Recent visit to GCRwy

adammil1 · **Posted:** Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:17 pm

Those exhaust numbers don't look too suspicious at first glance. The biggest thing I notice is the reduction in NOx. Nox formation during the combustion process either comes from nitrogen in the fuel, or is really a direct function of the temperature at which combustion takes place. Since they are comparing 2 locomotives burning the same type of fuel the far lower level of NOx simply means that their combustion peak temperature is likely a bit lower than that in an IC engine. I don't know as much about peak temperatures in an IC engine, but in open flame combustion in a boiler a lot of games can be played to say lower peak temperature in the combustion zone, and extend the combustion out a bit, for the same heat absorption. The lower CO number probably means that they are better controlling the stoichemometry of combustion in the steam locomotive that in the IC engine, while the nearly double amount of SO2 for the same fuel means that they are probably burning twice the amount of fuel for the same energy output. Thus from an energy standpoint the steam engine is almost half as efficient. Also not measured is the CO2 output which today despite having just had one of the coldest winters in at least 10 years is boogy man #1 in the environmentalists mind.

On the other hand it is too bad that a DLM company couldn't do well here in the USA with that business model I would love to work for a company like that.

Adam

softwerkslex · **Posted:** Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:23 pm

When did the Grand Canyon stop using open window Harriman coaches? Steam just isn't as much fun if you can't lean out and smell it.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:37 pm

softwerkslex wrote:

When did the Grand Canyon stop using open window Harriman coaches? Steam just isn't as much fun if you can't lean out and smell it.

Maybe when the weather got cold? It DOESget cold up there at 7300 feet in the winter, remember. As far as I know, the Harrimans aren't on the market--I know a couple "vultures" that would have swooped in had they been even hinted at being available.

Trust me, MOST people in the GCRY's market don't want to freeze on a train trip no matter what the exhaust of the locos smells like (cinnamon rolls? chocolate chip cookies?)! Remember, we tender-riding railfans are NOT NORMAL...........

Ron Travis · **Joined:** Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm **Posts:** 1543

whodom wrote:

Ron Travis wrote:

I have followed this topic on other threads here and on other forums, and clearly there is this majority consensus: GCRY has discontinued steam purely for economic reasons, but in order to avoid admitting that reason, they are saying that the reason is to be green.

Other than the possibility that green itself is misunderstood, I cannot understand this widespread denial that green is the true reason for ending steam. It fits the situation perfectly. The Grand Canyon is green. Steam locomotives are not green. Automobiles are not green. Rail is green, and LRT is the greenest form or rail. And LRT powered by wind and/or solar is the epitome of green. Surely this is where this is headed.

I think the best possible outcome of this is that the steam locomotives are sold to someone who can own or operate them without a guilty green conscience. But if green is Xanterras’ reason, I don’t see how they can countenance a sale that results in the locomotives running somewhere else. Even as static displays, steam locomotives are symbols of anti-green. The only proper green resolution would be to recycle the locomotives.

Ron- It seems pretty clear you're a green "enthusiast" while many of us are green skeptics. I have no problem with minimizing energy waste, minimizing pollution, recycling where appropriate, etc. OTOH it seems readily apparent to most of us that attributing GCR's new management's anti-steam attitude to pure environmental altruism is horse manure. These 2 or 3 steamers represent a negligible impact on the environment.

I don't believe a thorough analysis of motive power would support the statement "steam locomotives are not green". Remember that true "green thinking" considers the big picture, not just the pollutants emitted by the locomotive itself. I'd venture to say far more and far more toxic pollutants are produced in the fabrication of a diesel, or a light rail vehicle for that matter (both of which involve a lot of electrical gear and electronics), than were produced in the fabrication of any of these steamers.

Production of replacement parts for more modern motive power requires large manufacturing facilities and involves parts being shipped long distances. All of these produce environmental impacts not associated with steam power, which can be maintained with mostly locally fabricated parts.

The pollutants and energy consumed during the fabrication and maintenance of new motive power would have to be weighed against the pollutants produced and energy used during the operation of new or existing motive power over the lifetime of the locomotives or LR units.

Steam locomotives are inherently less thermally efficient and therefore burn more fuel per passenger mile than other forms of motive power. This results in the production of more CO2 which may or may not be a significant problem. OTOH they have the ability to burn a wider variety of fuels (several of which are eco-friendly). Burning biomass is basically "solar power". Steamers also produce significantly less emissions of oxides of nitrogen, a significant atmospheric pollutant.

An important concept in modern environmental thinking is "sustainability". I'd venture to say that existing steam power is more sustainable than diesels or LR.

Hugh,
I am not a green enthusiast. I was speaking purely from Xanterra’s point of view, not mine. I am a green skeptic like you. However, I draw a distinction between environmentalism and green. Environmentalism is a realistic concern about pollution. I don’t have a problem with that. But, in my opinion, green is mostly a fashion statement / agenda of symbolic, subjective nonsense. In green terms, what we exhale is pollution. One of the qualifications for green housing is that the subcontractors building it are non-smokers. Sustainability sounds great, but how do you measure and quantify something that encompasses the entire life cycle of a product including all of the processes of its creation and disposal? Sustainability purports to measure all of that.

When I say steam locomotives are not green, I do not mean that they are actually an environmental problem. In environmental terms, steam locomotives can be perfectly acceptable, but in the largely symbolic green terms, the historical steam locomotives are symbols representing the coal burning age. Symbolically, they mock green.

Regarding Xanterra’s claim that their motive was to be green; since Xanterra obviously embraces green, and considering what green actually is, I see no reason to suspect that they are merely using green as an excuse to save money. Indeed, green people will sometimes spend more money just to be green.

p51 · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:12 am

softwerkslex wrote:

When did the Grand Canyon stop using open window Harriman coaches? Steam just isn't as much fun if you can't lean out and smell it.

When my wife and I rode the GC in July of 07, there were Harriman coaches in our consist, but most of them were dead in the yard at Williams. It seemed even then they were being phased out.
After riding in both a dome and the business car (we were the youngert people there not with their parents), I can see why folks would much rather not ride a former SP commuter car with no AC in the summertime...

NH0401 · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:48 am

Quote:

Nox formation during the combustion process either comes from nitrogen in the fuel, or is really a direct function of the temperature at which combustion takes place

Actually, dry air is ~78 % nitrogen by volume., which drives the formation of NOx.

Quote:

The lower CO number probably means that they are better controlling the stoichemometry of combustion in the steam locomotive that in the IC engine.

Absurd. Diesel engines operate close to stoichiometric (14:1), while the while steam loco combustion process burns fuel in excess air.

Last time I checked, the two major engine families used in North American locomotives have achieved significant reductions in NOX,CO & SO2-in addition to obvious reductions in acceleration and steady-state exhaust over the past 15 years. More reductions are to come-driven by legislative fiat.

Seems to me that some of the same forces that killed the steam loco the first time around (maintenance labor costs & poor thermal efficiency) are at play on the GCRy.

Yes, Xanterra is embracing green-the color of money, that is.

DPK

One final thought: More and more folks in our world are unaware of 'life before air conditioning.' Easy to understand why the Harrimans don't hold much appeal to the masses.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

p51 wrote:

softwerkslex wrote:

When did the Grand Canyon stop using open window Harriman coaches? Steam just isn't as much fun if you can't lean out and smell it.

When my wife and I rode the GC in July of 07, there were Harriman coaches in our consist, but most of them were dead in the yard at Williams. It seemed even then they were being phased out.
After riding in both a dome and the business car (we were the youngert people there not with their parents), I can see why folks would much rather not ride a former SP commuter car with no AC in the summertime...

My brother-in-law and I rode in an open window Harriman coach in August of 2007, while our wives rode in one of the air-conditioned cars. Actually, our Harriman car was comfortable and through the open windows, we could hear #29 get down on her knees at one point getting our train to the canyon rim. Certainly, that wonderful sound was not heard in the first class cars.

Les

whodom · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:29 am

Ron Travis wrote:

Hugh,
I am not a green enthusiast. I was speaking purely from Xanterra’s point of view, not mine. I am a green skeptic like you. However, I draw a distinction between environmentalism and green. Environmentalism is a realistic concern about pollution. I don’t have a problem with that. But, in my opinion, green is mostly a fashion statement / agenda of symbolic, subjective nonsense. In green terms, what we exhale is pollution. One of the qualifications for green housing is that the subcontractors building it are non-smokers. Sustainability sounds great, but how do you measure and quantify something that encompasses the entire life cycle of a product including all of the processes of its creation and disposal? Sustainability purports to measure all of that.

When I say steam locomotives are not green, I do not mean that they are actually an environmental problem. In environmental terms, steam locomotives can be perfectly acceptable, but in the largely symbolic green terms, the historical steam locomotives are symbols representing the coal burning age. Symbolically, they mock green.

Regarding Xanterra’s claim that their motive was to be green; since Xanterra obviously embraces green, and considering what green actually is, I see no reason to suspect that they are merely using green as an excuse to save money. Indeed, green people will sometimes spend more money just to be green.

Ron- Thanks for clarifying your viewpoint. In that case, consider my post directed at Xanterra's management.

co614 · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:52 am

Seems to me that we owe it to ourselves to look at this decision on the part of the owners of the GCRR operation for what it is...a business decision... nothing more nothing less.

There's zero question that they can realize substantial operating savings by using diesel power vs. steam due to the substantially greater amount of fuel used by steam vs. diesel. The magnitude of the differential is hard to pin down exactly but it certainly is somewhere in the 20-30% range conservatively.

Therefore, if it's true that the overwhelming majority of the customer base is essentially motivated to patronize the enterprise for reasons OTHER THAN what's pulling the train then the business decision is a no-brainer.

During my 2 day visit very near the end of steam last year my impression was that 99% of the riders were there because it was an interesting way to get to the Canyon and removed for them the hassles of parking and traffic. On the days I rode the A/C coaches were far more popular than the 2 O/W cars in the train. Upon our arrival at the Canyon practically nobody came up to the head end to photograph or examine the steamer.

My guess is that the whole green thing is a convenient straw man for what is an understandable economic decision and that unless the property gets sold to someone who values steam for other reasons it will be rare indeed that steam again runs to the Grand Canyon.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

toober · **Joined:** Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:42 pm **Posts:** 124

PCook wrote:

Those are definitely some pretty nice charts and graphs they have drawn there. Seems like a few things are missing though. No explanation of testing process, instrumentation used, or methodology for the emissions testing. No definitions of what is and is not included in the operating expense comparisons. Also no explanation of the heat values of the fuels used or the comparative overall efficiencies of the locomotives.

I have to agree - unless they publish the experiment for all to scrutinize, it stinks of junk science. It has as much influence as the TV proclaiming "Four out of five dentists prefer Crest".

--
Will

rjenkins · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:33 pm

Interesting that the "green" argument doesn't seem to apply to air-conditioned vs. open-window coaches...

robertmacdowell · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:45 pm

Ron Travis wrote:

I am not a green enthusiast. I was speaking purely from Xanterra’s point of view, not mine. I am a green skeptic like you. However, I draw a distinction between environmentalism and green. Environmentalism is a realistic concern about pollution. I don’t have a problem with that. But, in my opinion, green is mostly a fashion statement / agenda of symbolic, subjective nonsense. In green terms, what we exhale is pollution. One of the qualifications for green housing is that the subcontractors building it are non-smokers.

Oh, absolutely. "Green" is possibly the most hijacked and misused word on the planet. Show me something labeled "green" and I'll show you something that

Stuff that's actually environmental doesn't need to be labeled "green". Obviously.

And if you look at why people hate environmentalists - the above are more the reasons why, but they've been deceived and swindled so many times that they expect anything green to be a lie. They look for lies in anything green, and as a side-effect they attack real environmentalism. It's a shame, but it's hard for me to blame them.

Anyway, as to the GCRy... they (and we all) have a couple of ways of going green. One is to sort out the technicals involved in burning used fryer oil out of restaurant grease traps, which would otherwise be disposed of as hazmat. Another way is to electrify like an old-style interurban. I suppose you could run biodiesel in diesels, but I've found that to be a tough sell in railway preservation; everyone's afraid it'll "damage their engine" when I think the real threat to engines is the reduced lubricity of low-sulfur diesel.

Ron Travis · **Joined:** Sun May 15, 2005 2:22 pm **Posts:** 1543

If ending steam were strictly a financial decision having nothing to do with a green ideology, then it must follow that the steam operation was not justifying its cost by attracting enough customers who would not have visited the Grand Canyon without the steam attraction. It also must follow that GCRY has marketing data that shows how many visitors would not have patronized the business had it not operated the steamers.

Without such data, a decision to end steam due to its high cost would have been impossible to logically make. I cannot imagine any operator of a bifurcated attraction such as the Grand Canyon / steam GCRY would not have polled its customers to acquire the data to evaluate the effects of the two attractions separately.

Therefore, if the marketing data shows that the steam operation was not justifying its cost, that must have also been the case with the previous owner. Does that mean that the previous owner was operating the steamers only as a hobby?

gbrewer · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:30 am **Posts:** 150

I rode behind 4960 quite a few years ago and was told at that time that they burned used crank case oil and water recycled from the Williams disposal system.

I believe the truth of the matter is that Xanterra found business way down as a result of the economy, and the new management required steps be taken to significantly cut costs. Then PR tried really hard to put a positive spin on things.

Glen

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:30 pm

I tend to lean on the "green" side of things, but in all honestly, we are not talking about 598 I1 decapods running up and down the curve day and night. We aren't talking about commuter trains passing every 10 minutes, sooting up Mrs. O'Reilly's laundry. We are talking about a single steam locomotive, trekking 70 miles up to the Canyon, once, perhaps twice, each day. Frankly, the amount of pollution being contributed to the atmosphere is insignificant. Perhaps it looks bad, but I'll bet if trains were being pulled by an ALCO Century, the clouds of smoke would be almost, or equally as bad. If you want bad, sit by a Los Angeles Freeway at 5:30pm. Green is not the issue. Lower ridership and the cost of fuel was the issue. And as far as the public is concerned, sure, most people don't care about the type of locomotive pulling the train, yet steam fits in well with the character of the "old west", and invigorates the senses during the trip. A Diesel horn blaring at a crossing is nothing compared to the chords of a steam whistle. Steam is the heart and soul of railroading, inspite of the economics implied.