#2812
ALCO FA
🇺🇸 United States ·built by American Locomotive Company· from 1946· American locomotive made by ALCO
3 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. MetroRail 600: Tim Darnell· CC BY-SA 3.0
- 2. ALCo FA-1 RFFSA: Marcelo Nicolini· CC BY-SA 3.0
- 3. Alco FA-2 locomotive 1950: ALCO-GE· Public domain
what is it?
The ALCO FA is a family of B-B diesel locomotives designed to haul freight trains. The locomotives were built by a partnership of ALCO and General Electric in Schenectady, New York, between January 1946 and May 1959. Designed by General Electric's Ray Patten (along with their ALCO PA cousins), they were of a cab unit design; both cab-equipped lead (A unit) FA and cabless booster (B unit) FB models were built.
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 80 years ago, in 1946.
- Top speed is 1.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- 1.3 MW is about 16 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 18 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 15.5 m long: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
multiple unit: A self-propelled train: motors are spread under the passenger cars, so no separate locomotive.
spec sheet
- built
- 1946–1959
- status
- preserved
- number built
- 1,401
- kind
- Diesel–electric
- traction
- diesel
- origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- builders
- American Locomotive Company, General Electric, Montreal Locomotive Works
- top speed
- 148 km/h
- power
- 1.3 MW
- gauge
- 1,435 mm standard gauge
- wheel arrangement
- Bo′Bo′
- length
- 15.5 m
- weight
- 110 t
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q4652285, Wikipedia: ALCO FA (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.