Stick with steam Pennsy!

[Firelock76]

I daresay the "powers that were" at the Pennsy were just as puzzled by that loss in 1946 as we are 71 years later.

"What? A LOSS? How did this happen? To US? We're the Standard Railroad Of The World!" 

Plain fact of the matter is, the money went somewhere...

Maybe some PRR officials had holes in their pockets and didn't realize it.

 

[Miningman]

Well I'm glad you weighed in Overmod....was hoping you would. 

I have always been a bit puzzled why Pennsy had that loss in 1946. Business was brisk, war time monies gave them plenty of spending money and a big cushion. The economy was still partially on a war time footing, switching over to a peace time. Those were some hectic busy times. Everyone took the train to everywhere. New industrial areas were cropping up with new opportunities continually. 

I recall the New York Central leading the charge on being short changed over Railway Post Office services provided and it took a while for the government to make amends on that. However. that could not be the reason in any big picture way.

I think a case could be made point for point against your statements and the way it all unfolded with the PRR. I will take it upon myself to make this a real project in the near future. 

Well lets say, for now, not the Pennsy, then who is a more suitable candidate to keep steam for a much longer time on a grand scale and stick with it successfully. So you would need good water access, good coal access, and a corporate philosophy that would reject Diesels. 

Someone that could be immune to the EMD sales pitch.

[Overmod]

Miningman

If anyone could have pulled this off I think it would be the Pennsy.

It is very clear from the Pennsy records preserved at the Hagley that it would not have been the Pennsy.  Yes, there were men who loved steam, and men who loved new technologies applied to steam.  But you also see men who rejected articulated reciprocating power (even as they embraced articulated mechanical turbines) ... and switched dramatically on the promise of the S2-style turbine over a remarkably short time interval.  In early 1946 the PRR department of motive power was still enthusiastic about the promise of mainline steam; by sometime in 1948 all of that was out, and while I have my conspiracy theories about some of what happened subsequently with certain particular classes, there was never any subsequent desire other than expedience to use modern steam in preference to dieselization.

Big reason for this, happening when it did and why it did and thoroughly discussed in the contemporary trade press, was the concomitant rise in demanded wage coupled with the availability of many far better and more profitable career opportunities than those required for cost-effective steam-locomotive maintenance.  And supply.  I am looking forward to the doctoral thesis someone's going to write on the various oil-firing projects the various railroads fast-tracked during the John L. Lewis/Truman contretemps in the late '40s -- but there's little doubt there are better ways to burn oil, especially in the East.  Michael Froio, over on RyPN, has just been discussing the magnitude of the PRR's efforts to assure reasonable water supply in some places, an effort ALL of which could effectively be ended with the adoption of even first-generation diesels.

The flip side of this, I have argued, is the water rate of single-unit 7600+-horsepower steam locomotives.  That imposed a heavy penalty in water-carrying rate, on the Pennsy, or else dramatically limited safe distance between water stops, and involved very large flows to fill the "coast-to-coast" cisterns that were barely large enough to go from the coast of the Juniata to the coast of the Monongahela.  With terrible problems to your 300psi boilers if you went a bit long between water stops, or had the wrong ions in your feedwater ... now go look at the movies of the ATSF power operating to Sandusky in the middle Fifties, and tell me what you see (expensively) on the sides of the boiler cladding...

And as mentioned, much of the older power built in such profusion was ill-suited to late-Forties traffic... lollipops were essentially no longer mainline power; the Q2s were built as wartime emergency power and made little sense (over much cheaper J1as) on a railroad running 50mph freights; the M1s were fine as far as they went but certainly no Niagara competition...

Meanwhile, instructively, look at some of the parallels over on NYC, where there was recognizable genius at work.  At the time of VJ-day, the high-speed postwar power was the C1a, with the Alco 4-8-4 being comparable to a refined Rock Island or D&H locomotive, having only incrementally higher drivers than the late Mohawks.  And the C1a had the final tender refinement, which was practical on Central precisely as it was useless for Pennsy, of 64 tons coal and correspondingly very little cistern, meaning refined methods of water treatment and delivery via numerous track pans.  Note that 64t is only enough for Harmon-Chicago with the better efficiency of the duplex.

Instead of this, what do we get in the next year? 79" drivers on Niagaras and the realization this is all the 'high speed' NYC could need... the problem being that in the only service that used the Niagara to anywhere near its capacity, NYC was devoted to Dieseliners almost by the time the ink was dry on the motive-power survey.  And the perceived issues with 'more E7s' were mooted relatively quickly by E8s... and we all know the end of the S2a, the locomotive that supposedly 'challenged the efficiency of the diesel itself'.

Sources I've read say that the access to additional capital by the railroads in the immediate postwar years made early complete dieselization "more possible", but I would note all the various reports in the middle to late '40s that steam here, as in Britain, was expected to coexist in first-line service all the way to the 1970s and perhaps beyond, and the roads (like N&W and NKP) that used their steam effectively on services where recip steam had distinctive competence in operations could go indefinitely (or go turboelectric if that were desirable).

It is a fine thing to claim that a big railroad could make for itself all the little proprietary things, from firebrick to throttle actuators, that the independent steam suppliers, the Coffins and Locomotive Superheater Companies  had the distinctive competence and intellectual capital to design and produce.  I don't see it -- it was hard enough for PRR to set up a clean little corner at Altoona for Baldwin injector service.  To go into business where for-profit companies can't shuck production fast enough was NOT something for a corporation who was given the wake-up call on profitability PRR was in 1946.

[Firelock76]

I can't help but think one of the factors influencing the railroads decision to dieselize, aside from the economics, was all the thousands of diesel mechanics and electricians trained courtesy of Uncle Sam coming back into the civilian workforce right after World War Two.  Here was a ready-made source of technical expertise and all looking for jobs. 

Maybe steam might have lasted to 1970, but I also can't help but think all the evironmental laws being passed in the early '70 would have done just as good a job as killing steam as the diesels did.  Those who whine about air pollution now have no idea how bad it was back then, especially in the urban areas.  I'm old enough to remember, and I do. 

Certainly automobiles contributed more than their fair share of the schmutz, but that's another story.

[timz]

Miningman

I believe the employees would go along just fine.

They'll go along as long as they're being paid. Question is, how long will that continue.

[Miningman]

Recent brief discussions of CNJ contemplating Challengers but deciding on F3's and full dieselization leads one to wonder.

What if, or could, an Eastern railroad have decided to stick with steam. After all they had all the infrastructure in place, the workforce skills honed to an art form, efficient and productive. I suppose the N&W comes to mind right away but what if it was the Pennsy? 

Their shops could produce anything, they were very independent thinking and they knew and loved steam. It would only take a few individuals at the top and a set corporate philosophy to take this direction. I believe the employees would go along just fine. 

Diesels did not save the Pennsy from it's ultimate demise, in fairly short order as well, perhaps what appears to be a more costly and less efficient motive power decision would have. Lots of things in life turnout that way. 

Other obvious consequences....no merger with the NYC, instead joining forces with the already aligned Norfolk and Western. Perhaps Mr. Saunders could have gone elsewhere, C&O perhaps and merged it with the Central. In any case things would roll out differently. 

The T1's and S2 showed us there were strong advocates for steam. As the other roads dieselized Pennsy could have picked up fine modern low mileage steam locomotives suitable for their needs at a fraction of the cost. Also the Pennsy was big and powerful enough to have bought out the patents and appliances that were required. It is concievable that this could have been and lasted until new environmental laws came about, lets say ending steam by the mid 70's. Maybe....who knows perhaps they come up with advancements that would permit even further usage of steam. 

If anyone could have pulled this off I think it would be the Pennsy. 

E7's?....no thanks, we're just fine, don't let the door hit you in the head on the way out.