I wouldn't go quite that far. I can remember breathing cleaner air in the late 1960's while Republic Steel still had a huge "Help Wanted" sign on Avenue O.
MiningmanThe Polar Express, contemporary setting, uses Pennsy steam as its motive power.
The movie used a Pere Marquette Berkshire (1225) - including the sound effects.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
CSSHEGEWISCH Steam locomotives would have run afoul of the environmental movement, which predates the existence of the EPA by several years. The alleged "romantic" nature of steam would have counted little for those of us growing up in industrial neighborhoods who were tired of breathing an incredible amount of crud in the air.
Steam locomotives would have run afoul of the environmental movement, which predates the existence of the EPA by several years. The alleged "romantic" nature of steam would have counted little for those of us growing up in industrial neighborhoods who were tired of breathing an incredible amount of crud in the air.
Down your way, Paul, and going east I can remember the air back in the days when the Gary US Steel works and East Chicago refineries were going. I suppose some folks might want to romanticize that, but the folks who lived there sure were glad to see the air clear again. Of course the main reason places like that got cleaner air was the decline of the American steel industry.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Many roads would have done just fine with steam for some time, others would have gone to electrification. I also believe that the public would have been fine with steam for the most part as the tolerance for its magnificence is pretty high and it goes to the spiritual nature of people In general...you really don't see a diesel locomotive going around under the Christmas tree...it's always the romantic nature of steam...The Polar Express, contemporary setting, uses Pennsy steam as its motive power. Would a diesel have worked? ..are you kidding! It has to be steam or no story. That's what I mean by spiritual nature. Deregulation would have come much sooner out of shear necessity, the railroads therefore are not so wounded and many financial disasters are avoided. I like it.
Miningman...Alco...
ALCO was tied at the hip to GE, so when GE decided to go it on it's own, ALCO lost out.
I would opine that had GE not struck out on its own, ALCO might still be a going concern.
But that's a topic for another thread.
Murphy Siding: Earlier in this thread carnej1 brought up overhead wires to power the boilers, as used in Sweden during WWII and trees68 brought up nuclear reactors. You and I are asking the same question... surely there is some way to boil water without burning fossil fuels, in sufficient quantities to power a road locomotive, we just have not found out how to do it. Pressure? Vacuums? Chemical? Giant mirrors in space? I dunno. I'm asking. The point is the power of steam expansion is really huge and may still have a future, however without the R&D being done specifically for railroading it may be in the far future. However, steam could have survived into the seventies given the right set of circumstances and assuming good old American know how and can do attitude Alco and BLH would have kept making progress and innovations, especially in the area of emissions miles ahead of the rest of the world. I asked earlier in this thread (but it retroactively was buried and likely missed by most) if anyone knowns of those over fire jets as installed in the firebox of the P&LE Brekshires to enhance complete combustion and if it was deemed a sucess. Many videos of steam show virtually pure white steam exhaust from the stack that quickly disappears as water vapour. Eliminating the thick black and cloudy grey smoke and all particulate matter would be the objective. Is it possible? Is there a way steam survives?
Miningman N&W would have stuck with steam for a decade more if it were not for Stuart Saunders ( and Penn Station would still be standing, not to mention PennCentral ). If emissions could be severely cleaned up either through technology or an alternate method of boiling water then steam survives. The early road diesels from Baldwin, Lima, then BLH, FM, even Alco did not last long long or were immediate failures and generally represented more lost dollars. Without GM's sucess, some diversion as posed by the question, diesels could well have been a disaster for quite some time. Fast forward to today it is my belief that steam has a good future, not in my lifetime, but longer term, replacing anything using fossil fuels. So it is quite possible that steam survives long enough, given certain advancements all along, to make it to something we have not yet come up with.
N&W would have stuck with steam for a decade more if it were not for Stuart Saunders ( and Penn Station would still be standing, not to mention PennCentral ). If emissions could be severely cleaned up either through technology or an alternate method of boiling water then steam survives. The early road diesels from Baldwin, Lima, then BLH, FM, even Alco did not last long long or were immediate failures and generally represented more lost dollars. Without GM's sucess, some diversion as posed by the question, diesels could well have been a disaster for quite some time. Fast forward to today it is my belief that steam has a good future, not in my lifetime, but longer term, replacing anything using fossil fuels. So it is quite possible that steam survives long enough, given certain advancements all along, to make it to something we have not yet come up with.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Miningman Fast forward to today it is my belief that steam has a good future, not in my lifetime, but longer term, replacing anything using fossil fuels. So it is quite possible that steam survives long enough, given certain advancements all along, to make it to something we have not yet come up with.
Fast forward to today it is my belief that steam has a good future, not in my lifetime, but longer term, replacing anything using fossil fuels. So it is quite possible that steam survives long enough, given certain advancements all along, to make it to something we have not yet come up with.
As has been shown many times before, steam's problem was high maintenance costs, primarily labor.
One reason that steam hung on as long as it did on some lines was those line's relationships with the coal industry. Had that dynamic not been in play, steam may have met it's demise even sooner.
Dave Kleeper's original question could be divided in two parts, one being whether the US RR's could have survived as private enterprise without the diesel locomotive and the second being whether GM's involvement in diesel locomotive developmnt was crucial for diesel locomotives to replace steam locomotives. The second part is relatively easy to answer, in that there was enough development work on diesel locomotives outside of GM that the diesel would have replaced steam in roughly the same time period (this glosses over GM's role in financing the sale of locomotives). The first part is a lot more difficult to answer as it requires coming up with a scenario where some form of internal combustion locomotive was not practical - this would be getting into "what if the wheel wasn't invented" territory.
The answer to Balt's question on whether diesels would have replaced steam sooner had it not been for WW2 depends somewhat on the scenario for WW2 not happening or a smaller scale WW2 where there was no WPB rationing of diesel locomotive production. In either case, the RR's would almost certainly bought more diesels than steamers and the 50/50 diesel/steam would have ocurred perhaps 5 years earlier than it did. The complicating factor is trying guess what the US economy would have been like with a small scale or no invovment in WW2 (not to mention the world economy). One surprising factoid about WW2 was that the US ws the most highly moblized major participant in the war.
Another question is whether diesels would have replaced steam even earlier had it not been for the Great Depression. There was quite a bit of development going on prior to 1930, which was scaled down after the stock market crash.
Yet another related question is whether electrification would have advanced more had not WW1 intervened. [Edit: See "General Electric Review" January 1918, page 7 first full paragraph on top of right column of text.]
K. P. Harrier This thread at the very outset, before the initial post was even posted, steered itself off topic!
This thread at the very outset, before the initial post was even posted, steered itself off topic!
So?
It seems to me the original subject has been amply explored (altho I missed your contribution). If people want to go on to explore subjects of peripheral interest, who is injured?
Those who don't share that interest are free to stop reading -- to go take pictures or something -- instead of trying to crack the whip on the rest of us.
(Oh, and happy New Year.)
BaltACD IFthe original question was meant to mean, could railroads today being operating steam engines TODAY in revenue service as their main means of locomotion. The answer is a resounding NO; they would be out of business today. The clean air movement, begining in the 60's and continuing to today would have put them out of business had not diesels been invented and commercially successful.
IFthe original question was meant to mean, could railroads today being operating steam engines TODAY in revenue service as their main means of locomotion. The answer is a resounding NO; they would be out of business today. The clean air movement, begining in the 60's and continuing to today would have put them out of business had not diesels been invented and commercially successful.
This thread at the very outset, before the initial post was even posted, steered itself off topic! BaltACD seemed to have seen that and made a super valiant attempt to steer it back … or maybe actually put it on the tracks. I think more people should listen to the wise man BaltACD …
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
An interesting aside is that the states anticipated and exceeded the Interstate System to follow.
I think Pa. was first, but when I was a kid living in Cleveland, the revelation was the Ohio and Indiana tollroads, shaving the time on our family vacations to Iowa from 16 hours to 10. These were 1950s state initiatives, predating Ike's proposal for a national system.
They were also true superhighways, graded like railroad lines. By the time the interstates came along in the 1960s, they were a disappointment to my mechanical engineer father, with all their hills and valleys. (I'll bet their concrete specs were inferior, too.)
My point was let's stick to the original parameters. Start your own conta-factual, if you want a new what if.
schlimm Wizlish Part of what he means: If there had been no WWII, I doubt DDE would have been there in 1956 with the 'defense highways' idea. Might as well say "if the wheel had not been invented" as say the above.
Wizlish Part of what he means: If there had been no WWII, I doubt DDE would have been there in 1956 with the 'defense highways' idea.
Might as well say "if the wheel had not been invented" as say the above.
Why so?
If there had been no WWII, there is little possibility that Eisenhower would have been a Presidential nominee, let alone elected.
The defense-highway idea was something special to Eisenhower, which he had considered important in some form since 1919.
A slightly more arguable claim could be made that, in the absence of WWII and the uniquely expedient way Stalin leveraged it into effective domination of Eastern Europe by the late '40s, there would have been less of a 'Cold War' requiring autobahn-level defense highways as a perceivable 'national' priority. The kind of highways that would be built in America, and the extent to which they would form a coherent 'system of transportation' by, say, the end of the 1960s, might be interesting -- quite possibly leapfrogging directly to the kind of system GM touted in its World's Fair presentations...
Wizlish read me right in that I think highway construction in the US would have progressed much slower if WW2 had not happened - though there would be a large uncertainty of what the US economy would have been like without WW2. A big part of the uncertainty is where the economy would have been without all the defense R&D - turbine powered airliners might have come a decade later, personal computers a couple of decades later, etc.
With a slowdown in the development of air travel and highway travel, passenger trains would have held on for perhaps a decade longer than they did. A concrete example was the service on the AT&SF Surf Line before and after I-5 was completed between LA and San Diego. The Santa Fe was running 6 or 7 seven trains a day each way in the early 1960's, which dropped to 3 on the eve of Amtrak. There was quite a bit of work done on high speed passenger trains just prior to WW2, which may have continued if WW2 hadn't happened (or had been a much smaller scale - i.e. Japan vs the Allies). The PRR might have been able to work out the bugs in the T-1 before putting it into production.
Speculating on what would have happened without WW2 isn't quite the same as speculating on the wheel not being invented. The wheel was likely "invented" in several different places at several different times - there were no critical paths that would have prevented the eventual invention of the wheel. WW2, on the other hand, may not have happened or could have been very different had a few key events turned out differently, e.g. the events leading up to the 1938 Munich accords.
- Erik
WizlishPart of what he means: If there had been no WWII, I doubt DDE would have been there in 1956 with the 'defense highways' idea.
schlimm erikem the interstate highway system may have been born in the 1960's as opposed to the 1950's. the act was 1956 but construction was mostly in the 60s and later, to the 80s.
erikem the interstate highway system may have been born in the 1960's as opposed to the 1950's.
the act was 1956 but construction was mostly in the 60s and later, to the 80s.
Part of what he means: If there had been no WWII, I doubt DDE would have been there in 1956 with the 'defense highways' idea.
So I suspect the logical effect would be the continuation of expressway construction as toll roads (following the model in the Northeast rather than Southern California) and the optimization of the regular US highways (like Rt. 30 and Rt. 66) to handle an increase in private vehicle traffic. Perhaps an important consideration here is that, in both cases, large increases in motor truck traffic would be more difficult to achieve cost-effectively. (We can leave aside the discussion of passenger service here, except insofar as states like Missouri with a known penchant for discouraging heavy commercial traffic, for example the Pickwick Nite Coaches and similar expansions of interstate bus service quality, would restrict truck traffic to improve the 'QoS' of driving for the voting public in general...)
On the other hand, even the effect of paid thruways had, I think, a very significant effect on many carriers in the Northeast, even given the economies that resulted from dieselization 'in the event'. And that of course goes considerably beyond just passenger, and even M&E-related, service.
erikemthe interstate highway system may have been born in the 1960's as opposed to the 1950's.
Balt,
Good question! My guess is that the shift to diesel would have only been slightly faster as some RR's were buying steam after the war. Without the WPB restricting development work on diesel engines, it's quite likely that Alco would have started wringing out the 241/244 earlier along with EMD not having the benefit of USN funded development.
One of the lesser known affects of the US involvement in WW2 was the huge emphasis on mass production - shaving 10% in labor time to rpoduce war material could make for a significant strategic advantage. This suggests that diesel locomotives would have been more expensive with respect to steam than was the case post WW2.
I would also guess that airlines would have evolved slower and the interstate highway system may have been born in the 1960's as opposed to the 1950's.
The companion question! Would steam have survived to 1950 had not WW II and all it's material allocation restrictions stunted the development, production and sales of diesel electric locomotives and forced numerous carriers to buy steam engines when they would have preferred diesels?
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Kgbw49- Alco did survive, and quite well. They retreated to their subsidiary plant in Montreal. They continued on with the RS series, build the M640 with 251 series Alco engine, 4,000hp 18 cylinder. Together with Pratt and Whitney they developed and build the Turbo Trains. They developed the wide nose safety cab, first appearing on the M420. That form of cab has now become a North American industry standard. They then got purchased by and became Bombardier. They continued to provide innovative locomotive design like VIA's LRC ( Light, Rapid, Comfortable) and train sets. I recall these very vividly, they were powerful compact locomotives that sounded every bit as much of an Alco as an FA2 did. Not quite as smokey but those pistons sure hammered away while stopped at a station. Currently they make locomotives and train sets for only the European market designed and developed by the Europeans and do not retain any of the Alco/MLW heritage. Never say never though and, despite Bombardiers emphasis on the manufacturing of airplanes, they could well enter the field for Tier 4, picking up where they left off, ya never know!
Yes, the inevitability of the efficiencies of the diesel was an economic tsunami that would have swept steam aside eventually, no matter how much further steam would have advanced. Great point on Alco, ericem. They might have survived the transition given another 5-10 years of more robust cash flow through, say, 1955 or so to support more 244 development. I wonder what an Alco Tier 4 offering would have looked like if they were still around.
Getting back to original subject of this thread, I have hard time believing that diesel locomotives would not have become commonplace had GM stayed out of the locomotive market. Diesel locomotives would have been a high priority during WW2 and the WPB would have given the nod for some company to produce road power for hauling freight - perhaps Alco RS-1's. I also suspect that GM would not have had the large production contracts for 567's without the experience of wringing out the 201A and early 567's in locomotive service. While Winton did make marine diesels, the market prior to WW2 wasn't as large as the locomotive market.
With GM out of the market, Alco may have had time to get the bugs worked out of the 244 design.
Does anyone out there know if those over fire jets installed onto the firebox of those later built P&LE Berkshires work? Much improved combustion would be one way to assist in reducing smoke emissions. How about afterburners before going up the stack or scrubbers reducing emissions as advancements as modern day appliances.
If steam could have had 10 more years......
This gentleman does quite a job putting together a "what if" scenario.
http://www.railarchive.net/nyccollection/fantasy_steam.htm#selections
While steam may have replaced diesels in the submarine service, steam is gradually being replaced by diesels in surface ships. Some marine diesels have dimensions that make a De La Vergne engine look small.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.