Steam & Excursion > Alco 2-8-0s to China in 1946

According to Bob Lehmuth's Alco-Steam builder list, there were 35 of these 2-8-0s built in November 1946 and shipped to China, numbered as UNRRA 1001-1035.

What's the story for these locomotives?

Photo from Railroad magazine, October 1948.

Don Strack

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This is a rough explanation ..... Others can flesh it out....

Near the end of WW2, the Army wanted standad loco designs for use in rebuilding the destroyed railroads .
there were several designs that were chosen: 0-6-0, 2-8-0, & 2-8-2 designs.

The complete plans were provided to all there major builders, and to appliances manufacturers ( smaller stoker's, smaller feedwater heaters, etc..).  Many hundreds of these clones were manufacred, well into the early fifties.
These locos were the last locos manufactured by all three of the loco builders: Alco, Baldwin,and Lima.
One feature that was intended was that all spare parts ( common to each design) were all completely interchangeable , regardless of original manufacturer....

As a newbie, volunteering on George Hart's operation over the Ma&Pa, in York, Pa. 1965 & 1966.
There was an older railfan hanging around the live engines.  He was narrating into the tape recorder the sounds made by the panting beasts.  He was very knowledgeable about steam engines and I was curious about what he was describing.

Later,  Hart told me the gentleman's name was Col. Hill.  Hart told me that Col. Hill was extremely proud because he was the key man in designing, developing and supervising each of the manufacturing steps of the Army 2-8-0 design.  
Hill claimed that his design was the most successful and most widely produced of the Army's common designs, and, he claimed, his was the best of the designs.

Hill was a fascinating character. Now, looking back, i wish that I had intrrviwed Col. Hill ,on tape, and captured his insights...
 Too late...

There are still several Army 2-8-0s around.  And several,operating on tourist lines.
One, Army 611, is still preserved --- it's fitted with Franklin Rotary Cam poppet valves.
It had been an Army training loco for a while at Ft Eustis, well into the Viet Nam war years.
When I hit The Big One, I'm gonna buy that engine and make the poppet's REALLY POP!

its ironic that the 611 was tried-out, after it was built,  on the 'famous' Ma&Pa, right there in York....
One of the  M&P's regular engineers for Hart's trips was Dave Dunlap ( "Granny"),
He described the reverser as being a simple lever: Forward, Neutral, Reverse, very easy to run...
He had run the 611 in the 1950s while it was on the M&P  during performance testing.  A complete circle...
My life's been lucky, like that.....

W.
 

Don, Thanks fgor posting! Rarely do we see what would become China's KD-6 and KD-7 classes when they were brand new.
For some contemporary views see this post. http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,2900132,2901043#msg-2901043

Cheers,
Jack

 Col. Hill had an interesting career.  If you can find it, there is a Trains article about him from many years ago.   His papers are supposed to be somewhere in the files of the RR museum of PA, but not at Strasburg.
He also wrote an autobiography entitled "Riding the Limited's Locomotives) which can still be found for sale at used book sites on the internet. He worked for the Santa Fe before being called back in the Army in early 1941.   Besides designing the army 0-6-0T (a most succsessful design) he also designed the 2-8-2 that went to places like Iran.  He did not have any input into the standard army 0-6-0 tender engine nor the  S-160 2-8-0 of which so many were built, and several (Alaska 557 and GMSR 1702 for examples) survive and will be in steam maybe this year or next.  The engines at Ft. Eustis were all of this design except for the 611 which was a post war design and the 620 which was an even earlier design (so far as I have been able to read, and I certainly would appreciate any corrections).  

Col. Hill started as a Captain and ended his career as a Colonel serving in the Korean conflict. His first job after joining the army in 1941 was to prepare a comprehensive plan for the army to virtually take over all of the railroads in western Louisiana including parts of the MP, AT&SF, T&P, CRI&P and the short line Red River and Gulf, in connection with all of the army posts that were under construction for the war in Louisiana and use these railroads to train railroaders, and to take control of operations etc in the whole area.   He came up with a grandiose plan that was far more than needed and would have basically put the army in total control of all of the railroads in the area.  The key in the plan was the short line Red River and Gulf railroad, and he pushed through a special congressional appropriation to purchase the railroad before he had a formal committment from them to sell.    The railroad was owned by a family and while all of this was going on, they got several navy contracts for lumber including a number from Higgins Industries of New Orleans for their landing craft.  They actually became the largest supplier of the lumber in these boats, of which more than 15,000 were built.  Thus, should they sell the railroad, although they retained operating rights, the sale would put the army in control of navy contracts and quite frankly, Capt. Hill made it very clear to the family that he would run the show, and do what ever he wanted with the railroad and that the navy contracts were not even on his priority list.    Thus, in a rather heated meeting, Capt. Hill was shown the door and the entire scheme died right there.   The family did, however, suggest an alternative, using parts of a recently abandoned logging railroad to connect Camp Claiborne and Camp Polk, and that was the beginning of the Claiborne and Polk Military RR.  

There are a number of articles about him on the internet if you search for Colonel Howard G. Hill as well.