Steam Lovers,,Ponder the thought!!!!

[Anonymous]

I'm an engineer for a good sized short line railroad and as we take in several trains fron vairous {just about all} class 1s I see time and again plea's from management to "Shut'em down!!!" when there not being used for the next hour or so.
With all the wonderful things we have In our day's ,And if fuel keeps going up,I Think we could possably see another ACE 3000 project or equivelent soon!
I doubt it would be the coal burners that we all come to love,Oil burners? probbly not ,,,But alternative fuels with turbo generators,Mabey.
Any thoughts?

[dougdagrump]

When I was with the B&O, in th 60's, the only time you saw one shutdown was it was in the shop for maintenance. But at that time gas was only 30 cents a gallon so you can imagine what the railroads paid for a gallon of fuel.[censored]

[Anonymous]

We have 10 Sd type engines and 12 or 14 GP 38s and vairous small ones and they tell us that we spend several 100,000s in fuel a quarter!!!
I do remember the day when I could go to the Penn Central roundhouse and it wasn't nothing to see 20 to 30 units sitting in the readdy tracks all Hammering away all night long!

[eZAK]

Why not use Free or cheap fuel
Go to http://www.biodiesel.org/

If you have a Diesel you can!

Rudolf Diesel invented the engine so it could run on various oils.
Such as, but not limited to, corn oils, nut oils, & veggie oils, virgin or used!

[Anonymous]

eZAK;That my be the end result! But to this day the power of steam has never been matched.and as hard a fight was put up by the Steam engine mfgr's to compete with the diesel,Had they of had the technology we have now I think things might have been different.
The big killer was the maintenence for our beloved steamers.

[spankybird]

Maybe we should look at how nuke plants use steam or even our present day war ships. The nuke reactor produces steam that turns turbines for the generators. Sounds familiar doesn’t it.

tom

[Anonymous]

Thats what I'm saying ,We still use it to launch jets off the aircraft carriers!! Alot of power,Fast!
But even if a steam powered engine was to show up I dont think it would have the romance that the old ones had,I think technolegy would see to that.

[3railguy]

Nuke plants may be our only real known alternative to oil. If anything the railroads would convert to electric with catenary. This would allow them to utilize existing diesels, powering their traction motors with an outside supply of electricity.

Who knows. Maybe oil prices will come down again as they always have in the past.

[Anonymous]

That makes the most sence,And probly would be cost effective compaired to what it would take to develope anything else!