Steam is back?

[Jordan6]

[:O][%-)][:D]An interesting article is in the Newswire today. Make sure you check it out. I've provided a link to it for quick access.http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/005/049zeifd.asp

[Anonymous]

I like the date on which the "news" was issued.[:D][;)]

[tree68]

Just finished reading it - very interesting concept. The results should be of interest to many.

Hey - how come one of my legs is suddenly longer than the other?[:o)][8D]

[ironhorseman]

An obvious joke, steam won't replace diesel for any reason, but I hope they do the experiment anyway (which I doubt they will).

It's just to get you "foamers" excited and the rumors flying [;)]

[Anonymous]

We need steam those beancounter excutives stop good steam excurisons

DOGGY

[Jordan6]

[banghead][zzz] Maybe I should've drank more coffee before I read this article!!!



Happy April's Fools Day[:o)][:I]

[oltmannd]

Lest there was any doubt, the bit about the NYC Hudson clinched it!

P.S. they did this experiment 50-60 years ago against a much inferior diesel product. Steam lost.

[Anonymous]

I actually was dumb enough to fall for this initially, but then finally realized that it was a joke with the part about the NYC hudson and the results coming out on April 1st. It was a real letdown! Mind you this story isn't totally unbelieveable. They did simmilar tests with C&O 614 in the 80's as part of the ACE 3000 project to build new steam locomotives.

[espeefoamer]

At first I fell for this hook,line ,&sinker,but when I read the part about the NYC Hudson in a trackless round house, I smelled a rat.[:(!]It sure would be fun ,though.[:)]

[vsmith]

good April fools joke, not as good as the BBC TV special on the harvesting of this years Spaghetti crop from the Spaghettini trees in Italy back in the 50's, showing footage of Italian boys and girls "harvesting" the limp spaghetti into baskets then being taken to the "drying sheds" where it was straightened , dryed, packaged and then loaded onto trucks for the hungry restaurant patrons to enjoy. Probably the best practical joke ever done. Millions believed it.

What happened this morning is hopefully an April Fools joke too, Howard Stern being dropped from the radio, Infifnity broadcasting caving in and pronouncing a new "family freindly" radio format. If Howard is not on tomarrow morning, BEWARE we are ALL in trouble.

[tree68]

Glad to see I'm not the only one walking around with one leg longer than the other....[:D]

[Anonymous]

I get the feeling whomever wrote that article might have initially thought the 4449 was a coal burning loco.

It makes no sense to test for oil for a period, then convert to coal and test again, sounds like they may have re-written the article once it was done to cover their ***.

Steam locos only get a small operating ratio when it comes to fuel burned/energy released. It doesn't matter what it burns, the new diesels will always be more efficient and cheaper to run.

Always nice to dream though.

[trainfan1221]

ACE 3000, anyone?

[Anonymous]

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ace_det.html

That thing looks more like a diesel, what's the fun in that?

[Modelcar]

....And when they said ...then they would change tenders to switch to Coal to run that test....I'm afraid a little more than "changing the tender", would have to be done to complete a change over as such.

[Anonymous]

I think it was CTC board magazine who also published a photo of a UP GE - AC locomotive in WP colors - the premise was that UP was re-painting some units to fallen flag colors to bolster their argument to bleed money out of the model RR industry.

So I saw the article about 2 weeks ago and the photo date was June 1, 2004...

Another leg puller - but with a great, realistic looking photo.

[jeaton]

Powder River Basin Coal? Why bother, you'd get the same result from dirt dug up anywhere along the tracks.

[M636C]

Was the Hudson supposedly on the ground (trackless), or did they mean to say "with no track access" which means something different. If there was a J3A somewhere, I'd like to think they had track for it.

By the way, isn't 4449 about two feet taller than a Hudson? They'd look odd together.

Still it was a fairly good April 1 Joke - I copied it to friends.

Peter

[dknelson]

I hope everyone had a splendid 4/1/04 yesterday.

If this joke had gone further I wonder how many towns with rusting steam locomotives in local parks would start to have visions of big $$$ dancing in their heads as they envisioned a sudden commercial market for old steam engine parts.
But a few of us DO remember one time when oil prices went sky high that the C&O 611 was extensively tested for fuel efficiency. They put it back to work hauling mainline freight in the mountains.
Dave Nelson

[wallyworld]

April Fools nonewithstanding, If any of you are seriously interested in this topic, check out a paper published by The Institution of Mechcanical Engineers-Railway Division entitled "Modern Steam-An Economic and Enviromental Alternative to Diesel Traction"
by Rodger Waller, which was presented as The Sir Seymour Biscoe Tritton Lecture
to that body.If any of you are familiar with the work of Porta, it makes a compelling argument. I think it may be posted on the Ultimate Steam Page on the web.

[Anonymous]

That'd be awesome! 4449 and a J class Hudson to rule the rails again!? Cool!!!!!!! I wonder which railroad it is? If it's UP, maybe their FEF-3 and 3985 could help out, too.

[ironhorseman]

I've got another idea on how to operate steam engines. What are steam engines basically? Answer: Pressure cookers. All that steam is under pressure and that pressure moves the pistons (which in turn moves the connecting rods which in turn moves the wheels).

What if instead of using a fuel heat water into steam could a steam engine be equipped instead with an air compressor? I saw this used on various models at a craft show. Model steam engines and other gizmos had their moving parts powered by compressed air.

Could a giant air compressor be housed in a steam loco's tender? Could the generator be powered by gasoline or diesel?

Could the hoses be rigged up to the engine pipes and pistons?

Forget about it taking the thrill out a live steam engine for minute and forget about cost: could it actually, physically be done? If it does work, would it be safe? And then after that maybe consider what it would cost.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE:
What if instead of using a fuel heat water into steam could a steam engine be equipped instead with an air compressor? I saw this used on various models at a craft show. Model steam engines and other gizmos had their moving parts powered by compressed air.

You would still need a giant engine to drive the air compressor, so now instead of just a large engine, you have a large engine hooked up to a large air compressor.

A large engine would use an INCREDIBLE amount of compressed air, therefore you would probably need a bunch of tenders filled with compressed air as well as an engine to continuously keep the air pressure up in the large tenders.

If it was even feesable on a smaller scale, then we would most likely all have cars running on compressed air.... same probablem though, where to store it all?

I'm no mechanic though, that's just my two cents.

[UPTRAIN]

Ha ha ha...A J class Hudson steam locomotive...weird because they were all scrapped!!!

[UPTRAIN]

Air...Not really...when the Frisco 1522 was retired, before they put it into long term storage they pumped it full of air from a compressor. They ran it back an fourth a few times down the 500 foot team track at the National Museum of Transportation...hope this helps.

[tree68]

Don't forget that "fireless cookers" ran on stored steam. It wouldn't be impossible to do that with compressed air, but the logistics would be a real pain. Fireless cookers were industrial locos that got their steam from the fixed boiler at the plant.

[UPTRAIN]

Yeah I remember those, fireless locomotives.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE:
That'd be awesome! 4449

I just saw a really good movie on the 4449. I recommend it to anyone that likes steam....

It's called "Daylight Express" by Skyfire Video

I rented it at my local library for free.

It's all about the tourist trip that it took in the early 90s from Oregon to California. It's neat to see that the 4449 was equiped with a more modern air horn as well as the old fasioned steam horn. They called it the "tornado" horn (you can see it right at the front of the loco about and to the right of the main head lights), and used it in certain parts of the more densely populated parts of California back in the old days.

It's a really awsome movie, about a hour and a half long, lots of behind the scenes of operating a steam loco, cab ride, drive bys, riding in the tool car and everything.

I recommend to anyone that likes steam, or the 4449 inparticular.

[Anonymous]

If it could really happen, fire up a Burlington 0-5 Mike in Burlington, IA and a DM&IR Yellowstone up in Two Harbors, Minnesota! Then a Milwaukee Road 4-6-4 Baltic could catch up with them...
Now THAT would be NEAT!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ironhorseman

I've got another idea on how to operate steam engines. What are steam engines basically? Answer: Pressure cookers. All that steam is under pressure and that pressure moves the pistons (which in turn moves the connecting rods which in turn moves the wheels).

What if instead of using a fuel heat water into steam could a steam engine be equipped instead with an air compressor? I saw this used on various models at a craft show. Model steam engines and other gizmos had their moving parts powered by compressed air.

Could a giant air compressor be housed in a steam loco's tender? Could the generator be powered by gasoline or diesel?

Could the hoses be rigged up to the engine pipes and pistons?

Forget about it taking the thrill out a live steam engine for minute and forget about cost: could it actually, physically be done? If it does work, would it be safe? And then after that maybe consider what it would cost.

In the very early days of diesel locomotives that idea was tried. The builders tried mechanical transmissions, hydraulic transmissions, pneumatic transmissions as well as the electric transmissions that are used today. The electric transmissions proved much better with the hydraulic coming in second.

The Russians also tried something entirely different. They had locomotives that had what looked like steam running gear, but the cylinders were actually dual acting diesel cylinders. The Russians also had locomotives that had two sets of cylinders driving the rods, one set was steam the other diesel.