One of the growing concerns with transportation industry planners is the advent of "peak oil" and its potential impact on the future price of oil fuels for transportation use. Although there is disagreement on exactly when this will happen, there have been some recent studies that indicate that "peak oil" may have already been reached, its passing having been muted by the decrease in demand accompanying the global financial crisis.

Are any of your museums, particularly those with electric locomotives on display, hosting or developing any exhibits that interpret to the public the purpose and advantages of electric locomotives, explaining their past use and potential future value in a railroad industry where fuel availability may be an increasing problem?

PC

In my opinion, there are some studies about peak oil that have an agenda attached to them.

I hope you will share some of your observations with us. This seems like an opportunity for museums to relate the past to the future, and in doing so, participate in making information available to the public.

PC

Of course, you could equally well point out the ability of steam locomotives to burn virtually any fuel available (coal, biomass, trash, etc.).

The late Andre Chapelon made just that point about steam being able to run on anything combustible. As I recall, after having to leave France following the decision by SNCF to electrify, he tried working in Ireland to get engines to burn peat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Chapelon

http://5at.co.uk/index.php/modern-steam ... pelon.html

Of course, steam has had some unusual diets over the years, including hard and soft coals, lignite, briquettes, wood, bagasse (sugar cane refuse), assorted oils (including waste or used automotive oil), and even bottled gas (Northwestern Steel & Wire). It wouldn't surprise me if there were some other things I'm not aware of.

I understand a steam locomotive has even been fired on marijuana! Supposedly a large amount of this weed was confiscated in a town in Mexico, and was to be disposed of by burning, but the incinerator was out of action. A steam locomotive working in the area was put on that job, and was quite efficient at this task, reportedly consuming the marijuana in about 15 minutes instead of the two hours it would have taken the incinerator! This was done at a station in the town, and it smelled that facility up for a while.

Then of course, there was Ross Rowland and Livio Dante Porta and their efforts with the ACE 3000, which included baseline data measurements with the 614 in 1985. (How I wish I could have made a trip down there then!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livio_Dante_Porta

http://5at.co.uk/index.php/modern-steam ... porta.html

http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam ... na/arg.htm

The use of local coal as an alternative to imported oil was I believe what drove David Wardale and his work in South Africa.

http://5at.co.uk/index.php/modern-steam ... rdale.html

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/wardale.html

Of course, much has changed since then, particularly concerns about the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. I won't go into whether this is, as some suggest, a "con job" or something to back an "agenda," or whether it is a serious threat as others would argue. I will say it would be a considerable conundrum to deal with, as CO2 essentially is the end product of complete and efficient combustion, and indeed is the "exhaust gas" of just about every living animate object, including us!

I guess the weirdest thing I have ever heard of being burned in a steam locomotive was Mummies, by the British in Egypt.

The Benguala Railway just planted ucalyptus tree plantations, which grow fast and burn hot, every few miles, and ran a whole railroad on the stuff.

As for electrification-whether or not peak oil has been reached or not, unless you are located in some sort of hydroelectric paradise, you are going to have to burn a fossil fuel, and that will likely be coal.

Something else keeps popping into my head. . .

A long time ago, perhaps in 1973, during the first OPEC oil embargo, I seem to recall a political cartoon--it may have even been one by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block--that showed a steam locomotive's front end (looked like an NYC Hudson at that!), and was a promotion about trains in general as an alternative to cars and planes. The caption included "Cost per Passenger Mile--Cheap," and "Cost per Ton-Mile--Cheaper." But blast it, I can't find an image of it! Does anybody else remember it?

Also, have any of our brethren in the traction (trolley) community made comparisons with the past becoming the future again?

In my area that has been one of the stumbling points in a proposal for expanded commuter service. The state environmental protection agency wants the expansion be electrified, but the primary power plant in the area is a coal plant that has a reputation as being one of the biggest polluters locally. There are also nuclear, trash and wood chip plants and wind generation in the region, but that big coal fired power plant is what is visible from the railroad station at the end of the line.

PC

WRM is designing a major exhibit on electric railways, methods of power generation, and the environment.

Since we have one of California's major wind farm areas adjacent to our ROW the exhibit will have a large wind-power component.

It will be several months before it is finally completed.

J3a-614, I believe that was actually OVS Bulleid of the UK who did the work with burning peat in Ireland, and he was fairly successful at developing a locomotive to do this.

On the subject of CO2 in the atmosphere, the combustion of biomass (wood, plant waste, etc.) is considered to be "carbon neutral" and therefore not contributing to "climate change". The same amount of CO2 is released whether the plants are burned or whether they live, die, and eventually rot, so wood-fired steam locomotives would be environmentally acceptable. In his last years, Porta did quite a bit of research on the wood-fired steam, including fitting the Gas Producer Combustion System to a wood-fired locomotive in Paraguay and researching fast growing trees which could be planted for fuel to provide a renewable fuel source.

*SIGH*

So nobody's heard of nuclear power generation? You know, the stuff that effectively runs about 40-50% of SNCF's TGVs and whatnot?

John Marshall's Rail Facts and Feats reports a 600mm gauge line in Chile burning llama dung in two 0-4-0T's built by O&K of Germany; coffee beans being burned after a crop surplus in Brazil, and 8,000 tons of dried fish used as loco fuel in Russian Turkestan in 1919 during a coal shortage.......... and two Swiss 0-6-0T's converted to electric heating elements drawing from overhead catenary, converted in 1943 and abandoned in 1948...... meanwhile, I have seen at least one source debunk the legend of burning mummies, but I can't find it right now.....

"I believe that was actually OVS Bulleid of the UK who did the work with burning peat in Ireland, and he was fairly successful at developing a locomotive to do this."--Hugh Odom

I think you're right, thanks for tickling those brain cells. . .

"Rail Facts and Feats"--I remember a book of that title in a college library back in the 1970s, but that one had a Guinness connection of some sort. The most distinctive "fact" or "feat" that I recall from it was the three oldest railroad employees on record. All three worked in a locomotive shop for a line in South America somewhere; one fellow was 101, another was 100, and the junior member was a relatively youthful 97. The senior member of this trio would annoy his two slightly younger compatriots by addressing them as "Sonny". . .

Got to be a great scene in a movie or a running gag in a TV series with that, along the lines of what was done with the two old guys up in the box on the old "Muppet Show" program from years ago.

As expected, the thread took a hard turn right off the road....

If one has ever had any experience either working within or dealing with a railroad shop, one would realize that the steam locomotive is NEVER going to return.

In a few words, the introduction of very sophisicated locomotives coupled with radio-based reporting of faults/failures has , in many cases, reduced the role of the machinist and electrician crafts materially. Can we say dumbed down ?

If anyone thinks that the railroads are going to discard 60-odd years of equity in the diesel and replicate the old steam era practices...they must be smokin' the rope.

DPK

I remember the Herblock cartoon and in fact may still have it somewhere.
I've been curious lately as to how much the #6 oil that we burned in 1522 costs today.

No thought here of railways ever going back to traditional steam, just trying to point out that the ability to burn ANY fuel was one significant advantage of traditional steam power.

Regardless of fuel cost and availability, it certainly hasn't gotten any less expensive to build catenary in the last 30 years (it was over $1M/mile at that time), so I imagine electrification still remains the motive power of last resort. Maybe wood-fired advanced steam locomotives (e.g.- something along the lines of later ACE thinking) aren't as ridiculous as they sound.