Silver Medal of Horsepower - ALCO DL-202 & DL-203 "Black Maria"
The Silver Medal of Horsepower goes to ALCO's "Black Maria" diesel locomotive set, consisting of two DL-203-1 (or DL-202) A units and one cabless DL-203-2 (or DL-203) B unit. It was numbered 1500A to 1500C (A and C for the A units and B for the booster unit).
Back in 1939, the Electro-Motive Corporation debuted the four-unit FT A-B-B-A set number 103, which was rated at 5,400 hp. Although ALCO built only three locomotives as the Black Maria instead of four, the 12-cylinder 241 diesel engine was designed to produce 1,500 hp for each unit. This was interestingly more powerful than Electro-Motive's 16-cylinder 567 prime mover (rated at 1,350 hp), four of which were used for the FT demonstrator. No. 1500 was initially built as a group of diesels to be operated together, but they could be separated to run as individual locomotives.
What if ALCO added a second B locomotive to the A-B-A Black Maria? Then the set could have produced a total of 6,000 hp! Also, number 1500C would have been assigned to the second booster unit while the trailing A unit would have been numbered 1500D. In fact, General Electric built its own A-B-B-A set in 1954 to produce the same power output that the Black Maria could have done. It's a pity that not many photos were shot, but these unique locomotives will always be cherished by ALCO fans.
ALCO Black Maria photo property of American-Rails.com
