ALCO Century 415
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The ALCO Century 415 was a diesel locomotive of B-B wheel arrangement produced by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) as part of their Century Series of locomotives.
It was a large switcher or small road switcher equipped with a raised cab mounted slightly off-center, with a lower, narrower hood on either side. The longer one contained the diesel engine, a 1500 hp (1.1 MW) Alco 251-F, while the shorter contained auxiliaries. The C415 could be ordered with three different cab heights; a low one for minimum clearances, a regular height one, and an extra-height one for maximum visibility.
Trucks fitted were either AAR Type B or ALCO Hi-Ad (high adhesion).
The locomotive was not that popular; 26 were built between 1966 and 1968 for seven different owners.
- Hamersley Iron in Australia bought the prototype, formerly lettered as ALCO 415. (Medium height cab, Type B trucks)
- Chehalis Western bought a single high cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks.
- Columbia & Cowlitz bought a single high cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks. (this and Chehalis Western are both Weyerhauser Paper properties)
- Monongahela Connecting bought a single low cab unit with Hi-Ad trucks.
- Rock Island Railroad bought ten medium cab units with AAR Type B trucks.
- Southern Pacific Railroad bought ten high cab units with AAR Type B trucks. One of these subsequently passed to Nekoosa Papers.
- Spokane, Portland & Seattle bought two medium cab units with Hi-Ad trucks; these passed to the Burlington Northern Railroad after the merger.