Argument about carbon emissions and steam operations?

robertmacdowell · **Posted:** Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:08 pm

nathansixchime wrote:

We had a study done by the son of one of our founders, who for his thesis project in mechanical engineering discussed the carbon footprint of a steam locomotive versus, say a 747 jet.

Needless to say that the 765 has a smaller footprint than a 747 jet, and there is only one 765 in the world...and how many 747s?

The simplest and most direct response is just what has been published by the FRA and other entities in regard to Tier 3 and 4 emissions requirements: the operation of steam locomotives and their carbon output are too infrequent to be regulated.

that has long been the view of California toward classic cars. they realized that a '57 Chevy is not a daily driver, and they aren't making any more of them. The poorly maintained ones will wear out, and the lovingly maintained ones, as a rule, only come out for car shows.

In fact, they have the Smog Buy-Back program where the government will pay you $1000 to take your old polluter off the streets. This includes the Smog Buy-Back-BACK program, wherein every car the government buys is listed on a website, and any citizen can buy it back out of the program for about that $1000. The government wants to be a supplier to the lucrative collector car industry, and is happy to take the $1000 for that Citroen DS21 and use it to take another '85 Corolla off the streets.

Besides, you'd sooner pry guns out of the hands of Texans than collector cars out of the hands of Californians.

whodom · **Posted:** Wed Jun 12, 2013 12:43 pm

robertmacdowell wrote:

that has long been the view of California toward classic cars. they realized that a '57 Chevy is not a daily driver, and they aren't making any more of them. The poorly maintained ones will wear out, and the lovingly maintained ones, as a rule, only come out for car shows.

In fact, they have the Smog Buy-Back program where the government will pay you $1000 to take your old polluter off the streets. This includes the Smog Buy-Back-BACK program, wherein every car the government buys is listed on a website, and any citizen can buy it back out of the program for about that $1000. The government wants to be a supplier to the lucrative collector car industry, and is happy to take the $1000 for that Citroen DS21 and use it to take another '85 Corolla off the streets.

Besides, you'd sooner pry guns out of the hands of Texans than collector cars out of the hands of Californians.

That's good to know. That's positively brilliant compared to the federal "gas hog" rebate program of a few years ago which mandated that all cars turned in had to have a chemical concoction dumped in their engines and the engines operated at full-throttle until they self-destructed.

Mark Trebing · **Posted:** Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:07 pm

Another thing to keep in mind is that diesel engines produce fine particulate soot, while coal-fired steam locomotives produce mostly large particulate soot. The fine soot penetrates deep into your lunges, and sticks there. Large particulate soot falls (or is rained) out of the air much faster than fine soot. The really black smoke from hard firing contains large particles that literally fall out of the sky. In my opinion, coal-fired steam locomotive exhaust is much healthier than diesel exhaust, at least in regard to soot.

There are many studies on the emissions produced by diesel engines. I don't know if anybody has done an emissions study on coal-fired steam locomotives.

-Mark