Steam Locomotives versus Diesels

[Anonymous]

Sayeth MichaelSol:

"It is, on its face, a completely false assertion to state that dieselization had anything to do with an employment productivity gains whatsover, since the identical improvement would have happened with retaining Steam -- even with no actual productivity increases at all!"

This is an interesting assertion. Please prove it by some other means than trying to discredit those who disagree with you.

Old Timer

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol
Maintenance $ available per mainline mile of track
MILW------- Great Northern
1950 9,580--7,963
1951 11,050-- 9,048
1952 12,411-- 9,763
1953 13,031-- 10,351
1954 11,614-- 10,092
1955 13,509--10,448
1956 13,007--10,936
1957 12,175--11,092
1958 11,408--8,228
1959 11,069-- 8,560
1960 9,770--8,364
1961 8,600--7,633
1962 9,019--7,973
1963 8,455--7,889
1964 8,641--8,249
1965 9,135--7,543
1966 10,922--7,928
1967 9,575-- 8,300
1968 11,656-- 8,266
1969 13,451

You can see that even as ROI continued to decline into the 1960s, it would have been worse had maintenance expenditures continued at the rate they were at during the 1950s.

Well, the Milwaukee's rate of return was NOT following the national average.
In 1946 it was 2%. In 1960, it was 2%. Over the period of dieselization, it did NOT change.

So there was no correlation between dieselization and falling return on property investment for the Milwaukee Road.

Mr. Sol, your theory is too problematic for me. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Mr. Sol.

[txhighballer]

As an operating railroader,having run steam and diesel on tonnage trains,I can tell you this: If I want to run fast across the flats with a good size train (8,000 tons or lighter),steam would be my choice. If I want to drag that same train across the mountains then a brace of diesels ( any of the SD family) would be my preference.Why
so,you ask? Let's take a look at a "modern" locomotive,the NKP 765. The locomotive would be in her horsepower range,and tractive effort does not play into the equation because the trick is once she starts it she's gonna run with it until she has to stop for water and/or coal. She brings her train the the base of the mountain,where perhaps four SD40 types would be needed to bring the train over the mountain. Four locomotives controlled by one man in the cab. The cumulative tractive effort of four SD40's is roughly 280,000 pounds,just over two Big Boys in tractive effort. I have deliberatly left out grade percentage,but let's just say it's one percent over several miles........more than a "momentum" grade. Those EMD's will drag the world off it's axis...the 765 would need several of her sisters to perform the same feat..with the resulting crew costs.
Perhaps in such a steam/diesel argument it's easy to get emotional..but the hard numbers don't lie. Diesels DID cost more per horsepower,and should have been phased in as the Norfolk and Western did. The numbers for maintence on the GN directly correlates to the end of steam..in 1958!
Why was this? Well one of the reasons may have been to pay for those shiny new diesels.
This may also be the case for several railroads. Some decisions,once made are made with a "herd" mentality. These decisions at many times were not made with the best information available.......EMD made diesel owenership very easy,and offered some benefits which ended the battle.....but IMHO,the battle was aided by the aforementioned mentality,plus good salesmanship from EMD,and not necessarily the best railroad leadership.
If you look at how some railroads scrapped steam when the power was still less than ten years old,and well able to economically perform its duties,it does make you wonder .
Steam,in all it's glory,should not have been retired until the 70's in some areas. At that point,steam would have paid for itself and would have been fully amortised.I apologize for such a long post,but I think my points are valid. I'll explain more later.

[Anonymous]

I wonder:

Say the year is 1947. What is the cost of 1 diesel hp and 1 steam hp? (i expect it to be 4:1 for steam).

I read somewhere that diesels replaced steam 2:1 hp wise. Is this true?

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by SteamerFan

Old timer, I'm speculating there was a RIO drop of about half shortly after deilization, but that would be offset by the great increase after they layoffs of the 3rd man of steamers and the hundreds of support crews.

As I stated earlier, deisels increased ROI and profits by reducing the Manhours a railroad had to employ compared to steam. No longer did you need those turntables and roundhouses everywhere, nor the countless men who stationed refueling/watering points along the route. Specilized mechanics were replaced by the general mechanics, as most deisels had interchangeable parts and unlike steamers, didn't need to have certain parts fabricated on site.

After 9 pages of this, we still have Sol and company arguing with no direct evidence of anything except that manhours were reduced and profits were increased by deiselization.

The problem is, railroad ROI decreased. That can be shown. Railroad employment related to diesels decreased by less than any other class of railroad employment. While it has been shown that ROI did, in fact, decrease, no one has shown the opposite, that railroad ROI increased because of dieselization. Gibbs & Hill, the premier railroad motive power consulting firm of the era, found that ROI decreased as a direct result of dieselization by finding that it "added to the financial burden of railways."

Some facts, and a learned study. Oddly for the arguments offered on this thread, the facts -- decline in railroad ROI -- are exactly consistent with the study -- "dieselization added a net financial burden to American railways."

What actual "fact" in this long litany of excuses has been offered to refute that? Not one: not a statistic, nor a comparison, nothing factual whatsoever.

Well, one more set of facts were put forward that supports that notion further.
Railroad employment related to maintenance and train service decined in almost direct proportion to the reduction in carloadings. Causation or correlation? What would, no, what could dieselization have had to do with that? It suggests that dieselization had almost no effect on employment., that the huge layoffs in shop forces were attributable more directly to the loss of traffic and business.

It is, on its face, a completely false assertion to state that dieselization had anything to do with an employment productivity gains whatsover, since the identical improvement would have happened with retaining Steam -- even with no actual productivity increases at all!

After 9 pages of blaming the actual documented railroad ROI declines on everything under the sun except dieselization, including prospective changes that hadn't even happened yet, not one single fact or figure shows that it was even probable, let alone plausible, that railroad ROI benefitted from dieselization.

The facts are weak for dieselization's case regarding its alleged positive financial impact. What 9 pages have shown, however, is that belief structures are strong.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Anonymous]

Old timer, I'm speculating there was a RIO drop of about half shortly after deilization, but that would be offset by the great increase after they layoffs of the 3rd man of steamers and the hundreds of support crews.

As I stated earlier, deisels increased ROI and profits by reducing the Manhours a railroad had to employ compared to steam. No longer did you need those turntables and roundhouses everywhere, nor the countless men who stationed refueling/watering points along the route. Specilized mechanics were replaced by the general mechanics, as most deisels had interchangeable parts and unlike steamers, didn't need to have certain parts fabricated on site.

After 9 pages of this, we still have Sol and company arguing with no direct evidence of anything except that manhours were reduced and profits were increased by deiselization.

[Anonymous]

N&W's Y7 has been pretty well covered by Pond and by Jeffries; as mentioned, the second edition of Jeffries' book should be available within days.

Jeffries also has a side elevation of the Y7 compiled from available shop drawings. It would have fit on N&W's standard 115' turntables. Weights were not figured, but with N&W's usage of the Cooper E-72 axle loading gauge, weight on drivers would have been around 576,000 pounds, with probably another 30,000 on the lead truck and 50,000 on the trailer, for a total of 656,000 pounds. This would not have made it the heaviest of 2-8-8-2s.

C. E. Pond says that the boiler pressure would have been set at 285 pounds, but if actually constructed it would have probably been at N&W's then standard for 2-8-8-2s of 300.

When the engine was being designed, the first class A 2-6-6-4s were just hitting the road, as were the first Y6 compound 2-8-8-2s. The railroad didn't have much experience with the As at the time; it knew what performance to expect from the Y6 because of the success (performance, not maintenance because of the bar frames) of the Y4a (Y5) built in 1930.

The shelving of the Y7 because of the proposed legislation makes a good story, but I think that the N&W found out a couple of things about the class A and the Y6 that helped put the Y7 to sleep. First, the A produced more DBHP at high speed than anything else in the world in 1936. The A also burned coal like nothing else N&W had ever seen in so doing; N&W wasn't troubled by this fact because of the results that came out of the tender drawbar. But they had to realize that a simple 2-8-8-2 with cylinders 2" larger was going to be even more of a coal eater. Would the results at the drawbar be worth it? Evidently they didn't think so.

The compound Y6 would have been much more economical in the mountains than the Y7, and the A, on the flat districts, would handle as much train as the railroad could be comfortable with (getting in and out of yards, and such). In short the Y7 was going to be a "niche" engine. The only districts where high speed was hard on the Y6 were the Bristol Line west of Radford and the Shenandoah Division north of Shenandoah; these were, speedwise, the most demanding districts for the Y6, but they caused less trouble in those areas than might be expected.

Add to these factors, the Y7 was going to use a trailing truck booster to bump its low-speed tractive effort up into the Y6's class. This adds a high-cost, high-maintenance item of jewelry to the engine. It might have been an advantage over the Y6 of 1936 which had to be shifted from simple to compound at about 4-5 MPH, but not over the later Y6 as modified with the improved intercepting valves which could be operated simple up to 10 MPH with additional help from the booster valve above 10 MPH.

So it probably was for the best that the Y7 was never built, but put me on the list of those who would love to have seen it.

Oh, and Futuremodal - you have suggested that post-dieselization the railroads ROI diminished by half, but can't show any concrete correlation between that fact and the costs of dieselization. I asked for names of railroads whose bankruptcies could directly be blamed on dieselization and none are forthcoming.

I suggest to you that the post-dieselization ERA ROI would have been much less than half, if the railroads had found it necessary to operate with steam

Old Timer

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73
The theory you have put forward falls completely apart when one looks at the PRR. It was THE railroad in the 1940s and 1950s. Their ROI fell quicker because they did not dieselize. Instead of buying 2 E7s in the fall of 1945 they should have bought at least 100 and not wasted all of that time and effort trying to replace their (worn out ?) steamers with T1s and the other experiments.

Your railroad on the other hand did such a terrible job of deiselization that your theory makes sense.

Switchers and road diesels show completely different characteristics from the standpoint of ROI.

The nice thing about looking at combined results from all railroads is that individual policy idiosyncracies and financial circumstances average themselves out and the results can be more easily assessed as "true" results.

However, while I have indeed "put forward" the theory, I must make clear it is not my own, but rather that of Gibbs & Hill, perhaps the most distinguished motive power consulting firm of the era, and which knew the PRR quite well, incidentally.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[traintownofcowee]

Simple...
Steam looks better.
Diesels are ugly. (Not all)
Steam need a lot of special care.
Diesels don't.
Steam is special.
Diesels aren't.
And what about electrics?
Talk to me when the power goes out while your on one.
(I like steam a lot more than diesels)

C U ALL L8TER!!!
[:)][8D][:D][8)][|)][:P][;)][X-)][%-)][(-D][(-D][swg][{(-_-)}]

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding


nanaimo73: Was the FT diesel the Dreadnought of the railroads?[:)]

I don't know. I'm not good at that type of question.


Michael-
The theory you have put forward seems to fall completely apart when one looks at the PRR. It was THE railroad in the 1940s and 1950s. Their ROI fell quicker because they did not dieselize. Instead of buying 2 E7s in the fall of 1945 they should have bought at least 100 and not wasted all of that time and effort trying to replace their (worn out ?) steamers with T1s and the other experiments.

Your railroad on the other hand did such a terrible job of deiselization that the theory makes sense. From 1939 to 1959 they bought 524 EMDs (26 models), 153 FMs (8 models), 127 Alcos (8 models), 54 Baldwins (7 models), 7 Whitcombs, 3 GEs and 2 Davenports. About 300 of those were straight switchers and the other 500 could be used on the road.
Could you tell me what your railroad should have done ? Would you agree they should have purchased 200 S2 Alco switchers during 1940 and 1941. I think this could have taken care of switching until 1972 when the Dash 2s came out. From there would you stay with steam until 1949 (FP7s for passenger trains) and 1954 (GP9s for everything else) ? And then in 1972 a mixture of GP38-2, GP40-2 and SD40-2s and the replacement of the S2 switchers with the GP9s ?

[Murphy Siding]

Old Timer: This thread has somewhar morphed from an arguement about which is better-steam or diesel, intp an interesting (to me at least) discussion about the process of dieselization. To Mid-Timers like me (45), it gives my brain a little workout to ponder some things, like did the railroads dieselize too quickly for their own good? Did those that held out fare any better because of it? Why didn't the holdouts stick to steam? I know steam is gone. I feel that it was inevitable, once the diesel was perfected. I just desire to learn a little more about that time in history. Your input is valuble too. If it's a waste of time to talk about this, a good case could be made that it's a waste of time to talk about trains-but we do.

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by feltonhill

nanaimo73 -

The quote by C. E. Pond you referenced from Trains pretty much summarizes what's known about it. There's additional information including a diagram, in Bud Jeffries book, N&W Giant of Steam, second edition available very soon from N&WHS (nwhs.org). There are also about 100 drawings that have survived at NWHS archives. I did a detailed elevation of it but don't known how to post jpg files here.

Thanks.
Would the Y7 have been more like a Big Boy than an A was ?

[feltonhill]

nanaimo73 -

The quote by C. E. Pond you referenced from Trains pretty much summarizes what's known about it. There's additional information including a diagram, in Bud Jeffries book, N&W Giant of Steam, second edition available very soon from N&WHS (nwhs.org). There are also about 100 drawings that have survived at NWHS archives. I did a detailed elevation of it but don't known how to post jpg files here.

[Modelcar]

....My opinion...Yes, opinion is this: Use all the pluses and minuses of steam locomotion.....and compare all the pluses and minuses of diesel-electric power and come up with a resulting factor and I'm on the side of a railroad being better off in most categories with using the diesel-electric power.....This is not considering whether the company scrapped useable steam too soon {waisteful}, and purchasing new diesel-electric too many too quick, etc....to hurt the bottom line....I'm forming my opinion of just which kind of power is the better for a railroad co. to be using now...in 2005.

[rrandb]

As stated in the original post the biggest "advantage of steam vs. diesels" is that diesels are still available for purchase and steam is not. Even China has finally stopped manfacturing steam and no one rode this iron horse farther than they did. [2c]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Old Timer

Well, we've used up eight pages of this thread proving nothing.

Those seeking to impress us with their thermodynamic and/or mechanical expertise have yet to prove that there was a technology in place in the 1950s that would make a steam locomotive more profitable than a diesel, or more specifically, make steam propulsion more profitable.

Those seeking to revise history by utilizing the works of previous would-be revisionist historians to prove that the railroads were overburdened by the cost of financing their diesel purchases have yet to point to any railroad bankruptcy that was directly attributable to the purchases of diesels. Oh, a couple of railroads went bankrupt in the early post-steam era, notably the NYO&W and the PC, but both of those were on the way to bankruptcy anyhow. Their failures can't be blamed on dieselization.

I guess what I'm saying is that this is getting tiresome. Can we do something else for a change?

Old Timer

This thread is about Steam vs Diesel, if it is getting tiresome for you, don't read it. The facts laid out in this thread suggest that the debt accumulation that resulted from massive dieseliztion, during which perfectly good steam locomotives with years of servicability left were scrapped, had a direct correlation with the railroad industry's ROI falling by half, and no other event has as close of a correlation with this reduction in ROI. Such a fact may be tiresome for you (or perhaps troubling to you in that it erodes your established view of rail history), but it is there nonetheless. Most of us find this analysis enlightening.

However, if you have any facts or opinions on the subject that you feel need to be extolled, by all means share them, because that's what this forum is all about.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

If Rio Grande and East Broad Top, among others, wished to dieselize their narrow gauge lines, all three of the major diesel builders offered export designs which would have been suitable for narrow gauge use. GE even sold diesels to South Africa for their 2'6" narrow gauge. The DL535E's from Alco on White Pass & Yukon were a variant of one of Alco's best-selling export designs.

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

QUOTE: Originally posted by AC6000CW

there 2 railroads in the united states that are narrow gauage.

Really? Which ones, and where are they?

Thanks

The White Pass and Yukon, in Alaska. And as Chad mentioned, the Plaster City line east of San Diego received some WP&Y diesels. The D&RGW had diesel #50 at Durango, now at the Colorado RR Museum- http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=80306
There was a diesel powered narrow gauge in northern Arkansas (Limedale ?) until a few years ago.

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Old Timer

Can we do something else for a change?

Old Timer

Certainly. Could you start a thread about the Y7 ?

QUOTE: Written by C E Pond, page 41, October 1984 Trains

In the middle 1930's, N&W locomotive designers were requested to make some layouts of a larger locomotive with more tractive effort and higher horsepower to handle heavier trains at higher speeds. The type selected was a 2-8+8-2 single-expansion locomotive with boiler proportions as large as clearances would permit. Some of the specifications of this proposed Y7 class: 26x30-inch cylinders; 63-inch drivers; 130 square-foot grate area; 7100 square feet evaporative heating surface; 2900 square feet superheating surface; 285 pounds boiler pressure; and 153,000 pounds tractive force (142,000 pounds main engine and 11,000 pounds booster). Unfortunately, in July 1937, Federal legislation was introduced to limit freight-train lenght to 70 cars, which sounded the death knell for the new design. The legislation never passed, but before the question was resolved all work on the Y7 project was terminated.

[Tulyar15]

From a British perspective there is no doubt that the advent of diesel railcars saved a number of branch lines from closure. The lower costs saved money whilst the greater speed and improved ambience of the diesel cars helped bring back customers in the 1950's. As for buying diesel locos, British Rail bough too many too quickly. A far more sensible approach prevailed in the Irish Republic where they started dieselisation in the late 1940's and did it on a gradual basis, eliminating steam in 1964. They avoided BR's wasteful practice of buying lots of new steams locos then scrapping them after less than 10 years. (Some of the less reliable types of diesels BR bough did not last much longer!). Had BR followed the Irish approach I think its finances would have been a lot better.

[Anonymous]

Well, we've used up eight pages of this thread proving nothing.

Those seeking to impress us with their thermodynamic and/or mechanical expertise have yet to prove that there was a technology in place in the 1950s that would make a steam locomotive more profitable than a diesel, or more specifically, make steam propulsion more profitable.

Those seeking to revise history by utilizing the works of previous would-be revisionist historians to prove that the railroads were overburdened by the cost of financing their diesel purchases have yet to point to any railroad bankruptcy that was directly attributable to the purchases of diesels. Oh, a couple of railroads went bankrupt in the early post-steam era, notably the NYO&W and the PC, but both of those were on the way to bankruptcy anyhow. Their failures can't be blamed on dieselization.

I guess what I'm saying is that this is getting tiresome. Can we do something else for a change?

Old Timer

[Anonymous]

Canadian National had a narraw gauge line in Newfoundland but abandoned the line several years ago.

White Pass & Yukon Route is a narraw gauge line. They pulled out of Whitehorse, Yukon in 1982 but I heard talk that the section of line from Lake Bennet to Whitehorse may be reopened. But I don't anything concrete has been planned.

[chad thomas]

There is a narrow guage railroad at Plaster City,Ca.

And I belive the Carson and Colarado (SP subsidiary) had at least one diesel switcher before it quit.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AC6000CW

there 2 railroads in the united states that are narrow gauage.

Really? Which ones, and where are they?

Thanks

[AC6000CW]

there 2 railroads in the united states that are narrow gauage.

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AC6000CW

on a narrow gauage railway steam would be the solution because there no narrow gauage diesel in north america.

There was *some* narrower than standard gauge. In Canada, I *think* one railroad in the Yukon and one in Newfoundland had narrow guage.

[AC6000CW]

on a narrow gauage railway steam would be the solution because there no narrow gauage diesel in north america.

[Leon Silverman]

RailroadDoc:
For the record, your Thermodynamics are a little off. Steam engines exhausting to the atmosphere would use 212 degrees as their lowest temperature. Condensers, drawing a vacuum, can theretically condense at the temperature of their cooling water, but, using an absolute pressure of 1 psi, that would be 101.74 degrees. Supercritcal conditions could be achieved at a minimum pressure of 3220 psi (3206.2psi absolute), above a temperature of 705.4 degrees Farenheit.

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Michael: Did the Santa Fe fare any better? Given that every book about dieselization says that SF *needed* diesels, for their bad water,desert areas?

Santa Fe was one of the roads specifically looked at by H.F. Brown, so there is a well-developed record on that point, but I would have to go back and look at what Brown said on the matter.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Murphy Siding]

Michael: Did the Santa Fe fare any better? Given that every book about dieselization says that SF *needed* diesels, for their bad water,desert areas?