Login
or
Register
Home
»
Trains Magazine
»
Forums
»
General Discussion
»
Why did diesel go to passenger first?
Edit post
Edit your reply below.
Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by trainjunky29</i> <br /><br />And I maintain that this was because railroads wanted to look modern and sleek in their appearance--economy and efficiency were just nice bonuses at first.[/quote] <br /> <br />There was a lot more to it than just wanting to look modern. Steam locomotives required frequent watering and refueling. It sure kills a schedule when you must stop every 20 to 50 miles for water and/or fuel. PRR, NYC, RDG, B&O and some others got around some of the water problem by having the track pans where the trains could take water on the fly. But that required more infrastructure, a larger workforce, and frequent maintenance of the scoops which would sometimes catch on crossings, and maintance of the pans which were damaged by inexperienced firemen. The only road which made a dent in the fueling problem was NYC with the almost all coal bunker tenders. They only had to refuel once between New York and Chicago, but had to scoop up with water very frequently. Some roads got around the problem by having a fresh steamer waiting for the train every so many miles. That requires many more locomotives, and more crews, very expensive. <br /> <br />But put a diesel on the name train and just blast past all of those coaling towers and water plugs, and leave your competitors who still have steamers in the dust. You only need to stop for fuel every 500 to 1000 miles or so. And if you do that at one of your major stops, then you lose virtually no time at all. Or if your competitor already has a diesel on the flagship train then you must also, so your schedule can keep up. Looks didn't hurt, but the economic benefits of placing diesels at the head of passenger trains were too good to ignore. <br /> <br />If a freight train had to stop every 20 miles for water, so what. It likely had to stop anyway to get out of the way of another passenger train. <br /> <br />Passengerfan: As to changing the cylinder on the fly. The engine must be shut down to do that. There is no way you could attach a connecting rod to a crankshaft that is rotating at thousands of RPM. Nor could you place a new cylinder over a piston that would be floppinng around many times a second. Yes the maintainers did change out cylinders on the road, but the engine was shut down and the train was being moved by the other engines in the multiple unit locomotive.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag
Update Reply
Join our Community!
Our community is
FREE
to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Login »
Register »
Search the Community
Newsletter Sign-Up
By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our
privacy policy
More great sites from Kalmbach Media
Terms Of Use
|
Privacy Policy
|
Copyright Policy