locomotive Company became a 100% subsidiary. In the following year the company was forced to sell the area of ​​Alco Forge & Spring, Inc., Latrobe to the Edgewater Corporation and its own production to the subsidiaries Alco Locomotives, Inc., Schenectady; Alco Engines, Inc., Auburn ; Alco Products Service, Inc., Schenectady; Alco Spring Industries, Chicago Heights and Finserv Computer Corp., Schenectady. In 1969 Alco Products, Inc. ended the production of diesel locomotives for the USA and sold the license rights (not for the diesel engines) to the Montreal Locomotive Works . On February 1 of the following year, Studebaker-Worthington, Inc. sold the company to the White Motor Company , which thus founded White Industrial Power Inc. The company name of the American Locomotive Company was no longer used and the main plant in Schenectady was also closed. It wasn't until 1977 that the British General Electric Company Ltd. When White Industrial Power Inc. buys, it changes its name to a name that refers back to the company: Alco Power Inc. This received an order from Brazil in 1979 to build and supply 74 diesel engines, but was given five years later by the Canadian company Bombardier including the engine licenses bought and renamed again. The company now called Auburn Technology mainly manufactures measuring and testing devices.

Automobile manufacturing

Automobiles were also made. Here a 1912 Alco from the Nethercutt Collection in Santa Clarita .

After a license from Berliet , the construction of passenger cars began in 1906. The brand name was officially American Locomotive Motor Car , often shortened in the press to American Locomotive (Berliet) , American Berliet or just Berliet . From 1909, independent models were created that now bore the brand name Alco . Production ended in 1913.

literature

Web links

Commons : American Locomotive Company  - collection of pictures, videos, and audio files