Somewhat more than a year after the company's founding, its first locomotive, "Lightning", was out shopped for delivery to the Utica and Schenectady Railroad. The "Lightning", though powerful and fast, had insufficient steaming capacity and was too heavy for the rails of the time. It was pronounced a failure. With no more orders forthcoming, the Norrises withdrew from the venture, and the enterprise was sold for taxes in February, 1851.

However, the company's principals felt that the manufacture of locomotives in the early and important railroad center bounded by the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers could flourish, and in May, 1851, the Schenectady Locomotive Works was formed. The same management (exclusive of the Norris brothers) headed the new company. Fortunately, Walter McQueen, the famous mechanic, was interested in the new firm, and significant production soon began. More than two hundred locomotives were manufactured over the next six years. During the financial panic of 1857, John Ellis, then one of the trustees , took advantage of the company's temporary reverses to gain a solid majority of its stock.

During the Civil War, Schenectady supplied at least eighty-four locomotives for the U.S. Military Railroad, many of which had been built as far-seeing speculative venture shortly before the conflict started. Between the War and 1870 fire and flood ravaged the facility, resulting in much reconstruction and modernization. During this period Schenectady produced the famous 4-4-0, "Jupiter", which figured in the Promontory Point celebration of the first transcontinental railroad. Most of the Schenectady locomotives were, like the "Jupiter", of a conventional design marketed to satisfy growing domestic needs.

As railroads multiplied throughout the seventies and eighties, so did the Schenectady Works expand yearly in both manpower and manufacturing capacity. The Ellis family retained control through the end of the century and, except for a brief defection, Walter McQueen oversaw mechanical considerations. Indeed, "McQueen engines" were widely known for their substantial excellence. Another notable locomotive designer, A.J. Pitkin, joined the firm during this period. He was to earn particular fame as the creator of the high speed 4-4-0's of the NYC&HR RR. Also he was later destined to head the firm of consolidated companies that became American Locomotive.

On June 24, 1901, Schenectady's "Big Shop" was merged with seven other locomotive manufactures in other cities, forming the American Locomotive Company. Its composition, in addition to Schenectady, included the Brooks Locomotive works in Dunkirk, NY, Cooke Locomotive & Machine Co. in Paterson NJ, Dickson Mfg. Co. in Scranton, PA., and the Manchester, Pitsburgh, Rhode Island and Richmond Locomotive Works. In 1905 the Rogers Locomotive Works, also in Paterson, was acquired. Through Rogers the new consolidation could trace its locomotive building activities back to 1837. However, it was customary to regard the Schenectady Works as the senior component due to its role as headquarters. At this time American Locomotive first looked into the possibilities of product diversification, and for a short time manufactured a line of trucks and automobiles in Rhode Island.

The "satellite" plants, many of which had produces distinctive steam locomotives for decades, were gradually phased out as whole locomotive erectors. Cooke and Dickson, for instance had been relegated largely to producing light locomotives, while Richmond catered generally to Southern markets. In 1905 the Montreal Works was acquired. It continues to produce locomotives primarily for Canadian Markets, now as a part of Bombardier, but the last domestic subsidiary, Brooks, ceased finished locomotive production in 1931.

During the first decades of this century, the American Locomotive Co. contributed significantly to the rapidly developing state of the steam locomotive builder's art. 1904 saw Alco produce the first (true) Mallet in America, Baltimore & Ohio's 0-6-6-06 #2400. 1927 witnessed the first Hudsons produced for the NY Central, and the first streamlined engine, the "Hiawatha", was turned out in 1935.

By the 1920's, Alco had a long history of cooperation with the General Electric Co. in producing many types of electric locomotives. In 1924 the company's first little 300-horsepower diesel-electric locomotive scored its almost undetected triumph on the Central of New Jersey. In 1929 this was followed by the first diesel-electric passenger locomotive, the NY Central's #1550, which was also the first successful road locomotive using this type of propulsion. In 1929 McIntosh & Seymour's Diesel engine plant at Auburn, NY, was purchased, with over 25 percent of its production in the thirties devoted to internal combustion locomotives. Clearly, American Locomotive had established itself as one of the two or three recognized world leaders in the railroad power field during its decades of greatest prosperity.

During World War II, Alco not only produced such aesthetically and mechanically impressive machines as the 4-8-8-4 Union Pacific "Big Boy" and the several styles of 4-8-4 dual-service steam locomotives, but it also turned out great quantities of tanks, tank destroyers, marine boilers, and minesweeper propulsion engines as well as its burgeoning line of diesel switchers. The war Production Board forbade American Locomotive to produce potentially lucrative road locomotives during the conflict, in competition with rival EMD at LaGrange. This may have inhibited its post-war sales. One set, however, the elusive "Black Maria", was outshopped as the war diminished. The Second World War, though a mixed blessing from a manufacturing standpoint, did at least give Alco a taste for diverse product lines which it never entirely lost.

Returning to civilian business, Alco's 1946 production showed a 75% involvement with diesels. Its traditional partner, General Electric, was also represented in the electrical gear of every locomotive. Though the dual-service 4-8-4 steam locomotive had shown great promise, 1948 saw the last steam locomotives erected in Schenectady. These were the 9400-series P&LE "Berkshires". Sad as that event was for many, Alco had much to look forward to, as by then it possessed 40 percent of the diesel locomotive market. PA and FA road units, as well as the ubiquitous S class 660 and 1000 horse power switchers and RS-1, 2 and 3 road switchers, represented Alco very well in those years of motive power transition.

The complete conversion to diesels, however, did not mean that Alco was to maintain his production standing. Despite its many durable and well received designs, Alco gradually succumbed to its competition, among which its former ally, GE, was becoming an important element. In an attempt to survive in the fifties and the sixties, Alco expanded to include many fields of civilian and heavy military manufacturing, including large steel pipe, pressure vessels, missile parts and nuclear power generation equipment. But this, together with a new line of superpower locomotives, the "Century" C628, C430 and C636, failed to keep the enterprise going.

In 1955 the firm changed its name officially to Alco Products Inc., and in 1965 most of its assets were purchased by the Worthington Corp., later Studebaker-Worthington. By 1969 the Schenectady plant was closed and subsequently leased to the General Electric Co. for turbine generator-production. However, the Alco name still lives. Its former plant in Auburn still manufactures diesel power plants and parts to support Alco locomotives still in service, and while now a subsidiary of a British concern, is still known as Alco Power.

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