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[quote user="Lee Koch"][quote user="wsherrick"][quote user="Phoebe Vet"] When you take nostalgia and wishful thinking out of the equation the logical path for modernization is electrification.Electricity can be manufactured with petroleum, Hydro, solar, Wind, nuclear, coal, wood, even tidal flow. A change over from one fuel source to another as the world evolves is a simple matter of new or converted power plants.[/quote]Do you have any figures to support your supposition that total electrification would be the "evolved,"  choice.  I think that generating enough electric power with a windmill, for instance, to run a railroad with is wishful thinking.  I guess any point of view that supports modern steam is not, "evolved," but based simply on nostalgia and wishful thinking and not loads of data to support it.[/quote]I believe what Phoebe Vet is trying to say (and I have to agree) is that if you're going to replace diesel with some other technology, it would be foolish to replace the entire locomotive fleets with motive power married to ONE energy source, when you could create more long term energy independence by electrifying. Sure, coal is cheaper now, but will it be in 30 years? What about emmissions? It is much easier to filter emmissions from ONE coal fired power plant than from hundreds of coalfired locos. When coal gets too expensive, switch your source of electric power, keep your electric locomotives!The short-sightedness of re-introducing steam powered locos can be seen in the transportation policies of former East Germany. The Central Commitee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany kept steam locomotives in service right up to the end in 1989. The original reason being that they could not afford to convert the entire fleet to diesel or electric all at once. The final phasing out of steam kept getting delayed from one five-year plan to the next. That didn't stop the CC from mandating (steam) rebuilds from coal to oil fired in the early 70's, only to convert them back to coal during the oil crisis. Then reconvert them to oil starting in the late 80's. Who knows how long this would have gone on had the Wall not fallen! In the long run, they would have saved money had they phased out steam as intended by the late 70's. Railroads are in the business of making money. They would not have phased out steam if diesel had not been overall less expensive! And it is not just a matter of the cost of any certain type of fuel.[/quote]Yes, but steam will not require an infrastructure change as large as that of electrification, nor will steam require an infrastructure change sized for a total commitment to a motive power change as electrification does.  It is true that coal represents a commitment to one fuel as opposed to electrification, which can substitute fuels.  However, how much of a drawback is that commitment?   The frequency and magnitude of fuel price fluctuations is not too likely to force a change in motive power before it wears out anyway.   And even though the choice to replace steam with diesels may have been economically correct, the economics are shifting in favor of coal as opposed to diesel.
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