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Could steam make a comeback?

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Posted by Modocer on Thursday, March 13, 2008 5:13 PM

  If only high tech system monitor and control techniques could be applied to steam to allow MU'ing of locomotives as a booster to take commands from a lead diesel loco, drop off line when not needed, and have tender cars with ample supply of fuel, water, ect to support the steam loco(s). Maybe an additional car to act as a condenser car to recover some of the water and return it to the tender for reuse. Build it with modern materials and more efficient periodical servicing techniques and practices. Eliminate as many people as possible, make it as efficient and clean burning as possible, and you just might have a product the railroads may or may not be interrested in. It seems the fact that each of the past generation steam locomotives requires its own crew was its biggest downfall and modern engineering could get around all that.  Sorry if this has been covered previously.

 

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Posted by AltonFan on Thursday, March 13, 2008 4:40 PM

 tattooguy67 wrote:
Hi everybody, please forgive me if this has been asked already( i looked in the search area and did not see it) or is kinda dumb, what i am wondering is this, with the price of oil going up so much, the fact that we have a buttload of coal in this country, and also the fact that steel is much better now and so are manufacturing techniques would it be possible or feasible for steam locomotives to make economic sense? please let me know your thoughts on this, thanks much.

I doubt at this stage of the game, fuel costs will result in the return of the steam locomotive.  A more likely solution to the problem will be to find an alternative fuel for a diesel prime mover, rather than revert to steam.

Electric traction offers too many advantages to be abandoned.

What's more, whatever solution is found will also have to conform to environmental regulations.  Strict rules on diesel emissions are going into effect in the near future, and it would seem to me that if a change of fuel is in the works, it will have to conform to present environmental regulations.

Dan

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Posted by carnej1 on Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:21 PM

 tattooguy67 wrote:
Ok help me out here guys, i keep reading these replies talking about synthetic diesel this or coal gassification that or oil sand/shale the other ect. ect., now again i have been hearing about these most of my life and have not seen a lot of progress on any of these, now it is my understanding  ( and please feel free to correct any error here ) that A. these have all been done only on a very small scale and produced only small amounts of usable fuel at great cost and with lots of byproducts, and that B. that in order to produce enough usable fuel to make a real differance to our economy that we would have to build some new types of refineries to do it, now given the fact that the refineries we have now for known types of fuels are getting old and outdated and we can't seem to build newer ones to replace them because of politics and the greens and well take your pick here, then what makes any one think that we could get some thing like that built?. Listen guys, this to me has nothing to do with steam locomotives versus diesel locomotives, which one is better, which is more efficient or more cost effective and it has every thing to do with being able to get food on the table for my family, and the way things stand right now a big hurricane and a couple of well placed bombs could send diesel from almost $4.00 a gallon to double that overnight ( ok well thats my opinion but am i really that far off? ) whereas our coal supply would not be so easy to upset. Ok my feet are clean enough now, i will get off my soap box for a while, let me know what you all think, thanks.

 The short answeres to some of these questions.

 Coal-to-liquids historically wasn't price competitive with petroleum refined fuels but that has been changing with the ever ballooning price of crude. South Africa relied heavily on these technologies during the Apartheid area when they had difficulty purchasing oil due to embargoes. They still make a lot of their diesel fuel this way. The Germans produced a lot of diesel from coal during the second world war.

 Oil sand processing is a huge industry in Canada(try googling "Alberta oil sands") and plenty of syncrude is refined there, some of which is exported south to the US.

 Gasoline and diesel can also be synthesized from Natural Gas, something we have fairly abundant reserves of in the US.

 As far as the question of why the US isn't more energy self-sufficient, that's a bit more complicated....

 

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Posted by tattooguy67 on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 3:23 PM
Ok help me out here guys, i keep reading these replies talking about synthetic diesel this or coal gassification that or oil sand/shale the other ect. ect., now again i have been hearing about these most of my life and have not seen a lot of progress on any of these, now it is my understanding  ( and please feel free to correct any error here ) that A. these have all been done only on a very small scale and produced only small amounts of usable fuel at great cost and with lots of byproducts, and that B. that in order to produce enough usable fuel to make a real differance to our economy that we would have to build some new types of refineries to do it, now given the fact that the refineries we have now for known types of fuels are getting old and outdated and we can't seem to build newer ones to replace them because of politics and the greens and well take your pick here, then what makes any one think that we could get some thing like that built?. Listen guys, this to me has nothing to do with steam locomotives versus diesel locomotives, which one is better, which is more efficient or more cost effective and it has every thing to do with being able to get food on the table for my family, and the way things stand right now a big hurricane and a couple of well placed bombs could send diesel from almost $4.00 a gallon to double that overnight ( ok well thats my opinion but am i really that far off? ) whereas our coal supply would not be so easy to upset. Ok my feet are clean enough now, i will get off my soap box for a while, let me know what you all think, thanks.
Is it time to run the tiny trains yet george?! is it huh huh is it?!
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Posted by carnej1 on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 1:45 PM
 Bucyrus wrote:

The point of this thread is speculation about the return of steam for railroad motive power.  The implication is that such a return would be driven by the high price of oil, and specifically that steam power could directly burn coal, as opposed to converting coal to liquid fuel that could be utilized in a diesel engine.  I can think of several variations of coal fired steam locomotion:

 

1)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam for a 2-cylinder, reciprocating engine that is directly coupled to the drivers, or some multiple of this arrangement.

 

2)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam for a turbine that turns an alternator, which provides electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

3)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power a reciprocating engine with 4-8 cylinders that would be better balanced than the conventional 2-cylinder, directly coupled engines, and operate at a higher speed.  Such an engine could drive an alternator, which provides electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

4)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power multiple reciprocating engines with 4-8 cylinders with each engine driving one power truck through a torque converter or some form of hydraulic or hydraulic/mechanical transmission.

 

5)        Some version of a coal fired gas producer that would drive either a turbine or a reciprocating engine, which in turn would drive an alternator, which would produce electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

I am seeing something that is as unlike the steam locomotives of the 1940s as are today's diesel-electrics.

I agree that in the context of the long evolving diesel age, the return to steam seems like a hopeless dream, but I think there is more at work in these big trends than just engineering and economics, so anything is possible.

 Most of the above were tried at one point or another during the transition era. Admitedly we have 45 year newer materials and electronic technology today.

And one more configuration:

 6.A completely conventional diesel electric locomotive running on low sulphur, synthetic diesel produced from coal(and coal bed methane). It uses mature technology (Axis in WW2, South Africa to the present day) and there are already pilot projects in the US. BNSF was recently approached about such a scheme. And yes, the cost per unit of fuel is higher than coal "straight out of the ground" but it requires absolutely no new infrastructure on the RR's part. The price is getting more and more competitive with "petrodiesel".

 If the railroads were to take another look at using CNG or LNG than maybe #5 would be economically viable but I imagine it would be much more efficient to gasify the coal in bulk in a fixed plant rather than on the vehicle itself........

 Not as cool from a railfan perspective as an ACE3000 or Blasingame Steam Rotary Electric (google "T.W Blasingame co." to see what I'm talking about) but it seems more and more likely to actually be economically feasible(the coal-to-liquids part anyway)...

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 5:31 AM
 TomDiehl wrote:
 Bucyrus wrote:

 

4)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power multiple reciprocating engines with 4-8 cylinders with each engine driving one power truck through a torque converter or some form of hydraulic or hydraulic/mechanical transmission.

I am seeing something that is as unlike the steam locomotives of the 1940s as are today's diesel-electrics.

I agree that in the context of the long evolving diesel age, the return to steam seems like a hopeless dream, but I think there is more at work in these big trends than just engineering and economics, so anything is possible.

A torque converter or transmission isn't necessary with a reciprocating steam engine. Unlike an internal combustion engine, they can come to a complete stop when the train is stopped. A diesel is idling (running at low RPM) all the time. Steam pressure, as opposed to exploding fuel/air mixture provides the power and is controlled by a valve (throttle).

Tom,

I understand your point that steam engines can be completely controlled by the throttle.  However, I was thinking about the transmission for the purpose of matching the engine power curve to the locomotive speed and load.  This particular concept, when in low gear, would be similar to a Shay.

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:42 PM
 selector wrote:

Michael, your last graphic seems to be in keeping with a figure I read about almost three years ago in this or another forum, and that is that diesels were averaging 13 point something years before their replacement or significant rebuilding/third line maintenance costs came due.  Do you feel that your chart is supportive of that contention? 

Hmmm, I would have to think about that; it isn't jumping out at me. An analytical problem for examining Diesel-electric cost curves using undifferentiated fleet data is that they combine the results of Yard Diesel-electrics, which are far, far superior to their Steam counterparts in efficiency and comparable in life span, with Road Diesel-electrics which show much lower efficiency and life span on a cost of operation, including overhaul, basis.

H.F. Brown pointed out this disparity vividly. The "standard curve" then makes the Road diesel look better than its actual performance, while obscuring the yeoman service of the Yard diesel in actual service. In the opposite fashion, such cost curves obscure the economic strengths of Road Steam, by incorporating the acknowledged inefficiencies of Yard Steam.

 

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Posted by selector on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:29 PM

Michael, your last graphic seems to be in keeping with a figure I read about almost three years ago in this or another forum, and that is that diesels were averaging 13 point something years before their replacement or significant rebuilding/third line maintenance costs came due.  Do you feel that your chart is supportive of that contention? 

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Posted by TomDiehl on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 8:21 PM
 Bucyrus wrote:

 

4)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power multiple reciprocating engines with 4-8 cylinders with each engine driving one power truck through a torque converter or some form of hydraulic or hydraulic/mechanical transmission.

I am seeing something that is as unlike the steam locomotives of the 1940s as are today's diesel-electrics.

I agree that in the context of the long evolving diesel age, the return to steam seems like a hopeless dream, but I think there is more at work in these big trends than just engineering and economics, so anything is possible.

A torque converter or transmission isn't necessary with a reciprocating steam engine. Unlike an internal combustion engine, they can come to a complete stop when the train is stopped. A diesel is idling (running at low RPM) all the time. Steam pressure, as opposed to exploding fuel/air mixture provides the power and is controlled by a valve (throttle).

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 6:44 PM

The point of this thread is speculation about the return of steam for railroad motive power.  The implication is that such a return would be driven by the high price of oil, and specifically that steam power could directly burn coal, as opposed to converting coal to liquid fuel that could be utilized in a diesel engine.  I can think of several variations of coal fired steam locomotion:

 

1)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam for a 2-cylinder, reciprocating engine that is directly coupled to the drivers, or some multiple of this arrangement.

 

2)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam for a turbine that turns an alternator, which provides electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

3)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power a reciprocating engine with 4-8 cylinders that would be better balanced than the conventional 2-cylinder, directly coupled engines, and operate at a higher speed.  Such an engine could drive an alternator, which provides electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

4)        A coal fired boiler, producing steam to power multiple reciprocating engines with 4-8 cylinders with each engine driving one power truck through a torque converter or some form of hydraulic or hydraulic/mechanical transmission.

 

5)        Some version of a coal fired gas producer that would drive either a turbine or a reciprocating engine, which in turn would drive an alternator, which would produce electric current to drive conventional traction motors.

 

I am seeing something that is as unlike the steam locomotives of the 1940s as are today's diesel-electrics.

I agree that in the context of the long evolving diesel age, the return to steam seems like a hopeless dream, but I think there is more at work in these big trends than just engineering and economics, so anything is possible.

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:52 PM
 Lars Loco wrote:

84.03% for the diesel, regardless they are 4 units or 1 unit.

This makes no sense to me. Four diesel units moving 4,000 unit miles, can't be the same as one diesel unit moving 1,000 unit miles.

However, what data from a real railroad shows is this, and this is very interesting. The cost of maintenance difference, including labor, between Steam and Diesel-electric in this particular fleet was almost non-existent, but fuel cost obviously was a key difference; although I have a sense that the actual cost of diesel fuel was declining during this period, but no numbers to show it. Financing costs are not included. [Click to enlarge].

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:25 PM

I beg your pardon, its already midnight here...

 

Michael, I am right!

See the diesels as a consist: you pay 145.14$ for the steamer to move 1000tons a mile and

84.03% for the diesel, regardless they are 4 units or 1 unit.

The maintance of 4 F3 was beyond one BB, but have to look at Don Strack's page first...

 

Lars 

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:15 PM

No, not just the Chal.

At hp ratings: 6000hp diesel unit (you may write 5400hp, but U.P calculated with probably with 6k)

Challenger: 5000hp

BB: 6000hp (you may say 5400hp)

and so on... 

 

Lars 

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:11 PM
 Lars Loco wrote:

But at least, do not you agree with me that a new kind of burning process has to developed first, in order to provide same effecienty as gas burning engines or processes?  

No, because earlier in the thread, the adjusted cost of mineral coal at this point -- adjusted for 6% efficiency -- is substantially less than the adjusted cost of diesel fuel at this point -- adjusted for 32% efficiency.

Diesel fuel costs are quickly approaching the point where the work actually provided is just about three times the cost of mineral coal, for the work actually provided based on Steam technology of 1950.

Selecting an artificial percentage figure of some higher efficiency level for external combustion steam engines provides some tantalizing thoughts on cost efficiency, but a realistic assessment of that efficiency as being between 6% and 15% already shows a substantial cost advantage at current prices or prospective prices within the near term.

 

 

 

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:03 PM
 Lars Loco wrote:
Was that true at that times? 336.12$ fuel costs vs 145.14$ for the Challenger?

Very interesting... What's yours source

Well, you!

 

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 4:49 PM
Ouch Michael, you got me...
My bad!
You are right, I dismanteld myself by not looking what ton/miles they achived...
The Turbines had 4500hp, early, and 8500hp-10000hp (Big Blow)
Hope to provide some data later...
Of course, if the Big Boy would have done the gtm as 4 diesels, than the steamer
would run cheaper...
Was that true at that times? 336.12$ fuel costs vs 145.14$ for the Challenger?
Very interesting... What's yours source?
 
But at least, do not you agree with me that a new kind of burning process has to developed first, in order to provide same effecienty as gas burning engines or processes? Steam turbines are just used in big appliances so far, for trains they may not be so useful...
Think you wrote it already here, the best would be a centered power source, suplling electric trains.
 
Best regards
 
Lars 

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Posted by CopCarSS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 4:21 PM
 MichaelSol wrote:
I know nothing about turbines, but the posted maintenance plus fuel cost numbers look very good even on a hp ton mile basis.

Should I assume that those figures did not reflect other key considerations such as ownership cost or economic service life? What was wrong with the turbines?

 

I am also very limited on my knowledge of turbines, but I seem to remember hearing that they were fueled with heavier petroleum (again, if memory is serving me, it seems like Bunker Oil was the fuel of choice). It seems that another industry (plastics, maybe?) found use for the same product that Uncle Pete was using to fuel the turbines and fuel prices sky-rocketed because of it.

Hopefully someone knowledgable about the turbines can jump in and add some meaningful information on them.

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Posted by CopCarSS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 4:13 PM
 MichaelSol wrote:
Well, I'm not much of an internet guy, and I can't evaluate the quality of the thought or concept by whether or not its on the internet.

My calculations regarding current coal vs current diesel fuel are just that: current. That's been changing quickly. The people that actually work with these concepts for a living aren't creating webpages for the public's benefit: particularly for proprietary information regarding economic decision making for internal corporate strategic planning purposes. Such information would not, in fact, be on the internet.

U.S. Railways have engaged in perhaps 30 serious long distance electrification studies over the past 25 years. You won't find them on the internet, either, even though they have little proprietary value at this point.

I don't know if its an irony, or a careful caveat, to note that information with genuine economic value is generally not on the internet, whereas information with little genuine economic value seems to be the reason the internet exists.

What I'm saying is that beyond a few projects that I've seen referenced on the 'net (ACE, for example), I haven't heard of any recent studies into the viability of modern steam locomotion. In fact, the reference to the 'net was meant in a similar manner to your last paragraph. While by no means an exhaustive study of the matter (far from it, in fact), all I've been able to uncover regarding modern steam locomotion involves pages like the Ultimate Steam page.

You referenced electrification studies above. Do you know of any major studies into the viability of modern steam? I would have to believe that if the numbers had been crunched in any meaningful way, a railroad like NS would have some interest in the matter if there was even a shred of feasibility.

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 4:08 PM
 CopCarSS wrote:
 MichaelSol wrote:
What was the horsepower of the turbines?

IIRC, the first generation was 4500 HP and second generation was 8500 HP. I also seem to recall that a few of the latter were boosted to 10,000 HP.

I know nothing about turbines, but the posted maintenance plus fuel cost numbers look very good even on a hp ton mile basis.

Should I assume that those figures did not reflect other key considerations such as ownership cost or economic service life? What was wrong with the turbines?

 

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:59 PM
 CopCarSS wrote:

I don't have the resources you have, but I plan to look into some numbers when I have some free time. I'm still a little dubious about the whole idea. If the savings were that substantial, there would be more than just a couple webpages here and there dedicated to the concept of modern steam.

Well, I'm not much of an internet guy, and I can't evaluate the quality of the thought or concept by whether or not its on the internet.

My calculations regarding current coal vs current diesel fuel are just that: current. That's been changing quickly. The people that actually work with these concepts for a living aren't creating webpages for the public's benefit: particularly for proprietary information regarding economic decision making for internal corporate strategic planning purposes. Such information would not, in fact, be on the internet.

U.S. Railways have engaged in perhaps 30 serious long distance electrification studies over the past 25 years. You won't find them on the internet, either, even though they have little proprietary value at this point.

I don't know if its an irony, or a careful caveat, to note that information with genuine economic value is generally not on the internet, whereas information with little genuine economic value seems to be the reason the internet exists.

 

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Posted by CopCarSS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:57 PM
 MichaelSol wrote:
What was the horsepower of the turbines?

IIRC, the first generation was 4500 HP and second generation was 8500 HP. I also seem to recall that a few of the latter were boosted to 10,000 HP.

-Chris
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Posted by CopCarSS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:44 PM

Michael,

I don't have the resources you have, but I plan to look into some numbers when I have some free time. I'm still a little dubious about the whole idea. If the savings were that substantial, there would be more than just a couple webpages here and there dedicated to the concept of modern steam.

Increasing efficiency on any steam locomotive generally means added complexity (e.g. using triple expansion designs and such). The problem gets further compounded by trying to engineer that added complexity into a mobile design. Throw in modern environmental regulations, and it all adds up to a highly complex design that would seem to be tough to engineer into something as small as a locomotive.

Of course, it all gets easier as scale increases, so electrification seems a natural course. Then again, the billions of dollars and years that it would take to establish all that infrastructure hardly seems like an answer for the pressing concern of what to do now.

I don't think steam is the answer in that respect, either. The infrastructure necessary to support a return to steam locomtion, while easier to put in place than electrification, would still take a monumental investment of time and money.

While admittedly not very informed, the short term answer to me still seems to point towards  internal combustion locomotion. Whether that involves coal gassification, recovery of oil from oil shale and/or oil sands, establishing friendlier sources of conventional crude or conquest of the world starting with the mid-east, I don't know.

I think I'll be spending some time at the library in the near future.

-Chris
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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:44 PM
 Lars Loco wrote:

 

 Lars Loco wrote:

Hello everybody,

would like to supply some facts about maintance + fuel costs:

In 1954, U.P. found out that:

"During 1954, steam costs were found to be $145.14 per 1,000 gross ton-miles, and diesel costs were set at $84.03 per 1,000 gross ton-miles. The turbines came in even lower, at $69.19 per 1,000 gross ton-miles."

(Found at Don Strack's utahrails.net)

... but U.P calculated maintance costs per "unit", despite how powerful or how old they were (in general). 

Well, I'm not sure I understand the clarification. If UP calculated such costs "per unit" regardless of horsepower, then in that case, if the UP Steam locomotive was generating 5,400 horsepower, it required 4 Diesel-electric units of 1500 hp each to equal or exceed the horsepower of the Steam locomotive to haul the equivalent 1,000 GTM; 4,000 Diesel-electric unit miles for each 1,000 Steam engine miles, so that each can haul the same tonnage.

The Diesel-electric cost of the four "units", maintenance and fuel, was $336.12 to equal the single unit Challenger cost of $145.14. So yes, the cost per "unit" was lower, but not the cost per horsepower ton mile.

What was the horsepower of the turbines?

 

 

 

 

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:26 PM

Hello Michael,

I wrote

 

 Lars Loco wrote:

Hello everybody,

would like to supply some facts about maintance + fuel costs:

In 1954, U.P. found out that:

"During 1954, steam costs were found to be $145.14 per 1,000 gross ton-miles, and diesel costs were set at $84.03 per 1,000 gross ton-miles. The turbines came in even lower, at $69.19 per 1,000 gross ton-miles."

(Found at Don Strack's utahrails.net)

You wrote: 

We are starting to repeat ourselves here.

 

Sorry, my post was not an intention to repeat things, but have not seen "hard facts" so far at this thread. Only liked to provide some, nothing more.

Ok, my "facts" may not deliver the "whole" view of this subject, but U.P calculated maintance costs per "unit", despite how powerful or how old they were (in general).  In 1954,  mainline steam exits only between Green River and Nebraska. The only reason for this was, that U.P got cheap coal from their Wyoming  mines. The western district were already dieselized at this time, the difficult water supply in those areas was also a problem.

The remaining steam engines of the U.P were either freshly shopped mainline steam or small branchline Units. I think at Ogden, they only kept 10 steamengines in '54.

Can not support any data about the fuel costs, I only know that after WWII gasoline rised high (more than coal). However, in '1954 the situation may have changed, not sure about that.

 

Well, maybe one day we may face the day coal will be much cheaper than oil, but it needs a whole industry to switch (not only trains!). I have neaver heard in Europe about such a projected, coal-fired (and even use steam-circle) locomotive.

If we have something new, my propose is it will be a gas, methanol or even hydrogen (aka mini-nuke ;-)  ) driven locomotive.

Best Regards

 

Lars 

 

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Posted by Modelcar on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:49 PM

....And without wondering any farther....The question was, could we make a steam engine {today}, that would be acceptable....to replace or supplement the diesel electric since the price of oil is skyrocketing.

And it sure is today in Muncie:  Gasoline now, $3.48...!!

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:10 PM
 nanaimo73 wrote:
 MichaelSol wrote:

 Steam power can use mineral coal directly.

After it was treated, to meet emission standards?

Well, I can see we are just going to wander all over here; today's comment will morph into something about something else, and then we will have to consider "water savings" all over again, and electronics that only help the diesel engine, but never steam, and of course never the steam that stays locked into a mindset of sixty years ago. This is kind of how it always goes, doesn't it: "oh yeah, well what about ..."? And that process reflects what, ultimately, is the bias I refer to earlier: no question can be examined, but for the mindset that there cannot be an accurate or even a satisfying answer because "it just can't be so."

I posted my thoughts on emission standards earlier. The idea of going in circles to continually revisit every option as soon as one consideration is addressed, just to keep spinning the argument along, is really the problem, isn't it? And just once, instead of the easy burden of proof that passes here for essentially "oh yeah, what about ...", I would enjoy the concession of, if you don't agree, show why and show the numbers.

I have given you that courtesy.

 

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Posted by nanaimo73 on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 1:25 PM
 MichaelSol wrote:

 Steam power can use mineral coal directly.

After it was treated, to meet emission standards?

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Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 12:36 PM
 nanaimo73 wrote:

You're saying the (relatively uncomplicated) Northern cost of ownership was approximately half the costs of a comparable Diesel-electric. But you seem to be saying that modern steam should be fitted with modern technology. I can't see a modern steam locomotive having the same benefits as a Northern once you add the modern technology.

The cost of the overhaul of the diesel engine was what reversed the cost advantages of the Diesel-electric locomotive over the design simplicity of the Northern Steam engine.

Add the electronics that improves the operating efficiency of both.

The cost of the overhaul of the diesel engine will still reverse the cost advantages of the Diesel-electric locomotive over the design simplicity of the Northern Steam engine.

 

  • Member since
    October 2004
  • 3,190 posts
Posted by MichaelSol on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 12:32 PM
 CopCarSS wrote:

I'm not arguing with the cost difference of coal vs. oil at the moment. What I'm asking is what is the advantage of steam locomotion as a power source?

The cost difference is what it is all about.

Steam power can use mineral coal directly.

As Paul M. suggests above, if "modern" steam could reach 12% efficiency, the adjusted cost per useful 100,000 BTU's would be $1.52 coal vs. $8.21 diesel fuel. At those prices, arguments about the evolution of the Diesel-electric start to give way entirely to the fundamental economics of the cost of fuel: Steam wins.

Now, conversion of mineral coal, at delivered cost to a conversion plant, to a liquefaction or gasification process, plus delivered costs of the resulting product to the user?

If there is a 40% loss in the conversion process, then the ultimate efficiency of the mineral coal is brought back down to 7.2% rather than 12% at the locomotive. If the delivered cost of coal was $42, and the delivered cost of the end product of liquefaction incurred a similar delivery cost, the resulting cost of 100,000 BTUs of liquefied or gassified coal is about $6.82, compared to the equivalent power derived from burning mineral coal directly at $1.52. What's the point of that if the whole purpose is to achieve maximum economic efficiency?

And, that cost of the liquified/gassified coal is well within the recent historical fluctuation range in the cost of diesel fuel and would not justify the risk of the new technology.

 

  • Member since
    March 2004
  • From: Central Valley California
  • 2,841 posts
Posted by passengerfan on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 12:23 PM

Just to throw one more wrench into the equation.

Railroads because they travel on tracks, unlike trucks that use roadways and are constantly changing lanes we have another alternative to consider and that is electrification. We can choose to build coal fired generating plants or nuclear power plants and hang wire over the major railroad transportation corridors or inevitably the cost of oil is going to reach a point where the costs can no longer be justified and everything will reach prices that are going to be out of reach for the average consumer.

Look at the rest of the world where electrification has become the norm and our railroads continually find excuses not to entertain the thought.

One proposal for high speed rail in California is to build enough power plants to supply the power to build a magnetic levitation system above I-5 between Redding and Sacramento then switch to 99 between Sacramento and Bakersfield where once agin the right of way would be built above I-5 to Los Angeles and San Diego. There would also be a connector from the east and west bay to the Valley system. These trains would not be limited to ten feet width but twenty and travel at up to three hundred miles per hour. At night the passenger interiors could be rolled out at most of the major terminals and trucks loaded to take the pressure off of I-5 and 99 thus eliminating the need for additional lanes to these already clogged arteries. Once again in the AM the passenger interiors would be rolled back ready for another day of hauling passengers. Expensive Yes but so is the cost of oil in case one hasn't noticed. Lets look beyond our noses when trying to solve our coming transportation crisis. And it will be here much sooner than we think. 

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