I "love" the EMD E & F Units that ultimately doomed mainline steam, but empathize with the thousands laid off. Revolution & evolution of technology on such a vast scale usually has human costs as well as corporate benefits, which many articles on these beauties only hint at around the edges.
Was it better that a percentage of Railroad personnel lost their jobs and the remainder were able to keep theirs because of the improved efficiency or would it have been better that virtually all Railroad personnel lose their jobs because the carriers were unable to compete with semi trucks on the interstates?
The same can be said of almost any smokestack industry. Steel mill employment began to shrink even before the virtual collapse of the industry in the 1970's and 1980's. Many manual labor jobs were mechanized and production techniques changed.
DS-4-4-1000, tnis comment about your statetement 'bout "18 wheelers on the Interstate" is not personal.
Could it be said that the differences that when realised, when happening already implemented had made diesel much more economical than steam locomotives....maintenance, fuel and water conumption....MU rather than double-headed and a bunch of individually crewed helpers, pushers....
These savings were there and recognized by management in the '40's and early '50's. Pointing at Ike's election and gestation of the Interstate Defense Highway system......after 1952....true?
Cause, effect?
ndbprrIf the thousands killed or maimed who lost their job of going between cars with link and pin couplers or the engineers and firemen killed or maimed from inhaling cosl dust, having a side rod come through the cab, have a boiler blow up or crushed or scalded to death in an accident would disagree. Or is that acceptable consequences of operating with steam?
efftenxrfeThese savings were there and recognized by management in the '40's and early '50's. Pointing at Ike's election and gestation of the Interstate Defense Highway system......after 1952....true?
Nowhere did I say that railroad management adopted diesel technology because of the Defense Highway system. Rather had they not adopted diesels in the 40's and 50's, then when the highways did come along it would have been nearly certain that railroads would have abandoned far more trackage than they did. And a total shutdown would not have been out of the question.
I was trying to make the point that if an industry doesn't improve its efficiency than something else will come along that will be more efficient. It likely will come anyway and if the original industry has not improved it will be supplanted.
To paraphrase the original statement and to take the arguement a little further
1. Diesels are bad because they put so many railroaders out of work
2. So then railroads must be bad because they put so many canal boat operators out of work.
3. But then canals must be bad because they put so many teamsters out of work.
4. And wagons must be bad .................
So, is the inital poster proposing that we are all to live on subsistance farms and only produce what we can consume ourselves, because to do otherwise might put someone out of a job? Or is continual improvement of efficiency a better course, even though it will require people to learn new skills?
This discussion reminds me of a man's objecting to the use of steam shovels because so many men with shovels are put out of work--and another man responded by saying that even bertter than men who are using shovels would be men who are using teaspoons.
Johnny
ndbprr...the engineers and firemen killed or maimed from inhaling cosl dust, having a side rod come through the cab...
While this really doesn't go to the issue raised in the original post, I have often wondered about these two items.
Was Black Lung disease really a problem for locomotive engineers and firemen? I once thought this was a possibility, but now I'm skeptical. Illness and death from exposure to coal dust from working in a closed environment such as a coal mine, a crushing plant, or in a closed area of a coal-fired ship or power plant seems a real possibility, but I don't see this happening to personnel in a locomotive cab. I never heard that this was a problem, and would appreciate some direction to information indicating it was.
I have also heard the engineers and head-end breakmen riding in the cabs of camelback locomotives feared being killed if a rod came loose, but I've never heard of this ever actually happening. Again, if anyone knows where there might be information on incidents of this kind, please let me know.
OTOH, locomotive shops offered many opportunities for death and maiming of employees. And that's leaving aside things like the asbestos blocks used for boiler insulation, or the fumes from various industrial processes.
I once saw a picture of a paintshop crew, I think at the Alton's Bloomington Shops. The only protective gear these men had were rags tied around their faces, and no eye protection. (Picture was probably from the 1920s.)
Dan
So the old job goes away...
Old dogs can learn new tricks - and displaced workers can learn new skills. This has been going on ever since our ancestors shifted from pure hunter-gatherer to primitive agriculture, and will still be going on when some business goes under because a competitor developed (will develop) a better FTL starship drive.
The one basic about human progress, almost universally overlooked, is that the status quo - isn't.
Chuck (Occasional Science Fiction author)
Modern steam railroading eliminated most of the safety problems posted. The Norfolk and Western ran a safe and efficient railroad through its last steam days. But economics triumphed and dieselization made the railroad more profitable.
I don't know that 1940's steam engines were any less safe than 1940's diesels.You kinda have to compare apples to apples. It's true c.1900 it was normal for one or two railroaders to die every day, but that was as likely to be a brakeman falling off a car, a yard worker crushed between cars etc. as it was deaths from a boiler explosion or other steam engine related problem. For engine crews 100+ years ago, the big safety problem was fatigue. It wasn't uncommon in say the fall grain rush for an engineer to work 3-4 days without a break, sometimes leading to them passing out in the cab of a running train.
I haven't heard much if anything about railroaders getting black lung, but that disease wasn't really identified until after dieselization. I've read engineers talking about how many first generation diesels leaked diesel fumes into the cab so bad it stripped the paint off the interior cab walls - so I'm not sure if early diesels mightn't have been worse than steam.
daveklepper Modern steam railroading eliminated most of the safety problems posted. The Norfolk and Western ran a safe and efficient railroad through its last steam days. But economics triumphed and dieselization made the railroad more profitable.
N&W 611 survives today because of a wreck in 1956 that killed the engineer. Excessive speed on a 15mph curve flipped the bullet nose on her side.
And then there's the one Y5 non-survivor which went airborne at the head end of a runaway. Unlike 611, 2092 lost boiler integrity (i.e. - blew up.)
The safety problems associated with primitive design went away. The safety problems inherent in a hazardous industry didn't - but better training and greater worker qualification reduced the frequency and disaster content of mishaps.
Chuck
An additional note: when the N&W stopped using the J's, the 611 was in the best shape of all fourteen engines since it had been repaired after the 1956 wreck; thus it was the best candidate for preservation.
This is an interesting line of inquiry...I wonder though, if the timing of Dieselization may have eased somewhat the burden of those displaced? The late 1940's to Mid 1950's were a time of high employment levels in the U.S, were they not? Presumably,many furloughed railroaders could have found employment in "smokestack industries" as well as the construction industry which were booming in the postwar period. I wonder how many ex-railroaders worked on construction projects for the railroad industries biggest competitor; the Interstate superhighway system..?
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
I would imagine that during the Depression, the less experienced shop personnel were let go, and few trainees were hired, so that when dieselization came in the 1950s, most of the personnel in the steam shops were ready to retire anyway.
When I worked for the U.P. as a mail and baggage handler in the 1960s, lots of my co-workers were former shop folks who had wisely changed rosters rather than wait around for the recall that might never come. (Their rights at the shops were still good, of course.) Many of them were in their 40s and 50s -- no rookies, these -- and I did respect their resiliency.
Next to go, of course, were the mail and baggage jobs, and these people ended up pushing brooms or driving a paddy wagon until retirement or a buyout c. 1986.
From the perspective of years, some of these jobs seem -- well, quaint. A summer job I had as a college student in 1963 involved typing freight waybills of about 10 carbon copies on a carriage the size of a threshing-machine header. Glad the jobs were around for those who needed them at the time; but, in a dynamic economy, it's little wonder they're gone.
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