Fr.AlExtend the electrification to Pittsburgh.
But assuredly that would have happened if dieselization hadn't been economically perceived superior at that point. It makes little sense to electrify the whole of Enola, the Low Grade, and the Port Road and then stop just at the point the advantages of electrification begin to be compelling. And indeed that was the point when, even in wartime with its copper restriction so tight pennies were being made of steel, PRR started detail planning of how it would do the electrification (including a more-than-9000' tunnel under the Horse Shoe area that electrification would make possible).
Whether PRR would have capitalized on this as quickly as the New York-to-Washington line, with passenger service falling off as quickly as it did starting in the late '40s, is something of an open question, but I think some of the savings in helper/snapper operation alone might have justified it, especially with steam continuing as the means of taking freight from the various points like Lewisburg, the Sunbury and Wilkes-Barre connection, or lines west of where the Pittsburgh electrification effort stopped.
That service wouldn't have been worked with GG1s, however; all the 'new' power being designed for it followed the DD2 pattern, with larger drivers and 428A motors. A "GG2" (matching the middle-size power described in the 1943 plan) wouldn't have had the slippery issues the DD2 did, and the specialized helpers (double-unit eight-powered axle sets with twin motors on each powered axle!) would most certainly have made quick work of any train Enola could handle on the east end, or the most advanced steam power could handle alone on the west.
I don't think there was any future in electrification much west of that point, however; by the end of 1948 most of the bugs would have been worked out of the T1s and any remaining issues of particular importance could have been addressed shortly thereafter; there was also at least the promise of Westinghouse turbine locomotives (both 4-8-4 and "4-8-0+4-8-0") to do the job. There would surely be operational advantages in eventual electrification 'all the way to Chicago' with government pump-priming ... but the same economic revival that doomed big steam also doomed any need for large government incentive programs, and very shortly the nation discovered a far better way to subsidize great investment and growth (the 'insolent chariot' auto business on the one hand, and the Cold War response on the other). The growth of turnpikes alone indicated much of the 'end' for northeastern railroading as it had been practiced, and even if Eisenhower hadn't indulged his dream of 1919 for good roads everywhere, it's likely something like it would become a 'defense' excuse or priority at some point.
But Mr. Klepper above has the best idea. Extend the electrification to Pittsburgh. I'm only a lightweight railfan compared to experts like him. But at the time, Pennsy's GG1'S were light years ahead of their contemporary diesels.
Thanks Firelock...coal strikes definitely a factor, even the N&W did some oil conversions! Yikes.
Of course I realize my pie in the sky laments and wishing amount to less than a hill of beans, as Bogey would say.
Great post Miningman, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's the spectre lurking in the basement, unseen but still there...
Don't forget about the post-war coal miner strikes, I did a bit of research and there was at least one strike or work stoppage per year from 1945 to 1950. Wow. By comparison, there was only one oil industry strike and that was in 1945, post V-J Day. It was apparantly part of the post-war "strike fever" that year, and it looks like there hasn't been one since.
If coal's your fuel and you can't get it, you don't run.
If railroads were on the edge concerning diesels, and some were, the coal strikes pushed them over that edge. It pushed a lot of people over the edge to convert from coal to oil as a fuel.
Or they could have done the above adapting Norfolk and Westerm's stratergy AND got the power companies to help finacnially with electrification to Pittsgurgh.
So, speaking of the impossible, here is my 2nd theoretical jumping off point for Pennsy to stick with steam. 1945
A very short window but a critical one. The decision to build the T1's was already made. The decisions about the experimental's, such as the S2 was already made and those are hard facts. Fine, good starting point and keep going. It is simply a decision to stick with steam, plain and simple. The war weary locomotives needed replacing and the steam guys win out, trusted and convincing arguments to keep steam. After all, this is the PRR, we have coal, we are different than the rest, the same but different. As we define whoever is our Prime Minister up here "First among equals". Diesels are deliberatly dismissed out of hand, there will be no consideration at all. None whatsoever. A direction is undertaken and just the sheer massive numbers required ensure steam for a long time. As Overmod has stated, the lollipops won't do it anymore. There can be no turning back.Huge numbers of locomotives are retired, huge numbers are ordered. Altoona and Juniata are in full swing building mode, they lean on Baldwin hard, perhaps even for the 1st time really Lima as well, for advanced but time tested modern steam. Stick with maybe 4 standard wheel arraignments for the entire system. Interchangeable parts as much as possible, rolling repairs and maintenance procedures adopted. There is simply an outright refusal to purchase Diesels as a corporate direction, period over and out. Decision made, you run your railroad, we will run ours. Have a nice day. Also, once again a closer alliance with N&W, thus avoiding NYC altogether. Hey you guys over there at NYC, you wanna sell the CASO? Closer alliances with CPR. By the way, you guys enjoying all those failed crankshafts, electrical shorts, leaking everything, fires, and pistons hanging out like a dogs tongue?
Dollar wise I believe they actually might come out ahead, considering the tremendous waste of money blown on first generation Diesels from all the builders in the big rush to Dieselize. No Centipedes, No Sharks, No PA's, no FM, all of it a bitter costly disappointment, most of it scrapped, little used, or in dead lines in 10 years, mechanics nightmares. A lot of money for a lot of heartache.
Sure things get better for the Diesels and in a relative short period of time but not on our dime, let the others work it out, if it works out, (which of course it did), but the cost was enormous and we are not fools.
Instead they blew something like 50+ million on the T1's and cheered them on for what...3 months?, six months? before enacting corporate sabatoge on them. Then bought a bunch of horrible Diesels at tremendous expense. Thats were Pennsy lost it's mojo. They pretended to be progressive all the while watching it burn money worthy of an ash pit.
New steam would have served them well until their time ran out due to environmental laws, but who knows how long really. Then they could go to Diesels, 3rd generation starting by then, with no worries.
Instead of Norfolk Southern we would have the Pennsylvania, Norfolk and Southern RR. What us, the folks, would still call the Pennsy.
Appreciate those comments. Agree not very likely. But other things thought impossible have happened.
Anything that supports atomic power is the 3rd rail of citizen involved politics.
Atomic powered steam? Not a bad idea David, but oh brother, I can just hear the screams and howls from the ususal suspects over atomic-powered trains rolling through their neighborhoods.
Even if they were run through areas with little to no population at all there'd still be screams.
And if we think people get upset over oil trains, as the man said, "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
Good idea, but I just can't see it happening. Too bad.
But if it DID happen, I think turbo-electric would probably be the most likely application.
Could atomic power be one route to steam revival? I know the conventional wisdom is that atomic power can be used for railroads only thorugh electrification. But suppose research leads to ways of atomic generation of heat for boiling water that are safe and practical and capable of being used in small scale, even to atolmic home fireplaces. Then thermal efficiency may not be specificalliy important, and if safety arives, with weight and mass not much different than an equivalent oil-burner, then economics may suggest the return of steam for railroad power with indicidual locomotives instead of electrification where traffic is too light to suport eletrification. Reading progres in Physixs research, while this may not be likeliy, it does seem possible. Then the question is open, turbine-electric? turbine-mechanical drive like the PRR S-2, or rod engines?
Now that was a real treat. Love that double headed Garrett scene. New Zealand steam had both kinds of whistles, the traditional British/European tweet and the North American type master blaster!
This could have happened but sadly did not.
This unique type of locomotive, widely used in South Africa, was considered by the C.P.R. for use on the rugged line east from Montreal to St.John, New Brunswick. Double-headed P2 class heavy 2-8-2's were the heaviest engines used on account of bridge restrictions.
Overmod That is an interesting point about 6029; I would not have thought that a harmonic oscillation either in the cradle structure or in its interaction via the pivots with chassis mechanics would produce bending stress in the boiler sufficient to affect the tube fits. (Or is it the vibration shaking the prossered joints at the front?) The immediate 'fix' for 6029 might be to adapt IC-engine motor mount technologies (in reverse!) to isolate the boiler from short-period vibrations, etc. That at any rate is what I was proposing on the double-Prairie Garratt (albeit for somewhat different reasons). If the issue is being driven at the pivots, as I suspect it may be, some 'compliance' there may address the operational problem at least. The 'tender' is primarily the additional coal bunker that serves the small (weight-applying) bunkerage over the 'inner' engines. Transfer can be made via auger as with stokers, but the attrition this produces becomes significant if the 'result' is only transferred cold vs. run into flame; I have some methods using the equivalent of overhead conveyors to move the coal between bunkers when running solid fuel. Remember that the ash is being screw-conveyed to modular bunkering forward under the cradle, from which it can be dumped or kept contained and handled 'intermodally' so there is no inherent range limitation imposed by straight ashpan capacity; I think this is a good thing on a Garratt for a variety of reasons.
That is an interesting point about 6029; I would not have thought that a harmonic oscillation either in the cradle structure or in its interaction via the pivots with chassis mechanics would produce bending stress in the boiler sufficient to affect the tube fits. (Or is it the vibration shaking the prossered joints at the front?)
The immediate 'fix' for 6029 might be to adapt IC-engine motor mount technologies (in reverse!) to isolate the boiler from short-period vibrations, etc. That at any rate is what I was proposing on the double-Prairie Garratt (albeit for somewhat different reasons). If the issue is being driven at the pivots, as I suspect it may be, some 'compliance' there may address the operational problem at least.
The 'tender' is primarily the additional coal bunker that serves the small (weight-applying) bunkerage over the 'inner' engines. Transfer can be made via auger as with stokers, but the attrition this produces becomes significant if the 'result' is only transferred cold vs. run into flame; I have some methods using the equivalent of overhead conveyors to move the coal between bunkers when running solid fuel. Remember that the ash is being screw-conveyed to modular bunkering forward under the cradle, from which it can be dumped or kept contained and handled 'intermodally' so there is no inherent range limitation imposed by straight ashpan capacity; I think this is a good thing on a Garratt for a variety of reasons.
I posted this elsewhere, but this is what two Garratts working together look like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePpG4tVHSMQ
At about 10:00 minutes in to the above video...
Not bunkers together, sadly...
Peter
Trinity River Bottoms BoomerDid the little critter get buried, stuffed and mounted, or eaten?
Story doesn't say whether it was the AC supply to the station or the main transmitter feed that the little fellow chewed. I'm pretty sure in either case that what was left was a 'crispy critter' of the decidedly non-edible sort, and taxidermists probably don't do well with carbon.
As of Monday, squirrels remain at the top of the problem list for our local power utility. As an interesting aside from the early days of broadband Internet, there was a spate of squirrel problem activity when the original versions of DSL started being provided over 'legacy copper', quite a bit of which was up in pole lines with squirrelly insulation. Seems the squirrels were preferentially chewing the DSL conductors; something about the modulation was giving them a 'high' or 'kick' and tree rats and effective QoS were both plummeting at an alarming rate. Not sure how this was resolved as I went to HFC as quickly as possible.
Did the little critter get buried, stuffed and mounted, or eaten? RIP, we miss you!
One thing that I think can be said, is that many railroads in retrospect would have been better off relying on steam for a few years longer than they did. The railroads that rushed to buy diesels - any kind of diesel, from any builder available - after WW2 often ended up with a mish-mash of first generation diesels, some good, some clunkers, that often were traded in after only 15-20 years. Railroads that waited a few years often were better able to gauge what their needs were, and to buy accordingly. The Missabe is a good example. They bought their first diesel in 1953, and by 1960 had replaced steam primarily with EMD SD-9 (and a few SD-18) engines, many of which were still on the roster at the CN takeover decades later.
Miningman We learned today via CBC Saskatoon that it was due to a beaver cutting down an unusually large and critical pole and the power went out from Prince Albert all the way up here and throughout the North. ,,,,and we worry about terrorists when a beaver can do you in.
We learned today via CBC Saskatoon that it was due to a beaver cutting down an unusually large and critical pole and the power went out from Prince Albert all the way up here and throughout the North.
,,,,and we worry about terrorists when a beaver can do you in.
Back around 1970, when my brother-in-law was chief engineer for a big radio station in Duluth/Superior, their station was thrown off the air by a squirrel. Apparently the squirrel was trying to climb up onto a high-voltage power line and grounded itself against something metal, so it's body caused a short that disabled the transmitter. He said you could see the big scorch mark down it's back where the electricity and ripped through it.
wjstixWhat they found was the Niagaras were just as good and efficient as the E-units IF they had their shop forces put in a large amount of time (and money) doing maintenance work on the steam engines to keep everything working perfectly. Otherwise, the steam engines fell behind the E-units in durability and productivity, since the E-units could run almost continously with minimal maintenance work needed.
It's a little more complicated than that, and someone analyzing the situation is well-advised to have their copy of the 1947 Kiefer report open and ready in front of them.
You will notice that at the time data were being compiled for the Report, the cost of the added steam servicing/maintenance net of locomotive capital cost was comparable or lower to its counterpart for the E units (and you will note also that the maintenance requirements for the E7s were not trivial). The other half of this was the existence of plenty of high-speed passenger work to 'amortize' the costs of the Niagaras over. As soon as that disappeared, the case for Niagaras essentially collapsed, and on NYC that really came with the marketing emphasis on 'Dieseliners' -- that is the thing for you alternate historians to concentrate on, but I think it would only have prolonged Niagara service a couple of years at best, as the other costs and the improvements in diesels would have been continuing as they did.
The improvements in the E8 alone swung the comparison toward double-unit diesel passenger power, and of course all the advantages observed by NYC and PRR for MU EMD power applied more and more.
Here is the thing about alternative I:
PRR's electrification was largely due to the Depression, not 'abandoned' thanks to it; likewise, the relative lack of advanced steam designs can, and has, been attributed to the concentration on electrification during that period (plus the large numbers of "modern-for-the-time" locomotives ordered by the Standard Railroad (pun too often used for comment) just before the great age of enlightenment in steam design. The push post-'38 would very much be to electrify from Harrisburg over the mountains, and that was precisely the point of the '43 plan. The thing that changed so very dramatically was the introduction of practical MU power in the F and later GP series.
The "standard" PRR reciprocating freight locomotive was the J1a. Ed Weinstein could have told you why. With 70" drivers and adequate boiler it was 5/6 of an A class for considerably less money and complication, and did everything well enough for a 50mph steam speed limit. Sure, it's obviously a foreign design, and sure, PRR got a black eye for having to re-invent all the redline changes including the balancing on their own, but I don't think there's too much argument they eventually got the job done.
But there is also no question that the future of steam on PRR belonged to the turbines, either the 'improved' 4-8-4 direct drives that (would have) solved the low-speed steam outrush problems popping all those staybolts or the vastly-superior V1. Again, these had the misfortune to be approved for production just a couple of years too late; there were better alternatives by the time actual metal had to be cut. Then the design fell foul of the steam-turbine-electric all axles asynchronously driven will-o'-the-wisp, and eventually we wound up with the TE1, a mistaken answer to a question nobody really asked. And even then, if the kind folks at Westinghouse hadn't conveniently dropped the main generators and then repeatedly not known how to fix them, even that story might have had a better ending.
Let me repeat, though, that even on the roads that systematized maintenance and designed the most carefully to reduce costs and trouble wherever possible, steam still represented an outsized amount of manpower relying on hard work for cheap wages. The auxiliary-supplier excuse is really more of a red herring in this context: it was certainly significant by the mid-Fifties, but it could only get established when massive segments of the industry had shed their large and sophisticated power wholesale.
Remember that type D is a compromise, and without a certain amount of care not a very good compromise; it essentially provides some of the effects of cutoff via what would be 'wire-drawing' effects on an engine with conventional valve gear. That's fine for a military engine but not so much for penny-pinching bean-counters. And overfire jets/guns were almost always for annoying smoke and PM abatement, not better combustion; introducing cold air or steam in turbulent flow directly over a firebox being drafted by induced flow many feet away is patently not the best approach to improve efficient stoichiometry.
This leaves aside the question of small steam, for which PRR had some very interesting prototypes (they disappeared promptly when GM and the other builders came up with IC switch engines and then road-switchers, but we can certainly see how they would have developed). PRR in particular, and I think many other railroads, had a relatively long tradition of 'bumping' older paid-for power into smaller service -- it saved money in a number of ways. The idea of replacing All Those 2-8-0s with 'something advanced' at 100% on the dollar, when electrification remained a highest priority (and rightly so!) is frankly silly: it's like massive replacement of automobiles with hybrids because it would increase fleet efficiency.
Sorry for the heavy font in my posting. The power went out while I was typing so the page was there but the connection was not. I kept going on the iPad, finished the letter and copied it. When the power came back on I pasted it to my work email, because I was not connected to the Forum page, copied it again, re-entered the Forum live this time and posted it to the forum and that is how it came up.
I would like to know how such a key part of the electrical grid is so vulnerable that this can happen. Like ...What!???!!
Are you kidding me? How do those guys ( Sask Power) sleep at night?
Overmod Just as a f'rinstance ... I spent about half an hour this afternoon discussing the various features of a 2-6-2+2-6-2 modern Garratt of approximately modernized-A-class hp that one of the 'players' in modern steam renaissance wants to develop for general service 'if the niche for it develops'. (He wants to use two of these with a 'magnum' tender sandwiched between, and tank cars for required water, which are workable if a bit long.) PM for some of the fun details. Yeahhhhh, the beat goes on.
Just as a f'rinstance ... I spent about half an hour this afternoon discussing the various features of a 2-6-2+2-6-2 modern Garratt of approximately modernized-A-class hp that one of the 'players' in modern steam renaissance wants to develop for general service 'if the niche for it develops'. (He wants to use two of these with a 'magnum' tender sandwiched between, and tank cars for required water, which are workable if a bit long.)
PM for some of the fun details.
Yeahhhhh, the beat goes on.
I've been posting a bit about Garratts on the Toy Trains forum.
There is an unconfirmed story around at the moment that the preserved standard gauge Australian Garratt 6029 has had problems with its tubeplates due to it being run too fast on main lines. The theory is that the boiler cradle is not rigid enough and at speed it suffers from vertical oscillation. I recall a cab ride on a coal train in the early 1960s during which there was a constant "thumping" in the cab. At the time I thought it might be a skidded wheel on the bogie under the cab but of course those axles were not braked. The 60 was a development of the 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 supplied to Iran before WWII and the cradle was probably similar, if longer to cope with the extra axles on the engine units.
The general design of these cradles was the same right up to the last large Garratts built, except for the South African GO class. The GO was more or less similar to the GMA and GMAM but with a smaller boiler. But the boiler cradle was an entirely new design with a much deeper beam section tapering at the ends. It occurred to me that the GMA boiler might not have fitted in the new cradle, but it seems likely that the cradle design was unaltered from the early post WWII GM class.
The GM was the class that introduced trailing cylindrical water tanks, which you mention in conjunction with this new design. When you speak of a "tender" do you mean an additional coal bunker? How would the coal get to the locomotive?
"Be advised there have been strong theoretical discussions that say exactly what you're saying. Two of them involve the 'correct' jumping-off place for a universal PRR locomotive suited for actual PRR non-wartime traffic (and not, say, the pre-Depression New Main Line idea of widespread 120-mph-optimized routes)".....Overmod
The correct jumping off point, from my vantage point, may have 2 possibilities. The first and most likely would be the period between '39 and Dec. '41. I think the Pennsy had by this time decided to shelve or at least postpone until a much later time the expansion of their Electric operations Westward, due to the depression. War clouds were gathering and by the fall of '39 the US Allies were at war, including us up here beyond the 49th. So things were afoot and despite the politics of the day, the powers behind closed doors in Washington and corporate boardrooms knew better. Preparations were underway, perhaps modestly or not. This would also be a great time to take advantage of a still lingering depression and inject more "New Deal" stimulus, perhaps quietly, maybe not, but directed at the transportation industries, especially railroads. A lot of older outdated steam had been scrapped over the depression and much was still in dead lines.
Significant advancements in steam technology had continued, the S1 was built and exhibited at the Worlds Fair and RR shows....I'm sure the plans for the first 2 T1's, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers were on the table. Lima's super power and new concepts were available at the ready for a nation needing the goods. No war yet for the USA so no restrictions yet. Pennsy not a Lima fan but could have been had they decided to go all out at this point. Replace virtually everything with new modern steam, in massive numbers, at the ready for the future. Likely 2 or 3 models only, not including the T1's, which could go ahead a be greenlighted as a subset, all 52 built by mid 1941. These models would share parts, improve pulling power, built quickly, with little need for strategic material, nothing fancy schmancy, but stokers for sure. Perhaps also a much closer alliance with N&W, almost a merger but just stopping short. Maybe the concept of "lubritoriums" could have come about a wee bit earlier, system wide.
With massive numbers, say 6,000- 8,000 locomotives rolled out over 3 years, from all builders, economic stimulus with a nod from the Feds, very close ties with it's ward N&W, standardized efficient, bare bones but powerful easy to maintain steam, a-la- Kriegslok could have come about.
With the exception of the water issues, they would have held the Diesels to a disadvantage and kept them rolling until the Clean Air Act.
With the advent of further improvements such as your mentioned Lima Type D Valve kits, Berry Accelaerator, Snyder Preheaters, Cunningham Circulator, overfire jets, improvements in maintenance technology and water issues throughout time maybe they last until the Millennium.
Will write about the 2nd correct jumping off point later.
I think the problem with the argument is that "very simple, easy to maintain steam locomotives" never really existed. Steam was just a lot more labor intensive than diesels, and nothing was going to change that.
Good example was neighboring New York Central, who in 1945 bought 4-8-4 Niagara steam engines and two-unit sets of E-7s for their passenger trains. What they found was the Niagaras were just as good and efficient as the E-units IF they had their shop forces put in a large amount of time (and money) doing maintenance work on the steam engines to keep everything working perfectly. Otherwise, the steam engines fell behind the E-units in durability and productivity, since the E-units could run almost continously with minimal maintenance work needed.
So the railroad could make more money by buying easy to maintain diesels and laying off shop crews. By 1960, all major railroads and all but a tiny few small roads had come to the same conclusion.
Overmod--Thanks yet again for the last two postings..a lot to take in.....need a bit of time to think about this all..
As additional comment -- just as with the Jewish religion after the fall of the Second Temple, there is a very long continued history of development and evolution after the "official termination" years (in modern big-steam design, those years are probably the late '40s period, not later). Some of that, in steam terms, is highly interesting in the context of 'low-maintenance' designs. One of these in my opinion would be the Lima experiments with more 'practical' poppet-valve installations, which developed interestingly into the 'Franklin type D' kits Vulcan built for military 2-8-0s in the '50s (one of which of course has survived, but perhaps tellingly in long-non-operating condition). Perhaps the 'ultimate' in reliable cheap steam is a valve gear that does not require explicit tinkering with cutoff to run -- type D provided that, and it is not difficult to see ways to improve and refine what it did. You couldn't do that with piston valves effectively, and even if you did you couldn't service it with simple tools in the field.
Things like the Berry Accelerator, the Snyder preheater and Cunningham circulator I so frequently espouse, and the Langer balancer are all postwar innovations that greatly (I use the term advisedly) improve theoretical steam operation on 'right-sized' or even modular power. In Europe there has been organized work leading up to various proposals for 'Plandampf' and several locomotive designs that -- recognizing that there are arguments other than pure working efficiency for retaining or employing steam power -- have been demonstrably successful in modern service against other types of motive power. But, again in my humble opinion as someone who has spent extensive time and effort figuring out ways to do it, there are few effective places, none of them extensible to overall railroad service in the way even a 4400hp C-C diesel-electric is, where cost-effective steam as an alternative to diesel power is a better answer operationally. (And reliable operational conditions are a primary thing that properly-run, capitalistic or otherwise, railroad managements look at.)
Be advised there have been strong theoretical discussions that say exactly what you're saying. Two of them involve the 'correct' jumping-off place for a universal PRR locomotive suited for actual PRR non-wartime traffic (and not, say, the pre-Depression New Main Line idea of widespread 120-mph-optimized routes) -- which of course was the M1 (redesigned to solve its pathetic quirks like FWH system that frequently stopped working) and Dr. Leonard's discussion of upgraded 4-8-2s on NYC (yes, in place of more Niagaras!)
The problem is that all these long-lived engines would at least in practice have relatively low water rates, and still require periodic maintenance and treatment chemicals to achieve the reasonable in-service reliability common to NYC and N&W systems. You just aren't going to get people into asbestos suits to climb into fireboxes with saturated water on the other side to hammer up leaking studs! And you're not going to avoid great numbers of leaking studs with any 'cheap' legacy boiler design ... if then. Much of the problem even with the infamous fillet-welded staybolt was masked by the short expedient lifetimes of large boilers in service, in some cases being changed out on a schedule of months or even weeks almost as PM. Of course this is something that would promptly vanish on engines that were expected to 'last a long time' between major shoppings (or, in fact, any sort of X-day 'shopping' plan at all)-- you shouldn't be surprised to find that the large mainline power was usually the first thing that disappeared on a railroad, or that disappeared when key auxiliaries or material was no longer available, or that disappeared when better locomotive technologies became mainstreamed (the other half of the massive retirements of North American steam coming soon after second-generation turbocharging, in the period from 1957 to 1960, this being the period at which even the best "Kriegslok" counterparts would have gone imho).
A reasonable equivalent of what you describe using modern solutions and a 'reliable' design is easily seen in the N&W Y-class engines, but perhaps a better illustration is in the very last Baldwin-built engines (of which one survivor is soon to return to service), which were precisely rugged 'legacy' designs with some desirable modern equipment (like overfire 'guns'). They certainly did well, lasted well ... and when the time came, out they went, economics for reciprocating steam as a whole being what it always would have been at that point in time...
Quite a few of the traditional 'steam hanging on' stories, when you actually look at them, turn out to be unavoidable expedients or just cheap-fisted using up the old power. I have little doubt that the last days of K4s and the like on the Long Branch had the engines on their pathetic last legs just as the GG1s were in the '80s. The 'last' NYC power ran on branches that even A-1-A road switchers couldn't use ... and how many of those do you think there was an economic necessity for after the late '50s, let alone in a world where economic operation compared to aggressive modal competition is a given, or quality-of-service concerns with guaranteed power-by-the-hour and no on-road delays or unavoidable stopping become paramount?
Well thanks for the well thought out and thorough response Overmod.
Everything you state is accurate but all of it leaning on highly advanced (for the time), complicated and some risky experimental locomotives.
How about going in the opposite direction entirely and embracing simplicity instead. Pennsy could have manufactured very simple, easy to maintain steam locomotives and in massive quantities. They could also lean on Baldwin for additional support and I think Baldwin could have provided the needed appliances and even built some of the locomotives entirely.
The one example that comes to mind is the rather politically incorrect Kriegslocomotiven or Kriegslok ( war locomotive). A Decapod, right up Pennsys alley! Over 6,700, a staggering number, were built. They lasted a very very long time, right up to 1999 in regular service, and in many places. Not all of it behind the Iron Curtain. Austria and Norway in the West, Turkey as well. USSR, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, what was then Czechoslovakia all had large fleets of these war locomotives inherited after the defeat of Nazi Germany...to the victors go the spoils.
Their longevity and widespread use and acceptance was because they were built very simply and not complicated, they were very powerful, they were easy to maintain, extremely versatile and made almost entirely of steel, no copper, no fancy alloys anywhere.
So what if the Head Honcho of Motive Power, say anywhere, decided to go in this direction and convince his bosses. None of this turbine, duplex drive, inaccesable poppet valve stuff. Build your own, powerful, simple machines, system wide, reliable and easy peasy to maintain.
We all know the first to go were the newest, the last to go were ancient ten wheelers and the like because they were simple and reliable.
I think Pennsy could have come up with a redesigned very powerful, inexpensive to build, simple, all steel, locomotive perhaps a Decapod to fit the bill. Maybe Illinois Central?
6000 plus of them, lasting a very long time, systemwide. Baldwin Diesel switchers for the yard work only.
MiningmanWell lets say, for now, not the Pennsy, then who is a more suitable candidate to keep steam for a much longer time on a grand scale and stick with it successfully. So you would need good water access, good coal access, and a corporate philosophy that would reject Diesels ... Someone that could be immune to the EMD sales pitch.
You are describing a PRR 'subsidiary' of sorts, of course (although BigJim might with some justification consider that comment a borderline troll!) - the 'rationalized' Norfolk & Western. This was the road that took up the V1 turbine, first mechanical and then with electrical drive to all axles in the early '50s, before succumbing to the Baldwin-Westinghouse boondoggle of the TE1. They also inherited the mantle of systemic effective maintenance (and DFM) from NYC when that road's rationale for high-speed steam collapsed down by the early 1950s.
Meanwhile, it might be remembered that Baldwin had come to the TE1 after having been burned, badly, trying to steal a march on PRR in the late Forties with its top-secret M-1 project for Chesapeake and Ohio, 6000hp instead of 8000hp but still preserving cutting-edge coal-burning traction for a coal hauling road.
And hand-in-hand with the dream of the free-piston locomotive was something that probably won't sit well with the steam advocates: the very elaborate project to burn coal directly in a gas-turbine locomotive, ultimately proving to be something of a scam and even more utterly unworkable under Clean Air restrictions of almost any sort than an external-combustion steam locomotive, but clearly driven by diesel cost, limitations, etc. at that time.
One problem here is that everyone seems to love pitting first-generation diesels against steam as if that would keep diesels forever undeveloped. Perhaps that is a reasonable trope in 'alternative history' but the second shoe that drops in such a world would be the very accelerated and not very pretty abandonment of much steam-powered rail mileage starting in the '50s; meanwhile, parallel development of internal-combustion power in a number of places not involving the peculiar synergy of EMC, Sloan, Kettering, and GM financing expertise was quite well established by 1928; at the very latest, you'd have seen GE working out its deal with Cooper-Bessemer around the time it did historically, and the combination of this with clean-air legislation would have put the kibosh on a very great deal of railroading just at a low point in its fortunes, in the first half of the Seventies.
There is a bit of alternative history, too, in the premise that aftermarket or in-house production of auxiliaries and specialty supplies was achieved (as it probably would have been in a more modern or 'international' marketplace, with advanced containerized shipping, as we have today) and that some production of highly-efficient versions of locomotives was made with the 'round' of better technologies seen in the late '40s, including more widespread use of Alco's expensive facilities for welded-boiler production and All Those Poppet-Valve Systems. I don't see very much of a difference in evolution due to these, though, and perhaps we will have to 'agree to disagree' here; on ATSF, for example (and elsewhere as well) welded boilers were fabricated, paid for, and never installed. While it might have been interesting to see if Niagara 5050 fitted with Franklin B-2 would be more 'workable' than as built with type A nightmare box ... that option was available to Kiefer and the NYC just as it was to PRR, and they did not take it; had they taken it, it's difficult for me to see how this would have changed anything of the market forces that retired all the Niagaras by the mid-Fifties regardless of any perceived efficiency increases in the way the locomotives were used.
I think a useful test case ought to be the Western Maryland, which had two of the very latest classes of steam power and lost them with almost indecent haste. I am not a WM 'devotee' but it might be interesting to learn the reasoning, including the perceived costs and 'externalities' that its management considered.
Miningman What if, or could, an Eastern railroad have decided to stick with steam. After all they had all the infrastructure in place, the workforce skills honed to an art form, efficient and productive. ...
What if, or could, an Eastern railroad have decided to stick with steam. After all they had all the infrastructure in place, the workforce skills honed to an art form, efficient and productive. ...
They had the infrastructure, but like the steam engines, it was high maintenance. The workforce may have been efficient at what they did, but it was the steam engines that were inherently inefficient.
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