CCGS NGCC Martha L. Black Alco 251 diesel icebreaker

[@thetrainshop]

Damn, thats the cleanest ALCO I've ever seen.

[@steveowen8468]

I was an engineer on the USS San Bernadino County, LST-1189. The sound of these engines would put me to sleep at night, since our berthing compartment wasn't too far away. They are fine engines, reliable and easy to work on. I miss taking care of them evan after almost 30 years. The compressed air would run through the starter motors and frost the exhaust, it took so much air flow to turn them over. 1000 RPM and 2750 HP!

[@ford9572]

Those 251s are such AWESOME sounding engines!!!!

[@beemerscoot8851]

I spent many years operating and overhauling those engines on Mississippi river towboats. They are only a memory on the rivers now.

[@scottkinderdine3317]

Our Navy Alco's were painted Haze Gray with all lines painted in accordance to what fluid was going through them.... Fuel yellow, oil brown, potable water blue, sea water green etc... it looked nice.

[@FixManTx]

Yes they are, although it's been 27 years since I last heard one running. The US Navy used the V16 and V8 E series on some of the Newport class LST ships built in the late 1960's and I worked in the engine room of the USS Harlan County LST-1196 from 1983-1985. First time I ever started an engine with compressed air! Good to see they're still in production.

[@trippo123456]

Nice clean engine room

[@ZwartJaap1]

I went many times to Auburn, to witness the testing of the 251F. Lovely place to be, much snow in the winter.

[@ZwartJaap1]

Love that sound ! I commissioned 3 tugboats, each with 2 x 251F 12 V, and generator drive, * V 12V 16V and 18 V. Much have been built in dreging vessels in Netherlands. The 16 V was very good for sand pump drive, always at max torque, after some turbocharger matching.

[@ZwartJaap1]

I used a turbine starter make TDI, instead of the Ingersol Rand. One occaision I needed to design a black start unit, 6 consecutive starts of 8 sec, starting from 200 bar air bottles with double reducers to 10 bar feeding pressure. Ice was coming from the starter exhaust!

[@Alco2511100]

They were built after that in Montréal, ( MLW for Montréal Locomotive Works ) then by G.E. and now by Fairbanks Morse in Wisconsin. They are very popular in India too.

[@Alco2511100]

Yes they are really good engines , simple, reliable and they can take a lot of shit. These videos were taken at about 15% load max. I should have take a video during icebreaking with those 3 at full power, the sound is amazing in this small engine room.

[@AUSSIETRAINDRIVER]

Would sound ace up on deck too no doubt. Chugging away!

[@jameslanning8405]

Where the heck is that!? Looks like a hospital!! Our engine rooms never looked like that! Heck we never walked on solid decks, we had steel grates for any spills that might make a deck slippery!

[@PositionLight]

Why does Wikipedia list the Martha L Black as having Fairbanks-Morris Opposed Piston engines?

[@aaronheight9693]

We use alco 18-251 in U.S. Coast Guard 270ft Medium Endurance Cutter.

[@DaiR0kuten]

The ALCO I worked on is painted in dull gray with leaks of oil on the cover. Either this engine was new or is very well-maintained.

[@WellRoundedWoodsman]

We painted ours gloss white and polished the raised alco lettering and added stainless steel intake covers. They looked great.

[@Alco2511100]

The springs didn't lasted long in icebreaking conditions, they were replaced by hydraulic shock in 1992.

[@ZwartJaap1]

Sound gets far over 100 dB (A) especially at turbocharger area.

[@jtreign9097]

alco 251 with 2750hp was this the combo of both engines? unless there modified.. they look awesome!

[@jamesshanks2614]

jtreign9097 The 2750 horsepower rating is for one engine. Before ALCO went out of business in 1969 these engines were used to power the Century 628C. I ran ALCO locomotive's for over 16 years in my career as a locomotive engineer from 539 switchers, RS-2's and RS-3's and all versions of the Century class. My favorite engine was ex NYC 5229 at the time the last ALCO RS-2 on Penn Central and I never had any trouble with the 244G engines at all. But my unexpected enjoyment was being assigned 4 ALCO C636's on an eastbound freight. My conductor and head break man were like we will never make the mountain with these piles of crap. I just told you wait and see, we won't even need a pusher. I was asked if we needed the pusher approaching CP 150 and said no we would be fine, my conductor asked me you sure? You saw how they came up the grade at stateline no problem. We dug into that 6 1/2 mile grade from CP148 to the top without a problem and dropped down to 16 mph and they settled in with clear stacks from all four locomotive's. After we hit the top at Hinton my conductor looked at me and said I thought these were junk! These suckers pull like there is no tomorrow. The stack music was fantastic. To see clean engines aboard a ship is not unusual particularly on a US Navy ship or in the case of the ship above the US Coast Guard. My Dad served aboard the USS Atka a world war 2 ice breaker for 14 out of 20 years of service retiring in 1965 which I believe is when the Navy turned over all 6 ships of the class to the Coast Guard which were known at the memory might be wrong the Fourwinns class.i can remember in 1961 while she was undergoing an annual overhaul in Charlestown Navy Yard one weekend the Captain and crew welcomed all crew family members on board and the cook came out to where I was sitting in the chow haul and put a pitcher of ice cold milk in fron of me with a large glass filled with milk and set down the largest chocolate chip cookies I'd ever seen at least one foot across because they were overhanging the metal plate sides and I ate four of them before I was full. The cook was so surprised I ate four of them he handed me a bag with 6 more to take home. For an 11 year old I was in heaven.

[@Alco2511100]

They are wrong in the general characteristics but under Engine they said ALCO/MLW same for all others Type 1100 light icebreakers.

[@Alco2511100]

TDI are great starter, more reliable than IR.