QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith Regardless of whether Steam was or wasnt at that time more efficient than dismals, the long term advantages of dieselization was pretty clear to the RR company bean counters in the front office.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol QUOTE: Originally posted by wallyworld In engineering, which is what I did- a critical assumption is a assumption. If you read the few papers that are produced on this topic-steam versus diesel may not be as clear cut a issue as many assume. http://www.5at.co.uk/Roger%20Waller's%20IMechE%20Paper.pdf Most international motive power experts that came and looked at America's dieselization efforts came away with the same conclusion. There were some advantages, there were some disadvantages, but it was nothing like what the dieselization advocates claimed. For instance, one statistical sleight of hand, which has already appeared on this thread, was the "availability." One reason the rail industry is interesting because of so many things it does on a daily basis so well. That stands in marked contrast to strategic decisions by which the industry regularly seems to shoot itself in the foot, or wheel, if you will. GM proudly claimed availability of 87% or more on its diesels, compared of course to the dismal 61-68% for steam. Statistically, that was a falsehood; absolutely unequivocally false. But every mechanical officer in the country bought it. Why was it false? Because, the statistic was only for the the single unit with a rail hp output of 1350 hp. But, it took four of those units to generate the 5,400 rail hp necessary to equal the single steam engine. That meant 64 cyclinders, four generators, four sets of control equipment, 4,800 gallons of fuel, 800 gallons of lubricating oil, 920 gallons of cooling water and thousands of moving parts operating at temperatures and combustion pressures far in excess of anything on the steam engine the four unit set replaced. Each unit, however, represented a distinct, independent statistical probability -- 87% availability. The law of probability for events with statistical independence is that the overall probability of failure is the multiple of the probability of each independent event. The statistical availability of the four unit FT set, then was the multiple of 87%, four times. A four unit FT set, then, had a statistical availability of only 57%. substantially lower than the steam engine it replaced. The substantially lower annual mileage of diesel locomotives compared to their road Steam counterparts is one of the puzzling artifacts of the statistical record which never gets an explanation. Well, now you know why. One of the unavoidable consequences of multiple unit operation of low horsepower units was the substantially lower availability of diesel sets, compared to the steam they replaced.
QUOTE: Originally posted by wallyworld In engineering, which is what I did- a critical assumption is a assumption. If you read the few papers that are produced on this topic-steam versus diesel may not be as clear cut a issue as many assume. http://www.5at.co.uk/Roger%20Waller's%20IMechE%20Paper.pdf
QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol Well, the ultimate costs per 1000 tons of freight moved showed that this proposition wasn't true. The costs of steam were about the same as the costs of diesel. That included labor. Notwithstanding the mass production arguments, diesel locomotives cost more per rail hp to purchase than steam. Therefore, the rate of return had to be less. Why do you think that was? Best regards, Michael Sol I'm not so sure you can just ignore that point, just for the sake of supporting your idea? Not just that point, but the point of standardized (interchangable) parts threw a BIG advantage to the diesel. For example, you couldn't order a new piston for your steam locomotive from the manufacturer, take it out of the box (crate?) and install it, it had to be machined to fit. Or the manufacturer had to custom machine it for you to your dimensions. You could order a new piston for your diesel from EMD and it would be a direct fit right from the box. One of the major reasons that many railroad machine shops closed down after the conversion as documented in "Diesel Victory," a recent special issue from Classic Trains.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol Well, the ultimate costs per 1000 tons of freight moved showed that this proposition wasn't true. The costs of steam were about the same as the costs of diesel. That included labor. Notwithstanding the mass production arguments, diesel locomotives cost more per rail hp to purchase than steam. Therefore, the rate of return had to be less. Why do you think that was? Best regards, Michael Sol I'm not so sure you can just ignore that point, just for the sake of supporting your idea?
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol Well, the ultimate costs per 1000 tons of freight moved showed that this proposition wasn't true. The costs of steam were about the same as the costs of diesel. That included labor. Notwithstanding the mass production arguments, diesel locomotives cost more per rail hp to purchase than steam. Therefore, the rate of return had to be less. Why do you think that was? Best regards, Michael Sol
Have fun with your trains
QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding My point is, MichaelSol is stretching things a bit to just disregard this little point .
QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol Well, the ultimate costs per 1000 tons of freight moved showed that this proposition wasn't true. The costs of steam were about the same as the costs of diesel. That included labor. Notwithstanding the mass production arguments, diesel locomotives cost more per rail hp to purchase than steam. Therefore, the rate of return had to be less. Why do you think that was? Best regards, Michael Sol I'm not so sure you can just ignore that point, just for the sake of supporting your idea? So why do you think steam couldn't/can't be mass produced on an assembly line? The fact that steam was custom built back then was just the modus operandi of the steam builders. Remember, the Ford auto plants were only a decade or two old back then, so mass production en masse for US producers wasn't yet the prefered way. FYI, one of the primary reasons Baldwin failed so miserably in its diesel production was that it tried to build diesels the same way they built steam, e.g. customization.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl Or back to the original question: How many of even the latest steam locomotives have the capabilty of being MU'd? It is true that diesels had to have the mu-ing capability to provide the same horsepower as a single unit steam. What is interesting is how little of a change mu-ing made to train operation; the train size statistics changed little.
QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl Or back to the original question: How many of even the latest steam locomotives have the capabilty of being MU'd?
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl If existing low water alarms were reliable at this point in history, why did boilers still have sight glasses and try cocks? How many steam engines were built with 1950's technology?
QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl If existing low water alarms were reliable at this point in history, why did boilers still have sight glasses and try cocks?
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl As I stated above, not with a crown sheet failure, which would be more possible if nobody is in the cab to monitor the boiler water level, especially with the technology of the 50's. The technology of the 50s. Hmmm. The transistor, satelites in space, the jet engine, high temperature, high impact ceramics, the first commercial computers, the first production of electricity from atomic energy, super glue, power steering, the videotape recorder, bar codes, radial tires, vaccine for poliomyelitis, color TV, teflon, fiber optics, microwave ovens, hovercrafts, the laser, integrated circuits, etc. etc. But with "the technology of the 50s" they couldn't figure out a way to monitor boiler water levels? I'm skeptical.
QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl As I stated above, not with a crown sheet failure, which would be more possible if nobody is in the cab to monitor the boiler water level, especially with the technology of the 50's.
QUOTE: Originally posted by MichaelSol During dieselization, overall speed limits were reduced on equivalent track from the standards prevalent during the steam era. Why would that happen if Diesels were easier on the track structure than Steam? Best regards, Michael Sol
QUOTE: Originally posted by youngengineer I think with this discussion one fact is overlooked, the most exspensive part of the railroad is manpower. Its not fuel, track maintenance, water, what ever else you want to try to average together and compare. Today your typical train has a conductor and an engineer, if you bring back the steam engine you must add a fireman, therefore steam is no longer viable. In the near future it looks like that a train may have only one person on board, an engineer, this would never be possible with a steam engine, once again steam will always be found in museums only. Somewhere down the road in the future, I know i will be shunned for this comment, diesels may be run by satelite, need for anyone on the train itself possibly nill, once again steam engine, no one on board run by computers not gonna happen. One point that I had not seen brought up was the fact that steam engines are 1 of a kind, they dont lend themselves to mass production, hence one of the major problems for baldwin, alco and the like was lack of mass production capacity, everything was hand built. The need for interchangeable parts is necessary for a modern product, if you cant change out parts easily than the cost of replacement is astronomical. I could be wrong and Im sure I will be shown the errors of my ways but I think that personel costs alone would doom the steam engine today.
QUOTE: Originally posted by ardenastationmaster [What did it for the diesel was availability. The diesel, even in its formative years, had an availability of 80% (today it's even higher). The steam locomotive's availability hovered around 50-65% at best. Almost half its life was spent being tweaked and tightened up in the backshop. Out on the road, steam had an ugly habit of hammering the rail every time the piston and main rods came down. "Dynamic augment" was never fully overcome during the steam era. With its large driving wheel base, the steam locomotive always "hunted" going down the track, putting forces on the sides of the rail, both of which might explain why CWR didn't become popular until after steam was retired.
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