You can always tell the true fanatics because they know something that nobody else can figure out. The whole industry was wrong when they went over to diesels but they're the only ones that can see it.
As to how many steam locomotives can be replaced by one diesel, it's easy to figure out. Just look at how many locomotives they had in steam days versus how many in the diesel era. Kalmbach's Historical Guide to North American Railroads is a good source.
You think it's easy being a fanatic?
Give us a little credit, will ya! It takes dedication!
Flintlock76 You think it's easy being a fanatic? Give us a little credit, will ya! It takes dedication!
Backshop, it's no use answering. Where you turn up, logics turn down.
For instance: could you explain without readers risk a short circuit in their
head how "the industrie" (just slightly more precise you don't have it?)
should have been wrong when the previous posting explained that they
discovered their gold mine business in replacing all the existing steam locomotives and make the railroads virtually start new from scratch? It were the railroads, not the industrie who should have been more careful.
It is a known fact that electric taction is several times more efficient than diesel traction. If the US railroads are stuck with the gas guzzlers, too bad. But if someone denies facts the world has found, and insists all is perfect that's really bad, and there is no hope!
People like you have all-too-long blindly followed the paroles by "the industrie" and so "the industrie" didn't feel any need to keep up with today's standards. I only mention Detroit, that should be enough.
What you do was once called "Splendid Isolation" in Britain and the British
enjoyed it so long until their whole industrie has become aback as compared to Continental Europe and they had problems selling their old fashioned products in Europe. Now they left the community and will have a rude awakening.
No doubt, they can stand up again and make it up.
But that will be hard suffering on a bumpy road, I wouldn't want to live in
London today! I say no more, anyone who wants can deduct the way it goes and the consequences.
And if not, perhaps that's the better for them as long as they don't personally feel it.
Sara
So, which is it? Should railroads have kept steam or should they have moved to electric? Comparing European railroads to American ones is futile. Other than the fact that they are both railroads, they are completely different. Europe concentrates on passenger service, while we do freight. You have relatively short distances and high volume. We can have high volume, but also have very long distances. Most of your railroads are government owned or subsidized, so project costs aren't as crucial as they are when private industry is trying to do big projects. Private industry has to make a decent profit while governments just have to provide a public service, which is funded indirectly by taxes.
BackshopSo, which is it? Should railroads have kept steam or should they have moved to electric? Comparing European railroads to American ones is futile. Other than the fact that they are both railroads, they are completely different. Europe concentrates on passenger service, while we do freight. You have relatively short distances and high volume. We can have high volume, but also have very long distances. Most of your railroads are government owned or subsidized, so project costs aren't as crucial as they are when private industry is trying to do big projects. Private industry has to make a decent profit while governments just have to provide a public service, which is funded indirectly by taxes.
Not to mention that most European railroads were severly damaged during WW II and needed boat loads of funds just to get back to bare bones operations after the war.
US railroads were effectively 'worn out' in their efforts to support the war effort as well as having had their profits curtailed by the politics of supporting the war. To 'rebuild' the US railroads had to get the necessary investment from private sources.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Backshop Flintlock76 You think it's easy being a fanatic? Give us a little credit, will ya! It takes dedication! With the semi conspiracy theories espoused here, if we combined it with the PRR late steam thread in Classic Trains, would that give new meaning to the term "QAnon"?
With the semi conspiracy theories espoused here, if we combined it with the PRR late steam thread in Classic Trains, would that give new meaning to the term "QAnon"?
QAnon???
Hey man, steam freaks may be a a little crazy, but we ain't THAT crazy!
We're not dangerous, we're fun!
Flintlock76Hey man, steam freaks may be a a little crazy, but we ain't THAT crazy!
Flintlock76 Hey man, steam freaks may be a a little crazy, but we ain't THAT crazy! We're not dangerous, we're fun!
I've always believed that as long as you know you are crazy, you aren't completely insane.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Flintlock76 Backshop Flintlock76 You think it's easy being a fanatic? Give us a little credit, will ya! It takes dedication! With the semi conspiracy theories espoused here, if we combined it with the PRR late steam thread in Classic Trains, would that give new meaning to the term "QAnon"? QAnon??? Hey man, steam freaks may be a a little crazy, but we ain't THAT crazy! We're not dangerous, we're fun!
BackshopI was referencing the PRR Q-class.
Oh, I get it.
Kind of like referring to an Alco diesel fan as an Alco-holic.
Backshop, that's right, or mostly.
You forgot two basic things: they both have standard gauge 1435 mm in common and one basic difference: European maximum axle load has long been 20 tons, now upgraded to 22 tons. Your axle loads had been up to nearly twice that value in the last big steam locos. How high it is now? I guess something around 32 to 35 tons, depending on the railroad.
You ask >>Should railroads have kept steam or should they have moved to electric? <<
My personal idea would be, and this is really my personal view, they could have continued about a decade further with steam, but with modern steam and by that time build up finance to electrify. Full advantage can only be obtained if all the nationwide network is electrified to the same system and locos are being used commonly over the border line of one railroad to complete one job from start to destiny by the same loco(s), plus helpers on uphill sections. That way and with the higher average travelling speed monthly circulations of better than 45 - 50 000 miles should be possible. That means smaller loco park and also smaller freight cars park than now.
If SNCF and DB of two nations who don't even speak the same language can do it, American railroads should be able to do it and get cost savings.
Sara 05003
The issue that is being avoided is how to obtain the financing for total electrification in the current financial atmosphere which discourages long-term captial projects. Any management that seeks financing for a project that doesn't pay off in the short term will be shown the door.
CSSHEGEWISCH The issue that is being avoided is how to obtain the financing for total electrification in the current financial atmosphere which discourages long-term captial projects. Any management that seeks financing for a project that doesn't pay off in the short term will be shown the door.
There is this one environmentally sensitive majority owner of a large railroad network.
Will Warren have to fire . . . himself?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Unfortunately, Warren Buffett through Berkshire Hathaway is the exception that proves the rule, and not just in railroading.
Hey, Warren Buffet owns a railroad that's been completely electrified for years!
However, it was built by Lionel.
Flintlock76 Hey, Warren Buffet owns a railroad that's been completely electrified for years! However, it was built by Lionel.
Third rail is always laid outside the two running rails.
CSSHEGEWISCH Third rail is always laid outside the two running rails.
Well it used to be the case for O gauge scale operations until two-rail O gauge scale was invented.
BackshopSo what costs more, caternary or a third rail between the other two?
Catenary, which is why most Lionel (and other) GG1's run on three rail with the pantographs down!
Sara, I love that new avatar of yours! Very dramatic!
Flintlock: >>Sara, I love that new avatar of yours! Very dramatic! <<
.. and it's really my avatar picture, myself I am not exposed.
S.T.
Backshop: are we talking of model trains or real trains?
if model: third rail leaves the "sky" free for "help from above" if neccessary; if you run electrics it looks like Tesla has been successful with his experiments sending electric energy directly through air.
if real railway: again if Tesla would have been successful sending electric energy directly through air, anyone who would happen to get in between would be burnt to ashes in seconds. Third rail? the authorities would sue you into your third or fifth generation for the consequences if people would tread on an outer and the inner rail and not survive it. That's why the underground line gets mad at once if only they see someone dropping his ticket, purse, her veil or handbag into the rail ditch where the mice live comfortably warm and from plenty of food raining down from the upper world: don't you ever-never make that little jump down, pick up your things and while the train emerges from the tunnel cool climb back onto the platform. Two uniforms would already await you and you couldn't enter the train. So for all mature railways/roads only overhead catenary. It's bad enough if some thunderstorm breaks trees to fall into the wire and tear it down. Total stop, no train goes anywhere. That's why MANkind pushes back nature so far trees could not by any means jump into the wires anymore and the storm itself has to tear it apart and make a shortcut of it. Womankind would then have some steam locomotives in reserve, in steam at least during a storm, and they would go and collect the disabled electric trains.
Sara TBackshop: are we talking of model trains or real trains?
In his last post he caught the toy train ball I tossed and ran with it!
Now on third rail operations, real ones now, the New York Central had exposed third rail operations all the way from New York City to Harmon on the Hudson River, at least 30 miles if I remember correctly. It's still there and now used by Metro-North, the transit railroad. If anyone's been cooked by that exposed third rail at any time I'm not aware of it.
Anyway Sara, just to give you a VERY brief history of American electrification back around the turn of the 20th Century when electric railroad operations reached a reliable level of efficiency many American railroads considered it a Godsend, considering the lowered maintanance costs and no more problems with coal, either buying it or disposing of the ashes, and no more water issues as well.
However, once they saw what the cost would be for electrifying their systems and recovered from the fainting spells they decided to stay with steam. Some 'roads did electrify of course, but those tended to be fairly short-range operations where the railroads could make it pay for itself quickly. The Pennsylvania Railroad only managed to complete it's electrification from New York to Washington and Harrisburg PA due to a US government loan.
The expense of electrification is still there of course, and there's the added problem of where the electricity's going to come from. We've got all sorts of problems here with that and no common cause.
Just to give you a taste of the arguments that arise over various forms of power generation:
Oil is bad, gas is bad, coal is bad, windmills kill birds, solar panels are eyesores, and hydroelectric power kills fish. And DON"T even mention nuclear power!
And all of the above is from the "Greens!" I won't even get into the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard!) or the BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), those folks have lawyers on speed-dial!
Some people think electricity appears out of nowhere or Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Nicola Tesla, Charles Steinmetz send it down from Heaven. Or something.
Then there's all the environmental impact studies that started out as a sincere attempt to preserve the environment but have turned into a racket in their own right.
There's no easy answers here.
Anyway, I agree with your idea of keeping a few steam engines around just in case. As long as you can burn something in the firebox you've got power!
.
I see we're back to inadvertent double postings and the interface jumping up and down to get us to select attack ads or something we didn't intend... again.
I was under the impression that there were plenty of systems with third rail in the gauge; some of the very modern ones with sectional activation intentionally place it there so the vehicles thoroughly cover any sections that are being activated or that are at traction potential.
Almost all the potential 'third-rail' solutions for dual-mode-lite would probably be in the gauge, with battery or hybrid power spanning any gaps at switches or obstructions just as would be the case for OHLE.
Bidirectional applications only require one set of shoe or contact equipment per locomotive, and it doesn't have to be hung off truck frames or carbody components; there is of course no issue with overrunning vs. underrunning contact and relatively little with 'keeping the rail clean' in poor environmental conditions.
Something I have not seen extensively modeled (except by me) is high-speed contact design for this type of system. While this is unlikely to become an issue in the foreseeable practical future for freight railroading, it might for hybrid trains intended to operate under traction rather than assisted-battery power in areas where OHLE is not a practical alternative.
We've had extensive discussions of conduit systems; among others Mr. Klepper has posted often and knowledgeably on their details and what is required to operate them well. Personally I can't imagine these having a renaissance given the activatable road-surface-sealed third-rail solutions now being extensively marketed and, one hopes, perfected.
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