Why did Southern Railway stopped using steam locomotives in 1953
To upset you 64 years later.
Corporate direction...several roads dieselized as fast as possible...other examples were Wabash, Lackawanna, many in New England.
Bigger outfits such as Pennsy took a bit longer just due to sheer size. Diesel manufacturer EMD had massive orders on its books.
Backshop To upset you 64 years later.
What tipped a lot of the eastern 'roads over the diesel edge was a series of coal strikes beginning after World War Two and running into the 50's. Surprisingly, I've only seen this mentioned once in a book about the Lackawanna.
Makes sense, if coal's your fuel and you can't get it, you can't run. I've never heard of a strike in the oil business, but I could be wrong on that one.
Just another factor to add in to the railroads decision to dieselize.
Mind you, I don't blame the coal miners for striking at all. Read a history of the industry and it's disgusting to see how those men were treated. You were better off as a slave in the pre-Civil War south than you were as a coal miner in the old days.
The coal strikes may have had some bearing on the Southern Ry dieselizing but I've never heard it mentioned about the railroad.
The reasons I've been told were that:
1. the Southern had NO modern steam power and basically relied on USRA engines or copies and engines pre-WWI. By the 1950's they were old, less efficient and needing more and more costly maintenance.
2. they tried demonstrators early and found their efficiency, high utilization and cost effectiveness well worth the transition
3. management was very "modern" and forward looking and diesels enforced that philosophy well
Besides..........64 years later it gives us a reason to whine and complain about it! They really did the best with using their USRA's and improving their looks. Very classy steamers indeed!
oldline1
So what led to Southern to stop buying new power after 1928
With Southern Railway faced with routes like the Rathole and Saluda Grade it's no wonder they saw Mr. D's Machine as their Savior.
Before the Diesel had proven itself for mainline operations SR probably had some of the best men in the industry who kept their steam locomotives running as smooth as a Singer sewing machine. Why replace the fleet with newer power which would also mean taking on debt. The Depression most likely prevented the purchase of modern power as well. As it was drawing to a close and America had begun to recover, GM had begun to send their proven FT on it's nationwide tour, which proved to most railroads that it was indeed "The Diesel That Did It" to steam power.
Suddenly EMC was swamped with orders almost overnight. The rest is history.
I'm not a expert on the Southern, but I can tell you the Jersey Central bought their last new steam engines in 1930, the Great Depression kept them from getting any more, and like the Southern's shopmen Jersey Central's people did wonders keeping them alive during the Depression and the World War Two years.
When the war was over and the JC had a nice fat wallet again they looked at and thought very hard about purchasing "Challenger" type steam engines for their freight service, but looked even harder at diesels. End result, they started buying F3's as soon as they could.
For what good it did them they might as well as gone with the Challengers. Of course no one new their fate at that time.
CNJ already had a fair amount of diesel experience by the end of WW2. They purchased their first diesel in 1925.
CSSHEGEWISCH CNJ already had a fair amount of diesel experience by the end of WW2. They purchased their first diesel in 1925.
Quite true. Jersey Central's first diesel was #1000, purchased in 1925 and used as a terminal switcher, it's called the first commercially successful diesel in American railroad history.
It survives today in the B&O Museum in Baltimore. I've seen it, and believe it or not you can still smell the diesel fuel! I don't know if it's capable of running, probably not, I don't know if the museum's ever "taken it for a spin around the block," to coin a phrase.
The next one didn't show up until 1938, another switcher from ALCO, then as the Depression began to wind down more switchers showed up on the property, and then the road units post-war.
Miningman For what good it did them they might as well as gone with the Challengers. Of course no one new their fate at that time.
Well, it was the collapse of the anthracite business that did them in eventually, among other things, but as you say, who knew?
There still is anthracite mining in Pennsylvania, as a matter of fact the present-day Reading and Northern hauls quite a bit of it, but it's only a fraction of what the industry used to be.
The collapse of anthracite affected the F3's as much as they would have the Challengers. Loss of business regardless of what's hauling it.
Firelock76When the war was over and the JC had a nice fat wallet again they looked at and thought very hard about purchasing "Challenger" type steam engines for their freight service, but looked even harder at diesels.
Lehigh Valley went so far toward 4-4-6-4 Duplexes that they produced a diagram (I have seen a copy). They were one of the earliest roads to scrap a large and reasonably modern stable of high-speed-capable road locomotives almost indecently quickly. I have never heard from any LV personnel that they regretted doing so.
My understanding of the anthracite market was that it did not begin to collapse until the Fifties, a combination of expanded oil/natural gas replacing its use for heating (and five minutes even with a Timken Stoker-equipped furnace will give you good reasons why!) and industrial processes and plants using large amounts of it becoming obsolescent. My godmother in Dorranceton (suburban Wilkes-Barre), who lived through the decline, blamed a great deal of it on the available mining "talent" in the Fifties, too.
The great thing that killed it, however, was the Clean Air Act, for reasons that may require a little careful examination. As I've said before, when I was a boy, Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center were black buildings, solid soot black, and that is how I assumed they always had been. It was a rare day you could see Manhattan at all below about 125th St from the George Washington Bridge. Most of this was NOT 'automobile' pollution: it was emissions from various buildings, and I doubt the old boilers would have been removed from all those rent-controlled apartment buildings for many decades after the '60s unless serious carrots and sticks were brought to bear on the situation. They were, and while I loved the anthracite country and its trains ... we are much better off for its markets to be gone.
Anthracite coal is metamorphosed Bituminous coal. A lot more pressure and heat and it's a diamond.
Have to agree that for industrial and manufacturing use, building and home heating in dense packed urban areas the demise of anthracite is a good thing.
The amount used by railroad locomotives is substantial but if that is all that is left of it's use it would not be so bad at all. A good fireman keeps a clean stack so that it is a nice white water vapour as much as possible.
Never understood the railfans drooling over thick black smoke so as to produce some kind of dramatic effect for the camera. In my view the white smoke is far more preferable, which simply disappears in seconds. White smoke, water vapour is far more dramatic especially in winter scenes.
Now I have a small building, an insulated shed if you wish, not attached to the house. It has a pot bellied stove, brick lined, in which I occasionally burn some coal. It is my shed of solitude ( certainly not a fortress of solitude). I like the heat coal gives off. It is different, enveloping. Sometimes wood, sometimes coal, I enjoy the aromas, sit on my stool, light a nice pipe ( getting difficult to find pipe tobacco, the social nannies are running things telling me how it is as we glide down the slippery slope). I make coffee in a large exploration camp percolator on the stove top, sometimes brown beans in a kettle, when really ambitious I will make French Onion Soup from scratch and let it simmer there for a day. Burn sweet grass, cedar and sage for more enchanting aromas.
Day dream of steam days, the trains, the station.
Any kind of OIL is most unwelcome and strictly forbidden.
My grandparents house, built in the 1920's, had a coal furnace up until it was sold in 1968, when the furnace was converted to gas to make the house more saleable.
As a boy I was absolutely fascinated by that coal furnace! All the pipes, flaps and levers on it, and when the door was opened that amazing, glowing, sweet-smelling pile of coal roasting away in there. Very impressive to a youngster!
I didn't see anything else like that until I got a cab tour of N&W 611 in 1992. The firebox doors were open, I just leaned in for a look and said "WOW!" in a voice loud enough for one of the crew to hear.
"Pretty impressive, huh?" he asked! "Oh, yeah!" I replied, "I haven't seen anything like that since my grandparents coal furnace!" "I know what you mean," he replied, "My Grandma and Grandpa had one too! Brings back a lot of memories!"
"Amen!" I said.
Steam locomotives are magic in more ways than one.
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