This may have already been beat to death here but I am new to the forum and was wondering what others thought. What if the railroads had stayed with steam what do you think the Locos would be like today?
I have heard all the reasons that were given for going to the diesels, but my thoughts are the biggest one was the railroad seen a way they could get by with less workers, even if it took four or five of the new locos to pull as much as one steamer. I know there were alot of other factors, but if the steamers could have been doubleheaded by one crew I don't think they would have jumped ship as fast as some did. With todays controls this would not be a big deal but I guess in the 30's , 40's it was. Oh well what do some of you think?
The biggest problem would be just keeping water around, think of the size of the tender on some of the 200 or more mile divisions.
JonathanS wrote:I agree with the comment on the EPA. Another reason large steam locomotive could not survive in regular service today is liability lawsuits. Do a little digging as to what happened to neighboring houses when a large steam locomotive exploded. When a boiler full of water that is boiling at 200 PSI is suddenly brought to atmospheric pressure due to a collision, derailment, or crown sheet failure, the entire boiler full of water instantly turns to steam and expands 1000 times its own volume in a few seconds. There are numerous reports of large sections of the boilers being thrown over a half mile. Today's public would not stand for such a hazard in thier backyards.
The 200 PSI boiler pressure was obsolete by the time diesels came around, If you look at the specs for engines developed during the 30's and 40's you will see operating pressures in the neighborhood of 300 psi plus superheat (which raised the temperature of the steam above the saturation temperature, about 420 degrees Farenheit). Thus, working steam temperature could easily be over 500 degrees versis the 380 degrees for saturated 200 psi steam. This provides a lot more energy to "launch" those exploding boilers.
The real reason the diesel supplanted steam was operating economics. Ignoring the fact that you could add engines without having to add crewmembers, while there might have been questions regarding fuel economy, the big advantage of diesels were their availability and lack of required maintenance costs. This enabled the diesels to far outstrip the steam engines in terms of revenue miles generated in any given period of time, particularly since they did not have to stop so frequently to refill their water tanks (which had to heated in the colder climates to prevent freezing.
Consider this, you know how effective steam cleaning is on the grease accumulated on you automobile engines, what effect do you think that steam had on all of those exposed lubricated joints on the steam engine. Every time the steam engine stopped, the fireman would have walk around the engine with an oil can.
wjstix wrote:p.s. Coal smoke is much more visible that diesel exhaust, I suspect they're pretty equal as to the amount of pollution they create in the long run though.
I don't know about that, I saw a CSX diesel about two weeks ago that would have put 1218 to shame. It was blowing so much smoke the first few cars couldn't be seen!
jimrice4449 wrote:I have a 3 letter answer to the question of how viable steam engines would be today...EPA~! I'm suprised (and grateful) that some envirozealot hasn't tried to shut down current steam operations.
I agree 100% with the above. I've seen a few steamers on excursions through the years and wondered how long until some enviro-nazi shuts them down. It'll be a sad day when that happens. Wasn't there an issue with a restored steam locomotive in Washington State being shut down by the local city because of asbestos fears?
wjstix wrote:Well that was the idea of the ACE 3000 concept in the early eighties, that steam engine technology stopped being improved upon c.1950, what could you do with modern space-age technology?? One change was to try to hold in the heat better, make the firebox and boiler more like a giant thermos. Also, instead of burning chunks of coal, it would have used replaceable tender modules filled with coal slurry (coal mixed with water to create a liquid, kinda like what an oil-burner would use.) During the early 1980's "Reagan Recession" some tests were done on Ross Rowland's Reading 4-8-4 hauling coal to get some data for the project but I think that's about as far as it got. Too bad, at that time it was calculated that since coal prices were so low at that time compared to oil, that the cost savings of switching to coal were several times better than the coal to diesel savings of the transition era. I'm sure there are drawings of the ACE 3000 steam engine on the web somewhere.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Everybody is still trying to think of steam in a 1920's era tech, that is not what I was thinking about. What if steam had had the benefit of the last 60 years of new tech the way the diesels have what would they be today?
Comparing an old 30's era steamer to a new MAC just ain't fair, But I will have to disagree with the statement that at the time there were no 4-8-4's that could compete with the diesels of the era, N&W, J's for example, and there was no diesel in the 50's that had anywhere close to the HP or tractive effort of a single J, when in an era that a lot of diesels had around 1200 horses the J had over 5000 at the drawbar . The thing that always got me was this, taken one on one a 50's era diesel would run cheaper than about any steamer this is no doubt true, but when they had to hook six of them together to pull the same load that one steamer was pulling I think economics went out the window
The Great Depression and World War 2 were major factors in why steam technology barely advanced from the beginning of the Super Power era in the 1920's. During the Depression, nobody had any money for research and the WPB clamped down on research and development of steam technology during WW2. Aside from Lima and the Pocahontas coal roads, nobody was interested in advancing steam design after WW2.
The ability of individual diesel units to operate in multiple was an equalizer in the steam-vs-diesel debate and gave diesels a flexibility in service that steam rarely had. The five-unit GP9 set that equalled a Y6b on the road could be split up and equal five S-class switchers in the yard.
staybolt wrote:Everybody is still trying to think of steam in a 1920's era tech, that is not what I was thinking about. What if steam had had the benefit of the last 60 years of new tech the way the diesels have what would they be today? Comparing an old 30's era steamer to a new MAC just ain't fair, But I will have to disagree with the statement that at the time there were no 4-8-4's that could compete with the diesels of the era, N&W, J's for example, and there was no diesel in the 50's that had anywhere close to the HP or tractive effort of a single J, when in an era that a lot of diesels had around 1200 horses the J had over 5000 at the drawbar . The thing that always got me was this, taken one on one a 50's era diesel would run cheaper than about any steamer this is no doubt true, but when they had to hook six of them together to pull the same load that one steamer was pulling I think economics went out the window
I am not thinking about steam in 1920 era tech either. What I am saying is that if you updated a steam locomotive with every bit of 2006 technology, you would be very lucky to get up to 13%-14% efficiency. Our newest GEVO's are around 40% efficient.
You are 100% correct if you stay with an old flue tube boiler with stoker feed and hand fired but, there are a lot better ways of doing things with todays tech I think you would see efficiency ratings much higher. and not to dispute your word 40% for a diesel is a little high when the best internal combustion engine is somewhere in the high 20% percent range. A loco can only be as good as its prime mover, and them old F units throwed out more pollution than the J's with their detroits slobbering motor oil all down the sides and out the bottom. Coal 70 bucks a ton or diesel 3 bucks a gallon ain't much difference, which ever way it costs heap mucho money to run something that big.
staybolt wrote: ...and not to dispute your word 40% for a diesel is a little high when the best internal combustion engine is somewhere in the high 20% percent range...
...and not to dispute your word 40% for a diesel is a little high when the best internal combustion engine is somewhere in the high 20% percent range...
The Home of Articulated Ugliness
staybolt wrote:Ley's not start a bitching match but you show me one that says it is, GE advertises the evo to be 3% more than the current crop of locos, and even this is achieved with a reduction in cylinders ( 12 from 16 ). I have worked in the steam generation of electricity industry, so I also have some background in what I speak, by the way 82% of all the electric power in the US is brought to you by coal fired boilers
feltonhill wrote:The steam vs. diesel tests on N&W were run in 1952. N&W did not modify either 1238 or 1297 for the tests. This story appeared in Nov 1991 Trains, contained errors of fact, and lacked supporting evidence. It was apparent that the author had not done adequate research on locomotive performance capapabilities on both N&W and on other roads, nor did he have adequate understanding of N&W's physical plant or operations at the time. It rebutted in part by a participant in the tests in the May 1992 issue of Trains. Full rebuttals appeared in N&WHS magazine, The Arrow in the May/June 1994 and Jan/Feb 1998 issues. Both available as back issues AFAIK. It' a good idea to read all four of these sources before arriving at a conclusion.
I've been informed that the F-7 tested on was 459 and also that they had their fuel racks and load regulators slightly adjusted so the total HP was close to 6,800 hp for the diesels.
Maybe both sides cheated in one way or another.....lol!
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