Hi folks!
Was just wondering what the inpact was on the steamlocomotive development during the depression, or any other locomotive for that matter, diesel or electric, any ideas?
What if the depression had never happend, would it have led to more modern steamlocomotives that had been in use after 1960, or a more rapid demise of them by dieselelectric and electric powered locomotives?
What did Alco, Baldwin and Lima have in the pipeline when the depression hit?
Also, would we have seen more passenger Limiteds run?
Have a nice day and enjoy your weekend folks!
Jan
The 1930s were a great time for locomotive development. Government money helped.
Your picture of the Hiawatha with it's Atlantic and Hudson Class designs said it all. Then we had the NYC J3 Super Hudsons, the Southern Pacific GS Class, Baldwin's New Haven I-5 Hudsons, the Union Pacific Challenger, and many "Super Power" freight locomotives.
On the other hand, the PRR GG-1 with the New York to Washington electrification (a make work project), the EMD FT Freight Diesel, the Union Pacific M10,000 by Pullman, the Burlington Zephyr and B&M Flying Yankee by BUDD, the New Haven Comet by Goodyear all started the Diesel age.
Steam can do anything a Diesel can but at a much higher cost. Steam locomotives come in two types, Small Drivered for heavy slow Freight Trains and High Drivered for shorter fast Passenger Trains. When The New Haven stared to take delivery of sixty ALCO DL109s in 1941 they ran them on Passenger Service during the day and Freight Service at night, just keep the fuel tanks full. They then could "retired" two Steam locomotives for each new deisel(1 passenger - 1 freight).
Don U. TCA 73-5735
I don't know how much 'government money' had to do with it, but there was a lot of private development in the 30's. In 1930 passenger trains were dark green heavyweight cars pulled by black steam engines, by 1940 lightweight stainless steel cars were being pulled by brightly painted E units. 1930 freight cars like 8' high wood boxcars with archbar trucks and trussrods were replaced by 10' high all steel cars, riding on Andrews or Bettendorf trucks. The FT in late 1939 showed the potential for freight hauling diesels, and railroads like Santa Fe and Great Northern bought them as quickly as they could.
I'm sure railroads would have spent more if they had had better revenues...but then again, labor was cheap so track repair, engine and car maintenance, etc. was very good on most railroads.
Once diesels came along, most advancement in steam technology ended. In fact WW2 slowed down the trend of dieselization. Diesels were essentially rationed during the war, and many roads that wanted A-B-B-A sets of FT's got steam engines of similar horsepower instead. Otherwise, steam might have disappeared even sooner than it did.
wjstix wrote: I don't know how much 'government money' had to do with it, but there was a lot of private development in the 30's. In 1930 passenger trains were dark green heavyweight cars pulled by black steam engines, by 1940 lightweight stainless steel cars were being pulled by brightly painted E units. 1930 freight cars like 8' high wood boxcars with archbar trucks and trussrods were replaced by 10' high all steel cars, riding on Andrews or Bettendorf trucks. The FT in late 1939 showed the potential for freight hauling diesels, and railroads like Santa Fe and Great Northern bought them as quickly as they could. I'm sure railroads would have spent more if they had had better revenues...but then again, labor was cheap so track repair, engine and car maintenance, etc. was very good on most railroads. Once diesels came along, most advancement in steam technology ended. In fact WW2 slowed down the trend of dieselization. Diesels were essentially rationed during the war, and many roads that wanted A-B-B-A sets of FT's got steam engines of similar horsepower instead. Otherwise, steam might have disappeared even sooner than it did.
I agree with most of this, particularly the last line of the last paragraph. If anything, the depression hampered diesel development far more than it did steam, keeping the latter around for a long time. Had there been more cash floating around, railroads would have been more likely to experiment with new diesel technology. Likewise, locomotive builders would have been more eager to retool their production in favor of diesels had the depression not hit.
Not sure I buy the rationale that advancement in steam technology practically ceased with the advent of diesels. Steam tech kept advancing well into the 40's, the problem was that many of the designs were radical and not overly successful (ex. duplex drive and many of the various engine classes equipped with high-maintenance poppett valve gears). THe final quantum leap in steam tech came in 1948 with ALCO building five C&O K-4's with all-welded boilers. These were successful in road service, and would have set a new standard in locomotive building if steam production hadn't ceased within the next year.
Although Capital Expenditure budgets may be limited, changing or difficult economic conditions makes it easier to cost justify things that really produce savings. How many GEVO's would be selling today if oil were still $20/barrel? During the 30's, loco size increased dramatically in order to pull longer trains and eliminate double heading and associated labor costs. Simple articulateds and other "Big" engines became common and an easy sell for the builders. The FT diesels were just a continuation of that trend.
We tend to glorify the early streamliners, but they were very spartan, generally all coach, and ran on short distance runs. They did atrract riders early on, but with a few exceptions, didn't save the short-haul passenger business. They did point the way to lightweight, streamlined replacements for the long-haul trains, and on steam roads the streamlined steam engines like the NYC Hudsons, SP GS2's, and Milw Hi's.
Very few locomotives were built from the onset of the Depression until about 1936 or '37. When new orders stopped coming in and existing orders were cancelled the locomotive builders laid off hordes of workers including engineers and designers whose work had been funded by the profits from orders for new locomotives. This brought the development of new railway technology, particularly steam technology, to a virtual standstill. It did not resume until the later 1930's by which time diesel-electrics had appeared on the horizon. The brief flurry of resumed develoment activity led to many innovations that significantly improved the performance of steam locomotives but steam technology development again ground to a halt with the onset of WW2 when resources were diverted to military applications. By the time the war ended the advantages of diesels over steam engines had become obvious to all but a few holdouts who designed and built a few radically new but unsuccessful steam locomotives such as the turbines before succumbing to the tidal wave of dieselization.
Mark
Had the depression not come when it had we likely would have had many more diesels manufactured by Westinghouse and by Ingersol Rand - GE. At the depths of the depression Westinghouse gave up development, even though they had developed some very promising engines for locomotives. Another supposition is that Brill wouldn't have given up at just producing one diesel locomotive had a market existed. Any one of these three builders, or all of them, could easily have continued development of the diesel locomotives that they began in the 1920s. But during the depression there was one year where there were no locomotive deliveries of any type, and that was followed by a year when ONE steam locomotive was delivered to a federal government agency and nothing else was delivered. It is nearly impossible to stay in business under those conditions, much less spend the money necessary to develop a new technology.
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Diesel engine (not locomotive) development might well have accelerated as a result of WW2. The Navy's use of diesel engines in submarines, destroyer escorts, LST's, etc. went a long way in providing practical experience and feedback for design development.
Certainly worked for FM.
The Navy's use of virtually unmodified diesel locomotive engine/generator sets to power 563 electric drive destroyer escorts (at 2 engines/ship) undoubtedly delayed the production of 1126 diesel units! Add a couple of hundred subs and Lord knows how many non-combatant vessels and it's easy to see that WWII extended the steam era by several years.
OTOH, without WWII traffic, there wouldn't have been much incentive to buy new locomotives of any kind.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I seem to remember someone writing (maybe in Classic Trains?) that a lot of former Navy men were hired in diesel locomotive shop jobs after the war, because they had experience with diesel engines on ships and subs(??)
Diesel engines were the norm in the submarines of all navies prior to the development of nuclear propulsion and are still the norm for non-nuclear subs. Prior to nuclear power, submarines spent most of their time on the surface except in battle situations.
The submarine service is one place where diesels were replaced by steam power.
My opinion, locomotives from the 1930s-1940s were the best.
My favorite locomotive is the Lima built GS Class 4-8-4s.
Take a Ride on the Scenic Line!
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:This pretty much goes along with Robert LeMassena's opinion in his article "The Big Engines" in a 1968 or 1969 issue of TRAINS. He came to the conclusion that North American steam locomotive development reached its apex in 1937.
Just goes to show that the experts aren't always correct--just look at what was built after 1937, and the various mechanical improvements made in each subsequent year, minus the war years. Sorry, but I ain't buyin' it.
timz wrote:Probably most people reading this haven't seen Le Massena's 1968 article, which hopefully didn't show him at his best. (The article ranked engines based on their "potential power", where that "power" was directly proportional to grate area and boiler pressure and nothing else.) Those who haven't seen it shouldn't imagine he gave good reasons for picking 1937 as the pinnacle of US steam.
Le Massena opined that the apex of steam locomotive design was 1937. Outstanding locomotives continued to be built, they were just based on older designs.
Anybody who read the chart that accompanied the article would understand why he stressed grate area and boiler pressure. He did consider such things as wheel diameter, devices such as poppet valves, etc., but he viewed those as means of converting potential power into drawbar horsepower. He also noted that even before WW2, potential power was decreasing, locomotive weights increasing, and no incremental advances in design occurred. There were outstanding individual designs, but overall steam locomotive design was in decline. Consider that Baldwin's last domestic steam locomotives were compound 2-6-6-2's based on a USRA design, and Lima's last steam, NKP Berkshires 770-779, were well-designed locomotives but not a real advance over the initial Alco-built Class S Berkshires of the 1930's.
Lost World wrote: CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Diesel engine (not locomotive) development might well have accelerated as a result of WW2. The Navy's use of diesel engines in submarines, destroyer escorts, LST's, etc. went a long way in providing practical experience and feedback for design development.Certainly worked for FM.
Probably not true. The War Production Board froze the designs of everything deemed an any small way necessary for the war effort. The FM OP was already designed and in production prior to the war and its design was unchanged throughout the conflict. Manufacturers were permitted to create new designs, with special permission and at great cost they were even allowed to build some of them as test beds, but they were not allowed to implement even the smallest change in anything produced.
If you are out on a sub, or LST or ... in the middle of the Pacific,and maybe under fire, would you want to open up your spare part only to find out that it will only fit your engines if it was manufactured after July 1943 and the engine you are working on was made in November 1942? No!! The War Production Board froze all designs to prevent any such problem from happening. Everything from Diesel Engines to radios to fender designs on trucks. No changes were permitted.
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Anybody who read the chart that accompanied the [Le Massena] article [in June 1968 Trains] would understand why he stressed grate area and boiler pressure.
True, he did explain himself--
"Why select boiler pressure and grate area as measures of potential power? The reason is not difficult to comprehend. Going back to the high-school physics class, recall that power is defined as how much energy is released or developed in a specified time. For steam, this energy is expressed as volume multiplied by pressure. Hence, steam "power" is boiler pressure multiplied by the quantity. Now, since the quantity of steam is closely related to how much fuel is burned per square foot of grate area..."
This is nonsense, of course, but that's how that D&H 2-8-0 ended up ranked as the #3 most potentially powerful locomotive in US history.
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote:Le Massena opined that the apex of steam locomotive design was 1937. Outstanding locomotives continued to be built, they were just based on older designs.
He said "Despite the production of some outstanding motive power in 1938, signs of design deterioration were evident, and this trend was to continue until the last steam plans came out of the drafting rooms." Yes, it's certainly too bad he wasn't around to show them how to do it.
I might expect some feedback from the following opinions:
First development keeping the conventinal steam locomotive basic concept:
Improved metalurgy making for higher possible boiler pressure without undo maintenance.
Further reduction in weight of side and main rods and valve gear.
Smaller drivers capable of rotating faster for higher top speed with greater pulling power possible with the lightweight rods and improved counterbalancing. N&W J showed the direction, it could have been carried further.
The improved smokebox technology now being applied to Grand Canyon's locomotives with improved economy through less steam backpressure in the cylinders along with better draft for the fire.
Enclosed cabs for greater crew comfort.
Now for new technology
Better meterlurgy solving the ash and other problems of steam turbins. Steam turbin locomotives using high boiler pressure, at least two or three or four turbines, each with its own generator, on the new diesel genset concept, so the turbin hp is matched to the load required without the inefficiencies of using a turbin off its optimum load. One locomotive might have turbins rated at 250HP, 750HP and 2000 HP, giving throttle positions for 250HP, 750HP, 1000HP, 1250HP, 1750HP, 2000HP, 2250HP. 2750HP, and 3000HP, as an example. Electrics and electronics would be similar to a modern AC diesel-electric.
The energy available from steam is a product of BOTH pressure and temperature, not pressure alone. This product is referred to as Enthalpy. Superheated steam has a higher energy (work capacity than saturated steam at the same pressure. The Enthalpy of the superheated steam is also higher than saturated steam. This reflects the greater work capacity available.
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