Folks,

I want to comment on one aspect of this. Steam engines are about history and that is the major selling point of museums with steam operations. I don'think you will ever see a totally foreign engine operate at the Orange Empire Railway Museum; Ventura #2 is connected with Southern California.

The use of a Swedish built engine in Maine has not been a resounding success. And the narrow gauge #10 at WW&F has taken a cousin of a Maine engine and rebuilt it even closer to a Maine example. The plan at WW&F is to build a new boiler to run the #9 so they can run a true native.

The Chinese locomotives that were imported by the Essex Steam Train about 15 years ago don.t seem to be doing much. I will be interested in seeing what happens with the two or three that just came into the US.

There are a lot of locomotives with history in museums and parks for us to be using foreign leftovers. And the British are still working on that replica of an A1 Pacific; but it is taking way more money than the project founders thought it would. Last I heard they still need $400, 000 to pay for what they have and finish the work.

As for me I am so glad that the D&RGW 315 and the RGS 20 are coming back to life! I hope they have a place to run them!

Ted Miles

That's a whole other question Ted.

Does the general public care about the historical authenticity of steam operating on a tourist railroad or a museum demonstration line?

My guess is if it is pretty, goes choo-choo, and has a nice whistle the majority of them don't. I have heard about visitors not knowing the difference between steam and diesel!

But the original question was about costs to maintain an operating steam locomotive whether it is historic or replica or just old and running.

Have you guys figured out the cost per sailing day / nautical mile / whatever / for the Jeremiah?

dave

I'm afraid this topic is like the old joke about the price of an exotic automobile, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it."

The same laws of physics and economics that caused railroads to replace steam with diesel also apply to a museum or tourist railroad like it or not.

At an ARM conference many years ago, I asked representatives of every museum that operated steam if they put money in the bank every time they operated their locomotive to pay for the eventual major overhaul. Not one museum said that they did. They simply were using up whatever life was left in the locomotive.

One particular operation regularly used 50 gallons of diesel fuel to operate a round trip. The one time it was operated with steam, it used 500 gallons of fuel. This was a worst case situation with a locomotive coming from a cold start to run for less than two hours.

Unfortunately you cannot build that kind of cost into your ticket prices unless you have something else going for the ride like the spectacular mountain scenery on the Durango and Silverton. Check D&S ticket prices.

If you are making a business decision about using a steam locomotive, the first question you must ask is can I raise enough money from ticket sales to pay all expenses including the cost of money invested. If the answer is no, then it becomes an emotional decision.

Alan, Wes, etc thanks for the information.

I wonder if it might make sense for somebody with a background in cost accounting who works in railway preservation or tourist railway operation to put together a little information, maybe some formulas, ways to categorize and track costs (fiscal and other) and share it so we can all start to get a better handle on what things really cost and where resources are going?

Perhaps an ad hoc committee could get together and brainstorm about it in Sacramento - the program skews pretty heavily towards business matters anyhow, so it would fit in. Maybe somebody already has something worked out?

I figure it can be made easy enough that those of us who are not naturally attuned to crunching numbers can at least gather enough data to reach some general meaningful conclusions if a pro shows us the way.

dave

Dave,

Can one new steam locomotive replace 1.5 old locomotives and be far more efficient……

YES!

Can a new steam locomotive built with some of today’s technology pull more, burn less fuel and spend less time in the shop…..even up to 75% less time……..

YES!

This is a very interesting discussion and one that needs to be continued. I am going to ask our company Foreman, Matthew A. Janssen to join in as well.

Here is my point of view. Steam technology as we know it today really ended in the late 1940’s. Diesels were inevitable, the war held production of diesels back due to manpower and material shortages. And if the railroads had their way they would have dieslized in 1935! True, some of our largest steam super power came in the 1940’s but could it have been better? YES.

By 1960 the only (most of anyway) steam left in the world was being operated by third world countries. These units were “hand-me-downs” or our rejects in other words. A few very intelligent people began wondering if these machines could perform better, do more and burn less. L.D. Porta was one of these highly intelligent people who not only asked the question but proved that the answer to the question was yes.

But hold the show, we the American’s would have nothing to do with it. We have the mighty diesel, why would we digress back to historic technology? Our American ego, more than anything has held us back from realizing the true potential of steam.

Last year the Grand Canyon Railway applied some of Mr. Porta’s technology. What was the result? The result was a stronger more powerful locomotive that pulls more cars and burns less fuel……..who would have thought!

What operation out there would not want to pull more people, do less maintenance, burn less fuel and spend less money over-all?

The technology is here. Our company holds many of the keys to implementing the technology. This issue (the issue of fuel consumption, locomotive power and over all cost) will make or break our industry. Dave, you asked about the financial study and I must say, this study (the study of available technology) is the next step. Our industry will face this issue and we will face it sooner than later. By the way, bringing steam locomotives to America from China or any other country is not technology it is just a newer machine. These two QJ’s are not new steam technology other than the applied welding technology. Technological improvements go far beyond anything we have in America. Go read the Red Devil.

Last year, Gary Bensman, Matt Janssen and Sam Lanter of the Grand Canyon Railway sponsored a discussion around Mr. Porta’s work during the TRAIN convention. I have heard that the same discussion may be held this year at TRAIN /ARM 2006. I hope that those interested in this discussion will take the time to participate.

Further, if you are interested in this technology, please watch what we plan to present to the citizens of Durango, Colorado as we complete the Smoke Mitigation Study. Though I am not in a position to discuss any details of the report, I can tell you that modernization is part of the presentation. The final report will be made public October 19, 2006 in public forum in Durango, Colorado. We will post more information as we receive it. The final report will also be published for download on our web page:

www.wasatch-rr-contractors.com

Modernization, isn’t it about time?

John E. Rimmasch

Mr. Rimmasch,

May I offer, just for the sake of arguement, that "machines are cheap, time and people are expensive". While I concede that steam engines can be made more efficient, they are only part of the economic equation. Railroads want to keep labor and equipment maintence low because it's a big expenditure and hurts the bottom line. (An example - could the computer you owned 7 years ago be upgraded to the same processing power of your current one? ...yes, but was it worth the time and energy for you to make it happen, or did you make the cost/benefit decision to buy new?)

So let me redirect this thread - what is the goal of our business?
Entertainment? Education? or Historic Preservation? I think that the successful operations incorporate all of those because our audience is broad. Do people go to...
a. Ride the train
b. See the scenery
c. Experience history including steam engines?

As a steam crew volunteer, I will use the first two to empower me to continue making the third {c} happen as long as it can be funded. :-)

Sully

Our line isn’t steam, it is horse operated, (2 horses) with gas back up (for rainy days and for a couple of special occasions including a music festival on site when we become the transportation system rather than just a ride….) We host visiting steam, and the line is maintained to somewhere near class 2 standards (but no tie plates, and we use stub switches….)

The line is just over one mile, 3’ gauge. We operate three days a week, 9 months a year. Plus 12 special event days.

Our cost per operating day (two crew, 6 to 10 runs per day) is about $385 per day (over a 365 day year, assuming care of the horses whether we run or not)

We cover our regular operating expenses in our annual budget, but should set aside an additional $5500 per year for long term expenses. These break down to:

$2000 for long term horse care and replacement (including tack and coral work)
$1500 for track mostly ties (this assumes volunteer labor to install them)
$1000 for long term maintenance on our gas loco (saving for the eventual engine rebuild)
$1000 for major car work, mostly wheels, but also 15 year tear downs on our wooden flatcars used for passenger service, to fix sill rot problems.

This doesn’t include:
Any capital costs, current or past
Care, restoration, and maintenance of the museum collection which doesn’t operate as part of our “regular” demonstration railroad service.
Any interpretive programs beyond those provided by the regular crew.
Any membership expenses.

The regular operating expense does include our museums insurance.

John - I suggest we might want to start another thread for this discussion rather than lead this one of track.

I have read Red Devil, and am in frequent contact with an international informal cadre of steam experts who are putting Porta's ideas (and others) into practice.

It seems to me that for intensively operated tourist railroads that depriciate equipment rapidly in service it is inevitable that new stock will be required - you can only bore out cylinders so many times and metal fatigues and crystallizes, yada yadda.

It makes economic sense to include modernizations rather than faithfully reproduce 1880 locomotives while we are at it for reasons of efficiency, reliability, etc. Why not use your investment to not only replace deteriorated assets, but also lower operating costs in the process? I applaud Grand Canyon, Mt. Washington, and anybody who is working on pushing the envelope.

The extent to which we want to do so is also reflective of market forces - people expect to see and experience a basically recognizeable Stephensonian steam locomotive, not ACE 3000, when they board a tourist train. They don't are if it has roller bearings or friction, GPCS or a Nigelburner, a Lemporkoop or Master Mechanics front end, built in China or Philadelphia, but nostalgia is a large part of our pitch. Also, it may be practically possible to repace one with one and a half, but does our market want fewer longer trains or more shorter ones? How does our track layout effect our operating strategy regarding train length and frequency? The size of our parking lot?

To that end working on incremental retrofittable improvements to extend the remaining margin in our existing for-use stock while working on the next generation ought to interest those of us who are not in the business of pure preservation. Even preservationists who use up stuff by running it might want to do what they can to save a few bucks when repairing their dedicated locomotives.

I was among those who agitated behind the scenes for last years meeting, then got caught away from the site when the city shuttle busses stopped running and missed it! I made a damn nuisance of myself here earlier this year pushing for TRAIN to subsidize costs to bring foreign experts to Sacramento to provide us with the state of the art as is now in service in less backwards parts of the world, to no avail. If you put together such a meeting, please let me know and I will attend.

Thanks for taking on modernization as part of your company's mission. You are not alone, and hopefully as we learn more about it, it will extend the life and economic possibilities for steam in tourist service as it becomes more common, even in the USA.

BTW I tried to make a case for Georgetown Loop to either build a new locomotive or take the absolute worst old hulk and replace most of it, incorporating modernizations into the replacement fabric, rather than choose the hulks that seemed to need the least and do the least to them, with the payoff being reliability, availability, ease of maintenence, and long term economic benefits, also to no avail. If we had hard numbers available to help make the case it might have been possible. We need to work on this.

dave

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I'm going to get a wee bit crazy here.

Bearing in mind Kelly Anderson's comments above........

.... supposing that someone approaches the proposition another way:
Go find a locomotive that is either underpowered or "just right" under normal conditions, and use the sum of incremental improvements to make a more powerful locomotive that is either expendable or, as with Strasburg's bigger locos, can run at lower power with reduced wear and increased longevity.

Just as an example: Take a CN 2-6-0 like Strasburg's 89, Wilmington & Western's 92, and Middletown & Hummelstown 91, develop three welded boilers with new design/techniques, and assign them to the likes of the W&W and the Strasburg.

If my fantasy of repatriating a few Cuban steamers ever comes to pass, we'd have frames, wheels, etc. of the perfect size to upgrade with modern efficiency technology. If not the Cubans, maybe offer the Chinese some moolah for unrebuilt locos and build new boilers/blast nozzles/etc.? Sounds like a perfect project for some boiler engineering students for a final exam project...........

If not that, there are certainly quite a few static display steamers that are unloved in some towns somewhere..... aren't there a lot of SP 0-6-0's about? Or, for that matter, Southern Ry. (UK) Merchant Navy Pacifics or GWR 4-6-0's, or German/Prussian P8's?

Throughout the steam-era, railroads modernized their old steam locomotives to keep up with the times. Whether it was a feedwater heater, superheat & piston valve conversion, outside valve gear conversion, rebalancing for high speed, cast steel frame, new front-end, larger tender, there was an intent to gain power, speed, reliability, efficiency, or range by some percentage. This was a continuous process and there was almost always something new under test on some old locomotive, or even a new one. This process continued right up to the end in the U.S. as railroads tried to get the most out of their steam locomotives. It continued later in other countries. In France, André Chapelon, Chief of the Steam Locomotive Design Division of the S.N.C.F., combined the emerging science of Thermodynamics with the mechanical design of American locomotives and advanced water treatment regimes in his rebuilds to achieve records in power-to-weight ratios, efficiency, and reliability. In Germany, Von Dr. Ing. Arnold Tross, Engineer of Locomotive Boilers, Henchel & Sons Locomotive Works, used advanced mathematical analysis and mechanical testing to design staybolts with very low breakage rates that were easy to install for rebuilding wartime locomotive boilers. Later, in Argentina, Ing. L.D. Porta further developed the work of Chapelon and Tross by rebuilding the English locomotives in his country. Other countries such as China and South Africa implemented these technologies to achieve improvements in their locomotives.

What’s the point? The point is that while we have preserved operating steam locomotives, often along with their historic shops and railroads, we have not preserved MODIFYING steam locomotives as these railroads did. This is part of the process that should be preserved from a historic standpoint and also from the standpoint of the operators to make their equipment perform as best as possible.

Tourist railroads in particular should consider a different approach to improve their chances of survival. Instead of taking the view of “presenting 19XX to the public,” they need to present “The Steam Era in the 21st Century.” In France, Germany, and Argentina, significant improvements were made when new technology was implemented into NEW steam locomotives. There are certain design limitations of old locomotives that are not practical to overcome, combined with the fact that these machines have seen peak stresses and a number of load cycles not intended by their designers. For steam locomotives to continue to operate in regular service another aspect of history must be restarted, that of building new classical locomotives. This has been done in Switzerland, England, India, South Africa, and Argentina. Many of these locomotives take advantage of mechanical aspects from powerplant and diesel technologies and apply them with advanced computer-aided design and adherence to good thermodynamics. The performance of some of these locomotives is astounding and operating costs are greatly reduced. In some cases, it is possible for the classical steam locomotive to compete on a cost basis with diesels while providing the draw of the sights and sounds of operating steam.

Grease, grime, soot, cinders, and smoke (pollution) are not elements that draw the general public to tourist railroads, nor do they want to be reminded of elements of the past that have degraded the environment for us and our children. What will aid in drawing crowds is demonstrating the mechanical wonder known as the classical steam locomotive in a format acceptable to the public’s environmental expectations of industry.

Kelly Anderson stated:



Power can be traded for increased efficiency and mechanical reliability.

And not mutually exclusive. Suppose some modernizations made 90 capable of using half the fuel while doing the same third of its capable work, and modern water treatment allowed for annual rather than 30 day boiler washes. Further suppose Lancaster County suffered from a massive influx of immigrants from California and became subject to similar environmental difficulties as D&S. Would having the locomotives burn less fuel more cleanly not be of value?

I kind of like the idea of using D&S as a hypothetical test case given they do heavily use everything their locomotives can do and already are working with John and Co, so good data will be available for brainstorming.

dave

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I dunno Kelly. Just 3 or 4 years ago, we were all replacing our dome lids to avoid having them flying off into the stratosphere despite no historic evidence that they were unsafe. Then, Mark Ray found a formula that changed that law of physics, now our dome lids are just fine.

Now its braces with forged ends - no plethora of failures, yet they are supposed to be unsafe. What will it be next year? I vote for water glass light bulb sockets.

I don't have the faith in the Engineering Standards Committee I wish I did. I don't think they know near as much about building safe locomotives as Sam Vauclain, the Van Swearingen bros, and the rest of the old guard, but I do hope they will embrace proven technological evolution just as ASME has.

So if Porta water treatment is proven safe and effective, why couldn't that change also be codified? Less questionable than some of what has come down the line.

dave