While watching some 16mm footage of Nickel Plate steam over the weekend and imagining all the lineside structures and steam support facilities that had once existed in the country, I wondered: Was the end of steam the first wholesale abandonment of products from the industrial revolution?

Up until this changing of the guard, had there been any previous comprehensive industrial revisions that created such a dramatic change and rendered obsolete so much of an existing system? I can't think of any comparison. It's dangerous to soften reality with nostalgia sometimes, but part of me wonders if the abandonment of steam power and its support system (roundhouses, shops, builders, water towers, etc) can be considered the beginning of the country's industrial decline (from the standpoint of recanting structures, equipment, etc into antiquity and abandonment.) Once these structures, representative of the country's largest industry, began to fall into disuse through neglect or necessity, others did too.

Perhaps I've spent too much time near Gary, Indiana lately.

KL

The various canal systems come to mind... rendered obsolete by the railroads.

Interurbans as well, done in by the auto and the depression. I guess the loss of most street car systems more or less paralleled steam decline.

Certainly the abundance of abandoned sidings and derelict industrial buildings along America's railways, especially in the Midwest and Northeast, support this view. However, the abandonment of steam infrastructure is not unique to the United States, and is true of countries now viewed as industrial powerhouses (China), so I don't think there is any relationship.

John

I could make a case for the similar "wholesale abandonment" of mining infrastructure--deep coal mines in the East, and copper/silver/etc. mines in the West. I've gone past/into dozens of copper mines along the ghost railroads of central Arizona, and lived very near anthracite territory in Pennsylvania as it was in its death throes. Of course, deep-pit mines declined/disappeared elsewhere (Britain, Germany, etc.) around the same time, so once again it doesn't quite support the hypothesis.

Uhhh, the cities in Egypt? Or Mesopotamia?

I think some of our infrastructure only existed, or ended, because of political will. Not exactly the advance of some technological society. Think of the "Silver Standard", or the end of gold mining due to WW2. Also, the end or reduction of deep mining and environmental poisoning, may only exist because of increases in both outside our borders.

Sorry, no rail content. Waiting for this thread to be killed.

Not quite within reach of the more modern "industrial revolution."

KL

Technology and Engineering is all about making something that is more efficient than it's predecessor. Support facilities and labor are costly, so anything that can be done to reduce them is desired.

John Henry vs. Steam Drill/Hammer

Railroads are only one segment of the phenomenon. There are many other examples.

The saga will always continue, only the players will change.

The rapid displacement of sailing ships from commerce by steam and diesel powered vessels left decaying hulks all over seaports that were highly visible for many decades afterwards.

Remember when the two wrecks in Wiscassett, Maine burned a few years ago? Some people wanted to start a fund to have them rebuilt - as wrecks.

PC

The original postulate is an interesting study, especially in the light of the recent economic downturn. When one considers the number of specialized jobs and and support personnel who were regularly employed by the operations of steam locomotives, the question arises, what do we do with all those suddenly redundant (and unionized) employees? Shifting from steam mechanic to Diesel mechanic wouldn't be an easy shift, few people required, fewer boiler makers, fewer, plumbers, etc. Then consider the modern steam locomotives which were prematurely sacrificed as scrap. Perhaps the end of steam wasn't the economic boost in modernization as it has always been served up.

The transition from steam to diesel is a fascinating topic that is worthy of a detailed study and a well written article.

PC

You hit it, Richard.

I'd thought about the canal ways and sea vessel industries, but canals didn't require a vast mechanical presence and manpower in the same way that ship building or railroads did -- but ships are still and can be built today. Steam locomotives, with a special English exception, aren't. The rapid demise of the heritage skills and structures to do this type of thing (and then support it) are one of the preservation industry's main talking points. With the passing of steam, you're looking at several levels of skills and personnel rapidly becoming obsolete in a short amount of time, and the structures in which these skills were housed followed later on. The evidence of this abandonment was readily visible trackside and in some cases, still is.

If a byproduct of modernization are shades of economic downturn (skill set displacement, layoffs, abandonment etc) I guess it's another reason to refer to the latter steam era as the "golden age of railroading" for its maximum utilization of all resources during a time of ultimate necessity. The more modern or streamlined the vast industrial presence became, the less objective its application became, especially in the face of traffic downturns. Was the adoption of a new motive power an eventual player, whether directly or indirectly, in bankruptcy or mergers?

In the face of over-regulation (read "control of income" by government) and blatant subsidy of the competition (Interstate highway system & commercial air travel infrastructure) the two things that allowed the railroad industry to survive in the late 40s-50s were:

The diesel locomotive and

Mechanization of track maintenance.

The railroads couldn't buy diesels fast enough after 1945 (and many wanted them in 1940-41). It was far cheaper to scrap a 6-year old 4-8-4 (LVRR, for only one example) and flatten almost new support infrastructure (cola docks, etc) and use diesel power (even first-generation stuff, like Baldwins).

And, track (that little-researched and amost-forgotten aspect of railroading) consumed armies of workers. At 47 1/2 cents per hour, not too bad. At triple or more per hour, well, we need machines!

Howard P.
Lining Bar, CT

As Mr. Storzek points out, the canals are an obvious example. The bulk were abandoned by the Civil War, and the rest were gone by the early 20th century. The Smithsonian interprets its iron truss railroad bridge as a fireproof replacement for wooden bridges that Schuylkill canalmen were burning. This was their attempt to sabotage the P&R...

In addition to the canals and sailing ships, another maritime example was the riverboat trade--also done in by the railroads. Today's coal and grain barges show where economy of scale can work in favor of an otherwise-obsolete technology, but not much in the way of passengers or general freight has moved on the rivers in decades.

Following a similarly drawn-out end as the canals were local, water-powered grist mills. Larger, more centralized operations (usually steam- or electric-powered) replaced them, and the Pillsburys and Martha Whites of the world, in turn, replaced these. By the time the Pioneer Zephyr was making its first cross-country trek, most households were buying their flour and meal in commercial packaging, made in large, urban mills.

Then, as Mr. Mitchell notes, there are a number of examples from the mining industry. Michigan's copper industry was one of the the first hard-rock mining industries to be abandoned en masse. The last mines didn't close until 1968, but the industry was already on its last financial legs by the 1930s, just as the steam-to-diesel transition was in its infancy, done in by more modern infrastructure, favorable labor costs, and better raw material in places like Arizona, Montana, and South America.

Lastly, while its machinery was usually moved elsewhere rather than abandoned, the New England textile industry began moving south to take advantage of favorable labor costs in the late 19th century, and was almost all gone by the 1950s. Most of the buildings were left to disuse, and the communities' economic fortunes declined accordingly.

Some of the labor displacement was offset by the 5 day, 40 hour work week versus 6 day, 44 or more hours per week. This was a 2 edged sword, since it also affected Saturday passenger trains, resulting in less utilization of those assets.
The World War may have postponed and then concentrated the original topic of these posts, providing a surplus of preservation possibilities almost all at once.