Alco smoke

Reading Technical & Historical Alco C-630 smokes it up at Mountain Top, PA. towing two other Alco's, on her way to the DL at Scranton for the big DL Alco show a few years ago.
Ed K.
OH WELL PRODUCTIONS

[@sooline3854]

"When I grow up, I want to be a steam engine!!"

[@markcinque2910]

Hey Look!,There Go's a Train,just like that old kidvison video,with engineer Dave.

[@bubba2781]

Good video. I guess that Alco meets the Tier 2 emissions standard!

[@Terraceview]

As long as we keep the trees, we can have all the ALCOS we want.

[@tooling17039]

The Fuel filters were changed 2 hours before this clip was shot. The cause for the smoke you see was a combination of two things. On ALCOs there is basically a diaphragm on the fuel rack that resists drastic movements. It began to act up so it was temporarily disconnected until it could be repaired, there is no real harm that can come to the engine other than the excessive smoke you see here. The other cause was we knew ED was there and we wanted to give him something interesting to film!!

[@ERIELACKU34CH]

holy hannnah!! i always knew alcos smoked, but not like that. great video.

[@tooling17039]

This amount of Smoke is not constant on any ALCo unless something is wrong. However you can make an ALCo smoke as seen in this video, same goes for GE and even EMD to an degree, they all smoke when you go after them. We were only trying to give the photographer a good shot. Kinda funny to cause this much of a commotion over a such a thing. I for one am happy engines like this are still operational for future generations to enjoy.

[@CSXT17]

That engine took being an ALCo to the intermediate level

[@yrunaked4]

@Triplex5014 I read quite long ago but forgot the technical reason but something to the effect that there is too much fuel to air ratio at throttle change. basically when notching up, to much fuel is injected into the cylinders and not enough air is present until the rpm's catch up. EMD's are some how set up differently, i wish i could remember the details. smoke is always a sign of incomplete combustion, i.e. wrong fuel to air ratio.

[@burghill1979]

an alco smoking and a big diesel at tickover( which sounds complicated because of the number of cylinders), you can't beat it

[@coalcreeksteam]

The reason Alco's smoke so much is they have a "free wheeling" turbocharger while EMD and GE run a style of turbo that is gear driven until a certain speed and then it becomes free wheeling as well. A constant free wheeling turbo takes time to spool up and is the reason the air does not immediately match the fuel during acceleration, especially hard acceleration. If you rip out the throttle on an ALCO it will cause copious amount of black smoke to come out of the exhaust.

[@dah72007]

Sweet video ,thanks for sharing!!

[@RRYankfan]

nothing can beat the one in the trains magazene a few years ago

[@Nec1228]

GEs (at least the ones from the 80s on up) use free wheeling turbochargers as well. The computer limits how fast the engine revs and loads up in order to let the turbo spool up to reduce the smoke. If you get on a dash 8 with a mechanical governor and push the layshaft, it will blow a cloud of smoke that blots out everything.

[@SirHeadly84]

I don't believe I was arguing with you?.. I am a railfan also.. LOVE those alcos, LOVE the smoke, and I particularly LOVE the sound of the 251 PM. I thought is seemed to me like you were complaining about the alcos. Didn't realize you were Ed K of "Oh Well Productions".. LOVE your videos too, by the way!

[@MsJfraser]

Two issues are creating the amount of smoke viewed in the video. The first, as has been mentioned is the amount of additional fuel. The second is the lack of heat to burn the fuel. ALCO made four stroke engines while EMD's 567 and 645 series were two stroke with a Roots blower which was used to provide a positive air flow.

[@307OLDS]

and the alco says your welcome! you damn hippie

[@SirHeadly84]

yessir, you throttled up to get it to work harder, to smoke more.. thats what even healthy alcos are known for! those fools @ the EPA can choke on it!

[@88junor]

got to love the smoke

[@dennisyoung4631]

*Alco Soot-Train!*

[@nigelterry9299]

Nice bit of turbo lag.....

[@davey1121]

NICE

[@307OLDS]

I wanna send the EPA chairman an ALCO for christmas. I better not though, he might commit suicide. KEEP THE SMOKE ALIVE, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ALCOS.

[@mafarnz]

That engineer really know show to smoke it up.

[@wilzchau]

One silly question: Why ALCO locos smoke like hell (but not EMD and GE)?

[@desertbob6835]

See above. Moutnain Top, PA...."Butthole County." FULL of dumb people who think smoke is somehow "cool". THen again, there are the same morons who are poisoned from mercury from all the anthracite mining in that area. it's a real poverty pocket.

[@nigelterry9299]

Turbo lag. Modern turbos spool up more quickly.

[@tarmac2001]

It's the emissions you can't see by eye that's the most destructive to the enviroment. California's emission laws and most others have been enacted to combat smog which is seen by the human eye and a more short term enviromental hazard. So then they mandate appliances to be put on internal combustion engines to capture these emissions that cause the smoke pollution while the engine consumes more fuel to operate these attachments therefore emiting more of what you can't see. Get it.

[@NJT4111]

wow, call the fire department.

[@ICrailroadprod.2007]

Clearly my friends you have never heard of the C-30-7. No?

[@norfolkdash9]

OMG does he know about it?

[@RichmanJ93]

don't tell Al Gore about this haha

[@Triplex5014]

I always wondered why do Alcos smoke like that and EMD's don't?

[@garyvincent3721]

Turbo lag is feature of Alcos and results in smoke until the turbocharger catches up.

[@1974meowmeow]

403 Olds ???

[@desertbob6835]

People STILL don't get why these things smoked badly, while EMDs don't. First, Alcos weren't the only "heavy smokers"...the Cooper-Bessemer FDLs in the early GEs could smoke every bit as badly, assuming the same governor problems that most Alcos had, thanks to GE supplying the governors until 1953. Anyway, any piston engine is an air pump, whether two stroke or four, they do the same things...take air form the intake and expel it through the exhaust. EMDs are two strokes, and thus must have positive displacement scavenging, originally from a Roots blower, until UP and Garrett AiReserach teamed up to eliminate the "compounding" turbocharging that was marginally successful previously. In the EMD, the fan-type turbocharger is mechanically linked to the crankshaft; the faster the crank spins, the more air is supplies, very much like a Roots blower...UNTIL load increases, which means more expansion of exhaust gases which means more power available from the exhaust stream. At that point, the turbine of the EMD "freewheels" on a sprag clutch, allowing the exhaust gas to do the work of scavenging the engine, not the gear train from the crank. In the 4 strokes mentioned, only the power of the burned fuel added to displacement of air causes any scavenging action at all. Another BIG thing with Alcos and GEs? They put the load on the generator or alternator FIRST, THEN try to up the rotational speed to deliver more power, which negates the advantage the EMDs have, which is that they allow their prime mover to accelerate to the next governed speed, and THEN put more load on the engine. The Alco (and FDL), starved as it is for combustion air, will "overfuel" itself because their governors go to "full fuel" (especially on the 539s and 244s), causing inky purple-black smoke due to failed combustion. Once Alco developed the 251 and got rid of the "iffy" GE governor, they were able to better control overfueling, but, due to the weight of the obsolete turbo's rotating mass, it would take forever for them to accelerate to a speed at which the increased scavenging would do any good. Black diesel smoke is a tell tale of overfueling, while bluish is usually a sign of a cold combustion chamber, cold fuel or lousy injector pattern. Black smoke is a detriment to any diesel engine, as it is mostly carbon , which eats up valves and piston rings, and usually comes with sky high NOx and unburned HC aromatics dumped into the atmosphere. That's another reason Alcos were not favored by the big roads...their repair records, even on the much better 251, were less than stellar. The 539 was pretty reliable, but the 244 was an absolute disaster for many reasons. The 251, much improved as it was, was mostly based upon the original 241 McIntosh and Seymour engine of 1941 that wound up in the "black Mariah" A-B-A demonstrators that were quickly scrapped.

[@ricardovelasco3976]

Thank you very much. As a Mechanical Design Engineer (albeit long term unemployed), I tip my hat at your knowledge and expertise.

[@nucularthegreat]

the environmental say thanks

[@RRYankfan]

i forget which one it is i will have to look i think it has a steam engine on the cover every train magazene i like and look at alot i loose and what i dont really like or didnt find anything really interesting in i see every day whats up with that

[@choirboyfromhell1]

That Alco pollutes a helluva lot less for the tonnage it can carry than that damn Subaru you drive around in your Birkenstocks fool.

[@eoinpkav152]

Lol

[@NSHorseheadSD70]

ALCo. An environmentalist's worst nightmare.

[@Jleed989]

Old sewing machine

[@ppoutine]

MORE SMOKE THE BETTER!

[@desertbob6835]

You're dumb.

[@gyro727]

@@desertbob6835 Big machinery= power= some form of visual and hearing cues.

[@tarmac2001]

Hold on there, all that I was saying just because an engine is belching smoke doesn't mean that it's more pollutive than one that doesn't, like most people think. The gases that are most responsible for global warming can't be seen by the human eye. So If an internal combustion is emitting smoke (which the eye can see) doesn't mean it's admitting more global warming gases (which you can't see). Maybe, if you read my comment entirely, you would have had a better understanding

[@ffej980]

too bad about the environmentalists...they get the upper hand in everything...next thing you know...they will have railroads...using pedal power locomotives...

[@megs905]

Wow talk about good for the environment talk about global warming!

[@nucularthegreat]

i have seen better lokomotives who can pull more without this smoke the experience of the americans to develop things has big gabs ps: What makes u think, that i drive a subaru. im not a chinese or japanese