I normally don't ever respond to these far out "What If" scenario posts but I suppose this one time.
RR's got rid of steam for far more than just labor savings. All of the facilities (Coal and Water that were needed....they were high mainatance and required custome made parts and thus numerous extensive shop facilities with expensive machinery. I cant accurately speak for the effieiceny per cost of energy fuel units (coal and water vs Diesel fuel) but when one considers haveing divisions set up based on the extent a locomotivce could be expected to manage in a shift being so short, plus all of the investment in pumps, roundhouses, machines, water tanks, coaling.....it was a very inefficient way to run the railroad.
Consider extraordinary circumstances like trying to keep water supply in desolate places like the WP across Northern Nevada, also subject to extreme cold as well as drought.
They certainly were neat but they are not practical and never would be.
Steam beats diesel hands down.
A steam turbine generating electricity is much more efficent and economical. All you need is a helluvalot of capital to string wires over the track and traffic sufficent to justify the investment.
cooslimited wrote:Say what you want, quote statistics, etc., but when it comes to entertainment efficiency, steam locomotives are right up there at 99%. No diesel will ever come close!!
Pointless, ongoing arguments are rather amusing too...
I can agree to a lot of what you say , but the A4s that Mallard belonged to,
did march at 100MPH on a regular basis and there were no speedlimits on the railroads in the UK in those days.
However , travelling above 100MPH put an enormous stress on the rail itself.
As for the speedrecord, they had to run the Mallard to the workshop right after,
being some what worn down by the effort.
But still, there were some areas where steam remained superior to diesel, if not
everywhere , at least on Sherman Hill.
Mike C.
real locos burn coal wrote: I think diesels are much too hyped. The big boys on sherman moved freight better than the diesels, as did the Mallard set a speedrecord yet to be broken by diesels in the UK. The sight of 6 diesels hauling a freighttrain that one Challenger or one Big Boy could tackle by itself, says it all.
I think diesels are much too hyped. The big boys on sherman moved freight better
than the diesels, as did the Mallard set a speedrecord yet to be broken by diesels in the UK.
The sight of 6 diesels hauling a freighttrain that one Challenger or one Big Boy
could tackle by itself, says it all.
Note that only 25 Big Boys were built, and their service area was quite limited. While Challengers did operate on several roads, their size also limited their service area and also restricted them to a particular type of service. The six diesels hauling a freight up Sherman Hill could be split and recombined for other service on a branchline or local freight much more easily than the Big Boy.
Mallard did indeed set an all-time authenticated steam speed record of 126 MPH, but it was a special test run and never a daily occurence. The HST's and APT's operate at three figures as a matter of keeping to a posted schedule.
GP40-2 wrote: wallyworld wrote:You missed the point entirely. Comparitive fuel costs are not the bottom line factor in the future, the availibility of oil is, unless you are aware of some oil reserves the rest of us are not. That is not the result of salivating, nor sarcasm. The point is exploring alternatives which you are loathe to recognize is the point of knowing history in order to avoid repeating it. You can put all your eggs in the diesel basket, just as the mistaken folks at Baldwin did for steam for perhaps too long a time. But nothing will remain as it is, and an open mind is preferable to a defensive and territorial approach. I am equally open toward gasification processes, nuclear powered electrification, et al. Defending the status quo exclusively as the definitive eternal answer is a losing proposition as this set of dynamics in the marketplace is subject to change. Unless you are psychic, you will be unable to convince me otherwise.I'm not missing any point, and I'm not defending any status quo. Personally, I could care less if in the future diesel-electrics are replaced with a superior type of motive power that is profitable for RRs to operate. I know one thing for certain not being a psychic: coal powered steam locomotives will not be one of them.The last time I looked, our coal resources are finite also, unless YOU know of some coal reserves the rest of us do not know about.If you want to continue to rant on go right ahead. These "I just know there is a way for steam to make a comeback" discussions are always good for multiple laughs for those of us with engineering backrounds.
wallyworld wrote:You missed the point entirely. Comparitive fuel costs are not the bottom line factor in the future, the availibility of oil is, unless you are aware of some oil reserves the rest of us are not. That is not the result of salivating, nor sarcasm. The point is exploring alternatives which you are loathe to recognize is the point of knowing history in order to avoid repeating it. You can put all your eggs in the diesel basket, just as the mistaken folks at Baldwin did for steam for perhaps too long a time. But nothing will remain as it is, and an open mind is preferable to a defensive and territorial approach. I am equally open toward gasification processes, nuclear powered electrification, et al. Defending the status quo exclusively as the definitive eternal answer is a losing proposition as this set of dynamics in the marketplace is subject to change. Unless you are psychic, you will be unable to convince me otherwise.
It's a good thing for all of mankind that there exists people with superior knowledge and engineering backgrounds, such as that professed by GP40-2, to remind us mortals of our lowly stature in life. I'm surprised that GP40-2 condescends to partake in any discussion with (obviously) uneducated people like us. It would seem that if GP40-2 doesn't approve of the general trend and spirit of the conversation taking place herein, he could (and please do) go somewhere else.
The deciding issue maybe favorable operating conditons. Steam powered electrical generating plants achieve high efficiencies due to elaborate heat recovery methods. For example, steam that escapes from the steam chest and into the atmosphere on a locomotive is used to preheat the boiler water in a power plant. The cost of this efficiency in a power plant is that the generators have to run at full power (Base loaded) all the time. If a steam locomotive can go from a stone cold start to full power in twelve hours, it would take a multimegawatt power plant DAYS to reach full output from a cold start. If the diesel was not more efficient, I do not see how it could have supplanted steam power plants in marine environments. Modern day supercargo ships and cruiseliners are all diesel powered. Even the Navy's experimental X-craft ship uses a diesel engine for long distance cruising.
The weight of all the heat recovery systems required to get decent thermal efficiency makes a steam plant too heavy for today's mobile applications.. Static, megawatt power requirements as found in power plants is an entirely diffeent matter.
wallyworld wrote:........Here is a link to an ASME paper on some fairly recent developments: http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ace.html The best way to settle this is to resume this discussion twenty years from this date, and see what has developed.
I would hardly call a 1982 ASME paper a recent development. Any comparison with power plants is not reasonable. Locomotives cannot be operated at the temperatures and pressures modern steam power plants use. Also the power plants require water that is so pure that total impurities are measured in the low parts per trillion. That is simply not practical for a mobile boiler.
Any motive power that would replace diesel electrics in North America would have to have a significant advantage in reliability, availability and operating cost over what is in current use. That is exactly how diesel electrics replaced steam. And YES, I am aware of the official tests of N&W, NYC, et. al. that showed in very selected services, with the finest steam could offer, the operating cost was close. That argument ignores that for 90%+ of the service, switching, local freights, slow speed freight, commuter passenger, helpers, there is no comparison, steam loses by a huge margin. Any replacement would have to have a similar margin of improvement to be taken seriously by management. Or of course, governments could legislate the change, just like how the diesel got its start in the 1920's and how the battery/genset hybrids are starting today.
As for your argument that Baldwin hung on to steam too long, you conveniently ignore history, and stockholders (which probably includes you, if not directly then through your insurance funds and retirement account(s)). Baldwin was a leader in diesel locomotive development. They produced the first 1000 horsepower diesel locomotive. Baldwin, in conjunction with Westinghouse, produced a line of switchers in competition with the Alco/GE/IR consortium, long before EMC and later EMD/GM looked at the market. Baldwin started producing their own line of switchers before Alco started producing the HHs. If you would dig out copies of trade magazines from the '40s and look at the Baldwin advertisements you will find that they were very actively selling all three forms of motive power steam/diesel/electric.
On the corporate finance side of things, Baldwin (as well as Lima and Alco) had huge investments in factories that could effieiently and economically produce thousands of steam locomotives each year. Even though they knew that steam's days were severly numbered, as Vauclain stated in the 1920s, management could not simply tear down the factory and start over with an empty field. How would you like it if someone said that all of your savings and all of your retirement funds were lost and by the way you are no longer insured, because the management of some company decided to simply discard all of the investment made with your funds? People go to jail for doing things like that. Baldwin's management tried the best they could to prolong the switch to diesel by innovating with steam so that they could rationalize their investment over a reasonable period of time. Unfortunately, due to the speed of the change from steam, some very poorly timed labor disputes at Eddystone, the development limits imposed during WWII, and due to some unfortunate decisions made by Baldwin's and Westinghouse's management teams, Baldwin could not successfully make the financial transition. Alco's management team made a much better transition. Alco fell due to a number of other market forces, but not to the steam to diesel transition.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
The availability of oil doesn't matter. Coal burns in diesel engines very well thank you. There have been numerous engines that have run for substantial times that operated on either coal dust blown into the cylinder by air, or using coal in a slurry. Both systems operate very well and aside from higher wear to the sealing surfaces there is no problem, but neither is a quick change from petroleum.
Additionally there is the matter of coal liquifaction, such as the Germans did prior and throughout WWII, and has been done by SASOL in South Africa since the 1950s. The process produces a product equivalent to #2 diesel, and gasoline if you want. SASOL was about 50% more expensive than petroleum refining in the 1970s. I do not have any current data but I suspect that the relative costs have narrowed.
There are also many processes that can produce a petroleum equivalent fuel starting from just about any biomass you chose. Most begin with a fermentation that produces either methanol or ethanol and those are converted into longer chained molecules. Presently these methods of producing a diesel fuel are far too expensive.
No reason exists to abandon the diesel engine or the diesel electric locomotive. When petroleum prices rise high enough you will see coal liquifaction and coal dust engines being marketed.
wallyworld wrote:I think it's a pretty equalized situation that's difficult to compare on a one on one direct basis since devices that are considered standard euipment ( pollution restraints, anti-slip devices, et al) did not exist at the end of the late steam era. The complexity of the ACE, when viewed as what it was intended to be, a test platform versus a mass produced standard model relying on existing practice, makes it a rather unique creature. The a priori locus of it's design was to go one on one with the diesel on the diesel's terms with the capablity to be readily refueled, run in multiple units, etc. The increased efficency of steam production and fuel cost could have been better focused in a simpler design. The advent of longer trains with increased speeds, oil costs being certain to rise, still to my way of thinking, make steam a viable alternative to explore on a reasonable basis. Another error is to think of steam versus diesel in all or nothing terms. While I would grant that using two differing forms of technology in terms of efficency of maintenance is a drawback, however, I think future economic factors would make second generation steam viable for long hauls. The advent of Green Goats is a good example of purpose driven diversity of motive power. The ability to anticipate future trends is not one of railroading's biggest management assets aka today's capacity issues.
wallyworld wrote:One of the advantages to steam was it's simplicity of design,and the disadvantage was the amount of comparitive maintenance it required. While I would agree that even since the ill fated ACE design was contemplated, even more inroads have been made in the application of software into programmable controllers operating on road engines. The seat of the pants operation of steam certainly impacted operating efficency...it would be very interesting to contemplate steam processes being harnessed by a more objective point of control, however I am leery of mechcanical innovations. The ACE was an ill conceived approach that tried to be everything to everyone...Porta rightfully pointed out that the ACE was overly ambitious in terms of design and a simpler approach especially in terms of a demonstration unit, would have been a wiser choice in terms of showing the advantages of second generation steam. The history of incremental steam development on the PRR is a good example of this. When they veered away from this policy in a rush to forstall dieselization, you ended up with problematic power like the T1...or Q2.
train18393 wrote:How about coal that is ground into fine powder, turned into a slurry, then sprayed into a turbine of some sort, which turns a generator or a genset then powers an electric motor in the trucks, kind of like a Green Goat, but with a coal fired steam turbine. They can use water injection in jet engines to increase thrust, and can use water injection in a piston engine to control pre-ignition, why cant you use it to expand and run a turbine. Obviously I am not an mechanical engineer of the required sort, but I am an engineer on my Model Railroad. Of course that don't help me to figure out just how efficient, or inefficient, such a contraption would be, but I think I am barking up the right tree concerning the question. Paul Dayton and Mad River RR
How about coal that is ground into fine powder, turned into a slurry, then sprayed into a turbine of some sort, which turns a generator or a genset then powers an electric motor in the trucks, kind of like a Green Goat, but with a coal fired steam turbine. They can use water injection in jet engines to increase thrust, and can use water injection in a piston engine to control pre-ignition, why cant you use it to expand and run a turbine. Obviously I am not an mechanical engineer of the required sort, but I am an engineer on my Model Railroad. Of course that don't help me to figure out just how efficient, or inefficient, such a contraption would be, but I think I am barking up the right tree concerning the question.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
CSSHEGEWISCH wrote: While a 10,000 HP Garratt sounds pretty impressive and would have lighter rail loadings to go along with it, there probably aren't too many applications where it could be used efficiently. After all, it can't be split into smaller units for those days when tonnages are lower. Besides unit trains of mineral freight, I don't know of too many other assignments that would have consistent tonnage. While poppet valves are an excellent design and don't appear to require much specialized maintenance, compounding in any form appears to be an added complication that calls into play the efficiency vs. availability issue. N&W seems to be the only North American railroad that had much success with compounds, and they were low-speed locomotives.
While a 10,000 HP Garratt sounds pretty impressive and would have lighter rail loadings to go along with it, there probably aren't too many applications where it could be used efficiently. After all, it can't be split into smaller units for those days when tonnages are lower. Besides unit trains of mineral freight, I don't know of too many other assignments that would have consistent tonnage.
While poppet valves are an excellent design and don't appear to require much specialized maintenance, compounding in any form appears to be an added complication that calls into play the efficiency vs. availability issue. N&W seems to be the only North American railroad that had much success with compounds, and they were low-speed locomotives.
Reasoning behind compounding in the Withuhn system:
The entire system was described in a Trains article, with drawings, Did We Scrap Steam Too Soon? which appeared back in 1971 or so.
Incidentally, 10,000HP might be a conservative maximum rating - gross overkill for anything except unit coal service (although the machine should be fast enought to handle high speed intermodal trains.)
As for the low speed of N&W's Y's, the villain was dynamic augment, the one thing the Withuhn design was meant to minimize.
Chuck
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