I'm asking this out of curiosity, not to beat a dead horse or anything. I just want to here your opinions on the subject. I've looked at the Ultimate Steam Page and read some of the improvements and stuff and personally I still see steam as a viable means of motive power for a railroad. I know that FRA regs and stuff are geared more toward safety and diesels, but I think a steam engine could be built that could compete with diesels both economically and realisticly. So, what do you all think?

Thanks,

Stuart

Frisco 1506
gnufe@apex.net

Ohboy, Stuart, here we go.

In 1948 that may have been true. Steam infrastructure was still in place. I have an old engineering taxt from then which says that steam will die in the late 1970's when modern steam reaches the end of its economic life cycle.

In reality, almost 30 years earier mainline steam vanished. Steam in commercial operation vanished somewhat later when a marginal industrial line couldn't afford to overhaul their ancient saturated slide valved bucket of bolts again, or new diesels, and shut down.

I would argue that the ship has sailed from the US to the third world as far as steam is concerned. The problem is that the modern, high efficiency steam as now designed requires more than balcksmithing facilities and rough machining. Get ahold of RED DEVIL and read about what happened in China and South Afria when the shop forces weren't on the same page as the engineers and designers.

Plentiful cheap labor and indigenous fuel supplies are necessary given technologies supportable in such economies and societies. Some retrofits like Lempor or Kylchap exhaust systems and Gas Producer fireboxes can be installed and maintained for better efficiency in third world conditions.

Unless real changes in our oil and labor situations occur, I don't forsee the economic impetus to begin to build modern steam in the USA. The infrastructure for supporting the new / old technology would be too costly, and the thermal efficiency still less than IC.

Dave

lathro19@idt.net

Dave sums the whole thing up quite nicely. One thing to add is that replacement parts become a real problem. Third world countries were fine running steam when the US and other countries had a surplus of common replaceable items (injectors, air compressors etc.) and then turned to China who was making such things. Now the situation is that new ones just don't exist without paying huge sums for limited production.

Now for the less obvious answer. Steam can and does compete economically with diesel everyday, and sometimes it wins. The playing field is the tourist railway. Do you think Strasburg or the Valley or Steamtown or any number of tourist lines would have as many customers, or perhaps even still be in business, if it were not for steam? So the answer is yes, but not in ton-miles
of freight, but in people paying for a day out.

Roger

> Ohboy, Stuart, here we go.

> In 1948 that may have been true. Steam
> infrastructure was still in place. I have an
> old engineering taxt from then which says
> that steam will die in the late 1970's when
> modern steam reaches the end of its economic
> life cycle.

> In reality, almost 30 years earier mainline
> steam vanished. Steam in commercial
> operation vanished somewhat later when a
> marginal industrial line couldn't afford to
> overhaul their ancient saturated slide
> valved bucket of bolts again, or new
> diesels, and shut down.

> I would argue that the ship has sailed from
> the US to the third world as far as steam is
> concerned. The problem is that the modern,
> high efficiency steam as now designed
> requires more than balcksmithing facilities
> and rough machining. Get ahold of RED DEVIL
> and read about what happened in China and
> South Afria when the shop forces weren't on
> the same page as the engineers and
> designers.

> Plentiful cheap labor and indigenous fuel
> supplies are necessary given technologies
> supportable in such economies and societies.
> Some retrofits like Lempor or Kylchap
> exhaust systems and Gas Producer fireboxes
> can be installed and maintained for better
> efficiency in third world conditions.

> Unless real changes in our oil and labor
> situations occur, I don't forsee the
> economic impetus to begin to build modern
> steam in the USA. The infrastructure for
> supporting the new / old technology would be
> too costly, and the thermal efficiency still
> less than IC.

> Dave


Belpaire@aol.com

I must admit that I don't know everything about either steam or diesel, but it has always seemed to me that steam engines could be built as powerful, clean, and efficent locomotives for the 21st century. I mean, modern technology has advanced the field so far that a truly magnificent machine could be produced. Especially since oil prices are going out the roof, I'm amazed they haven't tried their luck at designing a modern coal burning super power steamer. Many steamers aren't even all that terribly inefficent, i think we figured the the SV #19 only burns 600-800 gallons of uel a weekend, not to bad really. What I'm trying to say is that though the possibility is minute, maybe America should take a gamble and try.

Thanks Again, Taylor

thrush@smt-net.com

Remember what Peter Drucker says about supplanting an existing technology. Think in terms of being ten times better, not ten percent.
Assuming there was NO improvement from the days of F units, you have to produce a steamer 100 times better than the best there was.. say an N&W "J". Good Luck.

Diesels have proven themselves to be reliable and then some. You don't need 8000 horsepower as long as you have an MU hose. You don't need water facilities. The huge shop forces aren't necessary. Availabilty is better.

The whole ACE 3000 debacle had more than mild interest from some major folks. (Chessie, Foster Wheeler.) The death of the project means some smart savvy folks saw no PAYOFF

Even w/o a direct threat diesels are still improving. AC traction took away the threat of a major diesel weakness, slow speed traction motor burnout.

Too many people get caught up in minutia, like questions about how modern metallurgy can solve dynamic augment.

Oh yeah, its a different legal environment too. The average person doesn't know a steamer is a bomb on wheels. Then there's the polllution, ergonomic and noise issues. Lets face it, a steamer is a NIMBY's delite.

Its nice to dream, but it would take really revolutionary engineering to solve the problems. Nobody will fund it, so unless it happens by chance, its NEVER going to happen. I'll bet on never.

Mike
(Born 50 years too late)

> I must admit that I don't know everything
> about either steam or diesel, but it has
> always seemed to me that steam engines could
> be built as powerful, clean, and efficent
> locomotives for the 21st century. I mean,
> modern technology has advanced the field so
> far that a truly magnificent machine could
> be produced. Especially since oil prices are
> going out the roof, I'm amazed they haven't
> tried their luck at designing a modern coal
> burning super power steamer. Many steamers
> aren't even all that terribly inefficent, i
> think we figured the the SV #19 only burns
> 600-800 gallons of uel a weekend, not to bad
> really. What I'm trying to say is that
> though the possibility is minute, maybe
> America should take a gamble and try.

> Thanks Again, Taylor

Personnally, I was thinking along the lines of a high pressure boiler running a short stroke steam engine turning a generator at high rpms ie: steam-electric, with a condensor to catch the vapor and convert it back to water to be reboiled. It could be built on a diesel frame (wouldn't that be somethin), but the only thing I'm not sure of would be the tractive effort, cause a boiler would be lighter than a prime mover. Oops!! now I've said it, somebody will go and build it and they'll get credit for it.

Have fun!!

Stuart


Frisco 1506
gnufe@apex.net

In the later steam days at St. Albans, the old shopcraft rosters show nearly 100 machinists and helpers, 100 boilermakers and helpers, and over 100 laborers, pipers, sheet metal men, locomotive carmen and foremen. There were also over 100 on the engineers and firemens rosters. Today, the scab outfit that runs the line has about 2/3 as many diesels as they had steamers, with only about five bozos left in the shop and about 75 total on the whole RR. They don't run a very good operation, but they're still running with less than ten percent of the people they had in the old days. Steam, as much as it fascinates us is having a hard enough time sticking around for occasional tourist purposes, and will never return for common carrier operations. It is just too costly.

ryarger1@nycap.rr.com

> In the later steam days at St. Albans, the
> old shopcraft rosters show nearly 100
> machinists and helpers, 100 boilermakers and
> helpers, and over 100 laborers, pipers,
> sheet metal men, locomotive carmen and
> foremen. There were also over 100 on the
> engineers and firemens rosters. Today, the
> scab outfit that runs the line has about 2/3
> as many diesels as they had steamers, with
> only about five bozos left in the shop and
> about 75 total on the whole RR. They don't
> run a very good operation, but they're still
> running with less than ten percent of the
> people they had in the old days. Steam, as
> much as it fascinates us is having a hard
> enough time sticking around for occasional
> tourist purposes, and will never return for
> common carrier operations. It is just too
> costly.

Bob:

And how much freight do they carry today as compared to then? Is it more? About the same?
Or less? My guess is LESS. And probably much less.


midlandblb@cs.com

Hi,
I am a mechanical engineer that sails as a marine engineer on both steam and diesel ocean going ships. I hope you guys do not take this wrong because I love you all and what you do. I respect history.
There is no new steam ship construction other than nuclear. Diesel killed steam ships. BUt ships have a 35 year life so many are still running.
Steam Ships ran a condensing turbine plant with 3 to 4 stages of feed heating and sometimes reheat in a turbine. No steam loco did this.
Ships were far better than steam locos. The max thermodynamic eff. was about 35%. The best steam shore plant is about 45%.

Your Cat diesel in a pickup truck is 35% and large ship slow speed diesels are 50%.

Steam is dead by itself! But it is still the major souce of electricity made today. THere is no need to recreate it. If you make a donation I'll take you to 25,000 HP steam ships running every day.

However steam lives as a partner with all other forms of prime mover ashore and at sea. Most new shore power plants have a diesel or gas turbine with a steam bottoming cycle. It is called Co-generation. The eff. is 65% plus.

Ships use the exhaust called waste heat to make steam for heating and running steam turbines to make electricity and now to help turn the propeller.

Steam will be back on large diesels and gas turbine locos and possibly some fuel cell locos.
The PEM fuel cells from Ballard you may have heard about have low temp exhaust of about 200 deg F. Not enough to make good steam. Some other fuel cells like the Fuel cell energy molten Carbonate have 1000 deg F exhaust and can make steam.

Please do not waste time tring to out engineer people who do it for a living.

If you want to find out how they did it get some money and hire an engineering firm and a university and they will find railfan degreed engineers and steam boiler makers and then read ALL the ASME papers and other professional organization's publications. Then they will interview those still left who know what to do to run a loco and document the knowledge they have. Then endow a chair at a university
in historical railroad engineering.
All this will be less than the cost of building something to see if it works!

joe

> Bob:

> And how much freight do they carry today as
> compared to then? Is it more? About the
> same?
> Or less? My guess is LESS. And probably much
> less.


buddrdc@hotmail.com