I took a week to visit Arizona and stopped in at Williams to get first hand information from the railroad personnel. This is what I was told by an official at the depot: Steam is done with the possible exception of a rare steam run for special occasions. The locomotives are up for sale, but 4960 may be kept for those same rare steam excursions. That remains undecided. The person I spoke to said that a single run of a Diesel uses about 250 gallons of fuel, whereas the steamers use 1500 gallons. The new owners consider themselves a "green" company and felt it was irresponsible to utilize fuel in such a manner, and to deliver so many pollutants into the air. I saw several dead steamers in the yard as well as a variety of Diesels. Apparently the FPA4's are going to be held for summer runs, while on the day I was there, the train was pulled by an ex-Amtrak F40. I was told that ridership is way down, not just because of winter, but because of the poor economy. On this day, they had the highest ridership in a week, of about 100 fares.

4960 was on display at the depot, looking wonderful, with a bit of rust on her rods, and sitting under a dripping ice run-off from the restaurant roof.



Perhaps a new owner will restore her to the CB&Q look?

Amazing how closely the quoted ratio of fuel consumed reflects what would be expected, based on the commonly published "textbook" figures comparing the overall thermal efficiency of the respective locomotives.

PC

Richard -

Well, that's certainly something to hope for!

Les

If they're so intent on being "green", why don't they convert both steamers to burn biomass (wood, wood chips, bagasse, etc.). Then they'd have steam and ZERO "carbon footprint".

I'm not sure if your comment was "tongue in cheek" or not. In case it isn't, let's advise:

Unless the GCRY has handy and adjacent to its property a terrific source of wood chips, spent sugar cane, manure, dried fish heads, or whatever, there's going to be a "carbon footprint" delivering said biomass to the railroad. (Last time I was in Williams a year or so ago, there was no handy sugar mill, sawmill, etc.)

Have you ever SEEN the tender of a steam loco burning biomass waste? I have, in photos. You would need another flat car full of that waste just to get the loco one-way over the line--maybe--and then you'd have to refuel at the Canyon rim. They were having enough issues just with water procurement at the rim; don't even dare to ask them to add a fueling depot, no matter what the fuel might be!

And lastly, no matter WHAT fuel you burn, save for a perfectly-adjusted oil/diesel fire (like 4960 could do) or "smokeless" anthracite, you're going to have smoke billowing out of the stack at best, and at worst you're going to have cinders setting fire to half the countryside between Williams and the rim.

The reality is that the heavily-modified steamers burning diesel were indeed the "best" hope for the Grand Canyon RR, and if they can't justify the economics with those steamers, well, you might as well just give up.

One other factor I should bring up: something that isn't really thought of much in places like where I live (right next to a huge Chesapeake Bay) is the water consumption from those steamers. Water consumption issues are getting quite contentious in areas like Williams, and even the entire states of Arizona, California, etc. There are towns along the Santa Fe out there where the entire municipal water supply is/was at the mercy of the railroads that created the water supply in the first place (there are still railroad-owned reservoirs above Flagstaff, for example, and residents of Seligman still get water bills from BNSF, I'm told). I know that some wells in the Williams area had to be drilled deeper in the past two years. I'm 100% certain that the water consumption by the steamers played as much a part in "killing" their use as the increased diesel fuel consumption.

The comment was semi-tongue-in-cheek. I have seen what traditional biomass-fired steamers look like and yes, they require immense volumes of fuel and spew vast quantities of smoke and sparks and I'm sure they'd be completely impractical for GCR.

OTOH Ing. Porta had one project engine in Paraguay (a British-built 4-6-0) which was fitted with his Gas Producer Combustion System (GPCS) in conjunction with wood firing. The fuel consumption on test was one-third (1/3) of the consumption of conventional engines to which it was compared, along with drastic reductions in smoke and spark emissions. Read more here:

http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/ldp/286/286.htm

He also conducted tests in Cuba on stationary boilers burning bagasse with similar results. Complete construction plans for all-new 0-6-2T locomotives, to be fueled by locally produced bagasse were completed but the death of his leading supporter in Cuba combined with falling sugar prices doomed the project. Use of the GPCS would make use of a reasonably dense biomass fuel much more practical.

At any rate, I still think killing steam due to the "green" angle was a complete excuse on GCR's part.

Well, I'm quite sure we'll be hearing soon of the shut down or threat of, of the railroad from its' current owners in the next year or so.

I wonder, had ownership remained the same (Max & Thelma), would the current outcome of low ridership and the canceling of steam would have still taken place with current travel reductions due to less disposable income for even those once considered moderately rich?

That said, I can't imagine they hauled full trains during the winter months to begin with, but still, 100 people is pretty low. That's the capacity of one of their SP coaches, maybe a second for breaking purposes and a little elbow room. Now, had he said that 100 people were on the train mid summer, I would be highly concerned.

Ah the days of profitable passenger hauling railroads, though now strictly short-line, is again waning and we'll be seeing the abandonment of said services just like we did after WW2.

We've come full circle.

Seems to me that the "green" arguments for pulling the plug on the steam program could themselves be considered a form of biomass...

Any word on an asking price for any of the locomotives? It sure would be nice to see the 539 back home in SP&S/NP territory, since she never got a chance to turn a wheel in Williams.

THAT is a good one.

Carbon Footprint refers to the CO2 something emits so so burning wood would produce CO2 burning almost anything makes CO2, I don't see where this "Then they'd have steam and ZERO "carbon footprint" comes from since burning almost anything makes CO2.

They may be citing fuel efficiency as part of their green reasoning, but green also includes a non-CO2 objective, which is so far, just voluntary. Soon it will be mandatory, however, and when it is, simply driving to the Grand Canyon may become too big of a carbon footprint to afford.

Here is a link to eco-friendly vacations. Among other things, it urges the avoidance of “far-flung vacation spots to minimize your greenhouse gas emissions along the way.”

http://greenliving.suite101.com/article ... y_vacation

All i know is all that "green" crap cost a lot of us our jobs their. I don't know if the engines are up for sale or not, but 4960 boiler is up 2 years. 29 has about 10 years left of her, so she would be the one to keep if the are going to "run" steam on rare occasions. Who exactly is going to do all the maintenance though, i do not know.

Burning any biomass material like wood is considered to produce no net CO2 emissions. Plants sprout, grow, and are either chopped down and burned (producing C02) or eventually die and rot (producing the same amount of C02).

[quote="Alexander D. Mitchell IV"]Have you ever SEEN the tender of a steam loco burning biomass waste? I have, in photos. You would need another flat car full of that waste just to get the loco one-way over the line--maybe--and then you'd have to refuel at the Canyon rim.[/quote]

I read somewhere the someone developed a means of pelletizing biomass material, rendering it similar in handling quality as coal, and providing increased thermal efficiency over un-modified biomass..

What remains to be seen is how much contribution to their bottom line steam was making. It might have been more than they realized. If so, I wonder if they could be convinced that steam could be made greener than diesel. I wonder if anybody has tried to convince them.