The Alco C424

The Alco C424 was the manufacturer's second B-B, four-axle road switcher in the series debuting in 1963 along with its sister model, the C420. While sales were modest for the C424, it proved to be the American Locomotive Company's (Alco) best selling Century design offering comparable horsepower, was reliable, and could out pull anything in its class (a hallmark the builder was now quite well known for). While the less powerful C420 design featured an exterior carbody more similar to late Road Switcher (RS) series the C424 employed a setup that was first used on the RS27 and which Centuries in general are now classically remembered. Today, the ruggedness and reliability of these locomotives continues to show through as numerous examples of the C424 not only remained preserved but also are still used in freight service across the country.

Fortunately the C424 sold better than its predecessor as a number of Class I railroads around the country picked up the model such as the Pennsylvania, Reading, Wabash, Erie Lackawanna, Belt Railway of Chicago, and Spokane, Portland & Seattle. Additionally, smaller lines also purchased the design including Alco loyalists Green Bay & Western and Erie Mining while the Toledo, Peoria & Western also picked up a few units. Unfortunately, while Alco sold nearly 200 C424s, 99 were built by the Montreal Locomotive Works for the Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, and Mexican line National de Mexico purchased another 45.

While the C424 did not offer as much starting tractive effort as its RS27 predecessor (just 54,100 pounds), it did offer more continuous effort (47,000 pounds). In general, most of the roads that bought the Alco C424 were returning customers, as the company could simply no longer attract new buyers and interest (which was mostly due to the fact that Alco still had a reputation for reliability issues despite having mostly corrected this problem years before). Production ended on the model in early 1967 and despite the slow sales numbers (in comparison to models being produced by EMD who was selling thousands of GP35s and GP38s) the lines that purchased the C424 were generally quite happy with the models.

Interestingly, it should be noted that during the 1960s General Electric was not selling considerably more locomotives than Alco. Practically from the start of the diesel locomotive era in the late 1930s through the early 1980s the Electro-Motive Division was a juggernaut company producing a seemingly endless array of reliable and proficient diesel models during this time, which left little room for the competition. GE, particularly, because it did not have a long-standing name in the business, like Alco, in some ways found selling locomotives even harder as its early Universal models achieved part of their sales due to the fact that EMD was so backlogged it could not keep up with demand (and so, railroads went elsewhere to fill their power needs).

Please Click Here To Return To The Main Diesel Locomotives Section

Century Series

Also consider Mike Schafer's Vintage Diesel Locomotives which looks at virtually all of the classic builders and models from Alco PAs to early EMD Geeps. If you’re interested in classic Alcos, or diesel locomotives in general, this book gives an excellent general history of both. If you're interested in perhaps purchasing either (or both) of these books please visit the links below which will take you to ordering information through Amazon.com, the trusted online shopping network.

Share Your Thoughts