We're looking for CD or paper parts manuals for Alco 244 and 251 engines that would cover the RS11 and two RS3s that we operate and maintain. Does anyone know of a source?
Thanks in Advance, Jack.

Good luck with your search, these are hard to find. Alco didn't print many parts books in their final years in the US locomotive market, as you can see when you try to find anything on the internet. There is almost nothing out there. The best sources for paper originals are to watch eBay carefully, or try to find a retiree who still has a collection, and with the years going by the Alco retirees are few and far between now.

If you are able to find any parts books, expect that they will be very time consuming to scan. In their final years Alco used cheap paper, cheap ink, and punched many of the books to a non-standard five hole binder spacing. This may make them very difficult to run through the automatic document feeder of a scanner, if you can find the right ones for your equipment, you may have to resort to scanning them page by page.

PC

Doesn't "Alco God/guru/expert" Chris McDermott publish mechanical volumes on Alco equipment?

Chris is certainly on the top of the list of former Alco employees to contact.

You can find him by entering Christopher G. MacDermot (note the spelling) and Schenectady, NY in Google search.

PC

Thanks for the spelling correction.....a lazy mistake on my part.

I got to meet Chris personally last year when I co-produced a news piece on the D&H Colonies Shops. The man was gracious, cordial, and (in layman's terms) he knew his s**t. Being able to work a piece around both him and Jim Shaughnessy was a rail historian dream come true.

You can see it here:

http://www.twcnews.com/nys/capital-regi ... tones.html

John Mech (who frequents all the Alco related forums. along with this one) may be able to help.


Chris has created his own publication-"The Service Engineer", which is essential for those who maintain Alco road locomotives.

Look into the 'Alco Locomotive Operators' page on Facebook. It can be helpful when it comes to sourcing material.


Dave

I have two RS11 maintenance manuals and parts manuals. One set I am keeping and the other set is going to John Mech, who I assume will scan them and offer for sale as he has done with many other Alco manuals.

Thank you Rick. I have since updated my lists with more manuals. Anyone needing this material should e-mail me for current information & prices.
John

Since that last post, I have updated more material and added a couple of items to the list. Also my Phone # number and prices have changed. Please send an e-mail first. Thanks.

It would be great to see a "reference" section of RYPN where things such as manuals and bulletins can be accessed online.

Some of these manuals are 100's if not 1000's of pages each. I am not sure it would be practical. All the manuals I offer are in PDF format on CD.

A reference section would be a great resource. I have often found it difficult to find some manuals, documents, recommended practices etc. for projects that I have worked on in the past. I now make it a habit of downloading and saving everything that I find, just in case it is needed down the road.

The closest thing the internet has to a reference section for locomotives is the manual section on the Fallen Flags website. I do believe John's offerings go above and beyond what is available here with regards to Alcos.

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/manual/manual.html

The military vehicle forum I belong to has thousands of Tech Manuals (TMs) for everything from a WW2 hand crank generator to M60 tanks. I was told once by a site administrator that there were almost 10 million pdf pages in the TM section. So it is doable.

It is an incredible resource that is used by the members on a daily basis to keep these old vehicles and equipment running the right way. As people find manuals they are scanned and added for all to use. I have routinely printed just the section pertaining to say, changing the injection pump on my WIFE's M109A3 duece and a half. It is also nice that I don't have to worry if it gets grease, oil, fuel, coolant, or just plain ruined. I didn't pay lots of money for it or it is a priceless original.

I appreciate what John has done for the Alco operator, and understand a reference section might cut into his sales, at least to preservationists. However this might be something we can implement on RYPN. All kinds of electrical, air brake, etc manuals can be made available. All we need is server space. More modern manuals may be copyright protected, this is something we check before posting manuals to the military forum. Some stuff is still used by uncle sam after all.

I will even put my name in the hat to operate/moderate such a section.

It should be noted that I will consider donating to a Organization that is restoring an ALCO Diesel.

My documents come from originals and I spend a lot of time cleaning them up to make them more readable. I also update the originals whenever its possible. In the end you get a much better copy than the original which often has grease and dirt on them as well as yellowed paper. The price of each manual is $70.00 which includes mailing within the USA. Slightly more for Canada and overseas.

I am updating my list as I am getting ready to add information but will post it here when it is completed.