The NSW Railways 3800 class fast express passenger locomotives were made with fabricated cylinder / valve / saddles. Honestly.....we're still debating this in the 21st century? A modern steam locomotive made along old lines would include replaceable liners in fabricated cylinders, lightweight pistons and valves with many narrow rings, multiple bearing crossheads, and a rationalized forced feed lubrication system. Real combustion engineering for other than making-lots-of-heat-fast-and-damn-the-cost can be fit into the envelope of an old boiler outline. exhaust steam can be made to heat and pump feedwater, and heat wasted through the boiler and smokebox shells can be used to generate DC power using Peltier junctions to replace the steam-wasting and noisy dynamo. Much of this stuff was available shortly after WWII but with steam on the way out, it wasn't developed back then.

I'm still waiting for car makers to use the heat wasted in the cat converter to operate an absorbtion cooler instead of using engine power to run a mechanical air conditioner, too.

dave

Getting back on topic, I take it no one out there in L&RYPN land has any recent news on these guys and the Hudson project is dead in the water? I had one email that these guys were involved with an up state New York line, and even went to look at the Steamtown Ex NYC tender, but never got past that point. Also, they were looking at building it in New York State in order to get some sort of state funding available at the time. Have fun - David Notarius, London UK, (Ex New Hope Pa)

There is no recent news. Foamy grandiose dreaming halfheartedly seeking a sponsor with very deep pockets that never materialized a long, long time ago in an economy far, far away.

Antique appearing 4-4-0s get built using old style technology. We're NOT British culturally, as you are no doubt completely appreciating now, lucky you. Our inability to cooperate to execute large scale cooperative ventures like the Brits leaves us making small stuff like custom artworks instead........but we do them pretty well.

dave

Also, and going back to the organizational differences between the railroads in the US and the UK, the first question that needs to be answered is where would you run it?

I'm not British, I just live here. I think the group had some sort of suport, if only a pat on the back, from Metro North at the time, about 1996.

In the past few years, Santa Fe 4-8-4 3751 has been able to "stretch her legs" by using the Metrolink San Bernardino Line for trips to "San Berdoo". This line has high-speed track, minimal freight traffic on weekends, and local control. The "ultimate irony" is that a good portion of the route follows the Pacific Electric San Bernardino Line, which saw steam power mostly during World War II.