ALCO RS-3 Startup For First Time in Six Years, Wednesday 6/3/15

This is the first (sort of) successful startup for this ALCO in at least six years. It is owned by the Florida Railroad Museum located in Parrish, FL, and was originally run by New York Central. Now it has been repainted in Seaboard Air Line Green, Yellow, and Orange. It was parked over six years ago due to having governor issues, and has not been touched mechanically since then. Now the museum is lucky enough to have an electrical expert volunteer his time to work on the governor and to attempt to get this locomotive back in perfect running order. This is the first successful attempt of two start-up sessions since work began, sort of. The locomotive runs after repairing obvious governor issues and bad fuel problems, however the governor is still faulty and it is not allowing the locomotive to idle evenly, as you will see in the video. You will see several start-up attempts in this video. Sorry for the background noise, we had a GP-10 locomotive next to the ALCO to help jump-start it, and also sorry for the blurriness, the windows in the cab are quite foggy.

Key Points:
At 2:55 is when the locomotive officially "starts up" after six years.
At 3:28 you'll hear a comment by my co-worker that his "stick broke." We were using two flag-sticks to hold in electrical contactors so the locomotive would start.
At 5:50 the engine built up about 25 pounds of air, and the horn mechanism got stuck in the open position after we tried blowing it.
At the 10:12 mark I take a close-up video of the engine doing its best to run

[jimdieseldawg]

Good work, folks - getting any old prime mover back to shouting at the sky again is a major achievement - and there are plenty of us out here who appreciate your volunteer efforts in keeping the spirit alive. That it's an Alco RS-3 is just the icing on the cake! Good luck with the battery search, and hoping that the advice regarding the governor and the fuel/air filters simply makes her run all the sweeter.

[jamesshanks]

If you haven't discovered it by now Alcos require 20 pounds of oil pressure for the main engine oil gauge before you release the starter lever otherwise she will shut down, the should be an alarm bell sounding as soon as the. Isolation switch is moved from shutdown to isolate position with he engine shut down, in addition you should have the crankcase exhaust fan running before you start her, .
Many years running ALCO switchers and RS-3's on local and yard assignments. Another hint when filling cooling system stick hose into pipe on top of long hood to fill cooling system when it overflows then and only then is your cooling system full and you have sufficient water.

[jamesshanks]

When starting an ALCO 244 or 251 ALCO you have to hold the starting switch in the start position until the low oil light goes out, there should also be an alarm bell ringing when starting the engine. Both the alarm bell and the low oil light are tied together and when the alarm bell shuts off during engine starting that indicates you have enough oil pressure to let go of the start switch you should then (if the electrical cabinet doors are open ) see and hear both starting contactors open and the single auxiliary generator contract or close to supply 75 volt low voltage for running the engine and recharging the batteries. The only way to shut off the alarm bell when the engine isn't running is move the engine control to the shutdown position.

I ran RS-3's and the last RS-2 we had on Penn Central in the early 70's as a fireman and engineer. The RS-2 was used at an outlying yard and I owned that job as a fireman for over a year. Showed up one cold February morning as usual at 5 AM unlocked the locker room in the last original Boston & Albany single stall engine house built in 1903 in Palmer, Massachusetts which the shortline that eventually bough the branch line from Conrail tore it down but the original B&A station still stands in private hands and welcomes railfans to observe the rail action and enjoy a real good freshly made breakfast while doing it, and after starting the coffee pot and getting the trip report made out I realized I didn't hear the engine idling outside looked at the outside thermometer and it read 3 degrees above zero and climbed into the cab to discover the kids had been inside and shut off all the switches which shut down the engine. Engine temp was at 16 degrees so I checked the water tank expecting it to be empty via the thermostatically drain valve. By some miracle it hadn't dropped the water, oil level ok on both the engine and governor. The fuel contactor electric coil had burned out 7 months earlier and after talking to the engine house foreman I inserted a block of wood to keep the contactor closed which powers a 1725 rpm double ended motor that powers the fuel pump and a hydraulic pump on the other end. The hydraulic pump powers the governor which when you hit the starter allows the governor to immediately position the fuel rack for starting. Also when you are going to start a 2-44 engine do not crank her over until at least 5 pounds of fuel pressure is on the fuel gauge or you can damage the fuel injection pumps as the fuel lubricates and carries away excess heat by the extra fuel that isn't burned but is returned to the fuel tank.

Due to the fuel pump running since the engine was shut down I was told by a local cop when he saw me on it and thought I was screwing around with it when I tried to start her the batteries were so low it stalled on compression on the first compression stroke it came up to, opened all the blow down cocks and blew her down the after closing them she stalled on three tries. My last attempt I said blow the blasted starting fuse and held the starter in and after what seemed like hours but was only 10 seconds she worked through the first compression stroke and very, very slowly Baugh, Baugh, Baugh, what couldn't have been more than 10 rpm she started. The only problem was I had my bare fingers on the piece of chrome little block of steel that you grabbed and rotated clockwise to start her and my fingers were beginning to freeze to it! Finally after 20 seconds after engine start the alarm bell shut off and I could release it. I heard clunk, clunk clack as the auxiliary generator contactor closed and instead of the the engine dropped about 50 rpm as the rolling idle suddenly became dead smooth like it was just out shopped from Schenectady. This RS-2 had two unusual options in the cab, it had both a voltmeter for the low voltage system and a amp meter reading from 0 to 300 amps. I was looking at these meters when cranking her over and the voltage dropped to 46 volts but was now reading 74 volts but what blew my mind was the amp meter. It buried itself mechanically as far as it could go past the 300 amp reading and stayed that way for over 4 hours. This was one of the few locomotive's that PC kept good batteries in because we were on our own so to speak.by the time we finished our days work 11 hours later the amp meter was reading her usual reading of 25 to 30 amps which meant the battery was fully charged and the amps on the meter were what the engine was consuming off the auxiliary generator. My engineer bitched upon entering the cab " why is it so cold in here?" After I told him what I found he was ok it will warm up when we pull the Central Vermont drag up to the yard which was normally 100 plus cars pulled 1.8 miles from the interchange up a 1/2. Percent grade up to the yard throat runaround which only held 12 cars at a time then switched them out by kicking them. This was when we had full crews on the train conductor and two brakemen plus fireman and engineer. By 730 to 8 o'clock we'd break for coffee and to thaw out the crew.

By the way more RS-3's have had their engines wrecked by engine crew not checking the lube oil, the RS-3 only holds 85 gallons of lube oil which might sound like a lot compared to your car but it's not.
That is the 2-44 V-12 holds 85 gallons of lube oil, EMD V-16 567 holds roughly 275 gallons of lube oil and the GE 7FDL V-16 holds 350 gallons of lube oil. When you are assigned an engine check your fluid levels before you move the engine, I've held trains with dispatchers yelling at me while I checked my engines and too many times had to stop at the engine house to get lube oil or water. If your operating for a museum remember it's a museum and doesn't have the cash reserves the railroad did to repair the engine and get it back in service. How many locomotive's are in your museum that used to run until someone ran it low on oil and now it just sits?

[SwindellSteamWorks]

At long last she's back. Can't wait to greet her when I sign back up. When I was volunteering before, I used to climb all over her when I'd show up early to the yard.

[jamesshanks]

Oh yeah low or dead batteries in the engine house after trying to start her without enough battery. Remember the big motor generator style welders the railroads all over the country used in the shops engine houses? Usually ratted at a maximum of 400 amps. When we had a locomotive with low batteries the shop electricians hooked up the welders to the battery switch bars with the battery switch in the closed position made sure the welder was set to the correct polarity and pushed the start button on the welder then the start button on the locomotive. Whether a GE or ALCO or EMD they all cranked right over and fired like they had all new batteries. Saw that a lot at Penn Central shops until Conrail took over and NEW ( GASP!!!!) parts showed up in the shops and track gangs were reconstituted and actually sent out on the mainline where they were stunned to see gondola after gondola of band new ties, spikes, everything they needed. It was a welcome sight to see after so many years of deferred maintenance. As good as the class ones are today they lack in one area of track maintenance nothing beats a man on the ground walking his section of track to keep his section in excellent condition. Most class one railroads today inspect the track from a Hirail vehicle at 20 mph every three days and a lot can happen to a roadbed in three days

With the millions in profit the railroads are enjoying today I'd like to see then plow some money back into the railroads by bringing back track inspection to every single day like it use to be. The extra money spent to do that would be returned by a safer railroad and if you prevent one derailment it just payed for itself for that extra money spent and saved a few million in the process.

Ok I admit I talk too much, I hereby end this comment before I go off at a tangent. Again!

:-)

Jim retired locomotive engineer

[charleskesner]

Congratulations love those old engines. Western Maryland had a few.

[NotSoCrazyNinja]

Is it just me or is the window getting dirtier by the minute?

[gsigs]

Still, a better story than The Last Jedi.

[capaudio]

Why do we have to hear the other engine running in the background?

[basshawk]

1:04 - 1:16
Me talking to my 7.3 powerstoke when it’s freezing out.

[brendenalexander]

Is this a Chessie? It looks like it has a Chessie paint scheme to it.

[gambeersagar]

So difficult in starting this engine what's happening

[randomclock]

"Alright, in three, two, one--" (putt)

[blackbirdgaming]

Lmao 1:12 "Come on you hate EMD bitch!"

[davebolyard]

Hi I hope its ok to ask I am 58 and want to model in Ho Scale a small layout 4x8 using a Alco S2 but can you tell me what is the differance between a Alco S2 and a Alco RS3
thanks Dave

[mitchellowen]

Couple shade tree mechanics with a jalopy

[ERIE]

Congratulations on getting that far on a first start . If you have a some one with mechanical touch remove governor and clean all interior pistons and pump openings with Methel Ethonal keytone. Fill with fresh oil. Clean, Clean!!! That should correct the Engine Hunting. Call Fred at the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic in Brecksville, Ohio It's been fifty five years since I helped my journeyman electrician rebuild on the Erie RS 3's in Youngstown, Ohio.

[blazingwindharps]

Is the locomotive from Chessie System?

[Hendo]

I've heard the governors were a big problem on these.

[BenjaminEsposti]

Nice! Did you hear what happened to the governor? I didn't know these locos had an electronic governor. I bet after those 40+ years, it's really gotten tired.