You know I tried to talk John Smith in to buying a few 2-8-2's if he hit the lottery.... however I think he'd rather buy 614 and lease an H8 and an H6 plus about 5 other locomotives before he'd go forigen.

But it did bring up a serious question, how tight a curve will these things take? Highfalls and Switchback ring in at 33 and 29 degrees respectivly (you read that right even sharper then some of the ones at Cass!)

The main line from Tygart Junction to Elkins has a 14 degree curve or two, could you get a 2-10-2 around a 14 degree curve??

Perhaps because they are brand-new in comparison to the domestic locos you mentioned. I recall the 2100 was up for sale for quite some time. Buying one of these eliminates the restoration "can of worms" to some degree.

And because there are plentiful newer copies available, lots of parts still supported through MultiPower, and costs to bring them into compliance in China are minimal (exponentially) relative to those in the USA. Sea shipping costs are not excessive either, compared to heavy oversize haul trucking and rigging.

We have also been in many cases our own worst enemies, concerning our restoration projects on our own native power. Bureaucratic overload, lack of industrial support, few competent suppliers, and other factors have driven our costs very high, beyond what can be saved through the use of volunteers for some parts of the job. Jobs that are largely volunteer with minimal need for qualified suppliers to do regulated work tend to promote their accomplishments as being "heroic" in scope, when in reality it is nothing more than what was done daily in every enginehouse in the country 80 years ago by guys whose primary interest was in getting their pay and going home after their shift was over.

So, we have created conditions that make the work harder than it needs to be, more costly than it needs to be, which leads to self-congradulatory hyperbole in our publicity. Once we start to believe our own publicity, we have already started down a slippery incline.

This is still everyday work in China. The compliance issues hurdle has been resolved, so any further imports will not need to solve that problem again. The available locomotives in China are nowhere near as worn out as our remaining stock, so there is less to be overcome. China has the infrastructure and industrial support base we have lost.

Given the discussion about replication we have indulged in, I am amazed it took an enterpreneur this long to start exploring this market. If we can now solve the problem of getting our export locomotives to Cuba rebuilt in China and offered freely to the USA at similar cost, we can have the history too.

dave

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How about Grand Canyon? Didn't they try to aquire an SY once? It seems to me everytime I see a picture of either 4960 or 29, they are assisted by diesels because the trains have gotten so long (at least I assume that's the reason). Wouldn't a larger engine (like a QJ) eliminate that need?

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought chinese engines had the hogger on the left side of the cab, are these changed over or are they still left handed?

This photo is from the Multipower International site.
http://www.multipowerinternational.com/liveqj.html

Huh ? Banking engines for... ?

For those who don't know, Mr. Posner is a very bright guy out of Princeton University who started out in the Conrail management training program and whose career shot upwards from there. Under his stewardship ,RDC has done very well privatizing the operation of many foreign state-owned railroad properties. There have always been hints that his interest in the railroad business has been avocational as well as vocational.

So, I would suspect that he did a very thorough job of developing a business case for the concept of importing ready-to-run 'used' steam locomotives from China. A chance to make history and make a few bucks at the same time.

I note that China has committed to the purchase of some 600 diesel-electric locomotives from both EMD and GE. This decision was well in advance of the current run-up in oil prices and seemed to ignore the fact that China has very large coal reserves. As of late, there has been some concern on the part of the Chinese govt. about the growth in consumption of imported oil.

Seems to me that the re-introduction of steam locomotives to class one railroading is a big stretch. Perhaps the first thing to happen (if it hasn't already) will be exploration and extraction of crude from known oil fields that were previously unprofitable to drill. Next, there may be development of such technologies as biodiesel and liquefaction of coal.

Perhaps electrification of certain main lines will get another look.

Nonetheless, there is a certain institutional momentum on the part of the railroads (and the suppliers) which tends to favor the d/e locomotive. It isn't hard to guess that GE and EMD will protect their business should some wholesale shift in technology become reality.

One last thing: About 10 years ago, GE was a developing a locomotive that could burn a coal slurry in a modified FDL engine. I suspect that a revisit of that concept is much less of a long shot than dusting off plans for the ACE-3000.

Dave

Labor in China is pennies on the dollar compared to th US. A well paid US industrial worker makes as much in one day as his Chinese counterpart does in a month.

Starbucks coffee has got to be less expensive there ;-)

Hi other Dave- the tragedy is that David Wardale was in China, working on designing and building a new generation of cleaner and more efficient coal burning steam, before the politicians decided to dieselize despite the low labor cost and coal / oil reserve inbalance for reasons of international image. If he had been allowed to continue, China would now be known as the innovator of efficient appropriate technology in an oil poor world, rather than a follower of the Western oil dependence.

dave

Shipping a standard container from Hong Kong to the West Coast is $1000 or less. Shipping a steam loco is probably less than $5000 - less than a set of flues.

One can probably purchase an operating Chinese loco and get it to the west coast more cheaply than one can acquire a non-operating American loco of the same size (say, a 2-8-2). And you can ship it inland for less than you can return a loco to service.

I'm not making a case either way, just pointing out that startup-cost figures favor the Chinese locos.

JAC

And the real usefulness would be for someone to ship some of our more interesting hulks OVER THERE for contract rebuild. But, with China's headlong rush to dieselization, they are not going to be maintaining the rebuild facilities for long.

Dear John:

The QJs are costing about US$70K each to ship from Dalian to Houston. The ship transporting them is a "heavy hauler" with ship mounted cranes so it can load and unload itself. The cost might be more if dock or floating cranes were used for the loading or unloading. Shipping charges are based on a number of factors, weight and volumn are major issues but easy of loading and stowing is nearly as important. Containers are cheap to ship regardless of weight for this reason.

Someone suggested shipping locos to China for overhaul. A nice idea, but totally impractical. The Chinese locomotive shops are set up for standardized repairs with standardized parts on standardized locomotives.

J.David

Color me wrong, then. Thanks.

JAC