Carbon-neutral, I'm not 100% sure about, but I know that the flatulence from horses and cattle are (arguably, granted) considered substantial contributors to global warming/climate change, thus negating any perceived benefits from "carbon neutrality".....

Okay, okay, I'll go stand in the corner now.

On a slightly more serious note that is actually related to the discussion at hand, many years ago Robert Le Massena wrote a slightly-tongue-in-cheek essay for Trains Magazine (page 51, April 1978) that essentially argued that the emissions from steam locomotives were more environmentally friendly than those of diesels. I'm fairly certain that, just like the complex equipment now on your car engine that makes the car cost 50% more in inflation-adjusted dollars but reduces harmful emissions to half or even far less, more modern diesels have been designed to reduce the nastier stuff substantially, but......

My God, this thread has woven some text in the past week! Look at how many pages of commentary in 7 days!

More like 72 hours.

Remember the NS zero-emissions, carbon neutral, battery-electric locomotive #999 that was announced with great fanfare? What ever became of that? I heard that they ran into technical problems with the battery array. That project should have been a walk in the woods.

Some have suggested here and elsewhere that the AT&SF locomotive not intended to be developed as a prototype for a new generation of modern steam locomotives. They say the AT&SF locomotive is only intended to be a rolling billboard to promote the new fuel, which is intended for use as stationary power generation.

If you look at this page of the CSR website, it sounds like they indeed are intent on developing a modern steam locomotive, and not just a rolling billboard for power generation with carbon neutral fuel. For instance, they say they are confident that they can create a higher-speed passenger rail locomotive that is cleaner, quicker, and cheaper than any locomotive on the market today. Look at this page:

http://www.csrail.org/index.php/the-train

If you click on the active links associated with the terms, “quicker” and “cheaper,” they open to further evidence that they intend to replace current diesel-electric locomotives with modern steam locomotives burning torrefied biomass fuel.

Look at this page: http://www.csrail.org/index.php/the-plan

Clearly, they intend to replace current diesel-electric locomotives with modern steam locomotives burning torrefied biomass fuel.

Ron - I think there's some confusion between the idea of a 1937 locomotive as a "prototype" and the possibility of a new type of locomotive going on.

dave

Dave,

I do not understand what you mean.

The CSR group says this: “CSR will take a locomotive from 1937 and turn it into the world's first modern steam engine run on biofuel.”

And they say this, “CSR is confident it can create a higher-speed passenger rail locomotive that is Cleaner, Quicker and Cheaper than any locomotive on the market today.”

And they say this: “Initial computer simulations suggest that the CSR's modern steam engine will significantly out-accelerate a modern diesel-electric locomotive to 110 mph, meaning that passenger operators would be able to realize electric-like acceleration at or below the cost of the diesel-electrics they currently use.”

And they say this: “Furthermore, burning torrefied biomass in a modern steam locomotive is notably less-expensive than burning diesel in a diesel-electric locomotive. CSR's planned technology will reduce cost at every stage, from infrastructure building and maintenance, to train maintenance and fuel cost.”

So which groups represented by the participants in this forum are going to invite this organization to do a presentation? This discussion is already up at ten pages in length,and it seems like there is a lot of curiosity among the participants. The group is a 501C3 with an educational component to their mission (just like many of your organizations are supposed to be). The people involved with the project seem to be based in the Midwest and there are museums in their area. Are there any groups interested in providing them with an audience?

PC

My meaning - and this is nothing but my thoughts, not anything official - is that yes, there is an interest in actually designing a modern steam locomotive, but basing it on a 1937 bit of iron (even if modernized) isn't the desired final product. To me, a prototype is an early model of the desired final product, not something you use to test and demonstrate some aspects of it while working on understanding it, not sort of like saying the early Chinese fireworks were prototypes for the space shuttle. Yeah, semantics.......but since we're both attributing our own perceptions to words written by others, whose meanings might be different, I think we need to be careful about creating expectations.

I'd love to be wrong and live to see comuter railroads running post Porta era Stephensonian steam on a daily basis - hell, I'd move in next to the yard - but it doesn't seem likely to me. I wouldn't bet against the people I was told were involved, though....

I think that when they have reached critical mass, we will learn a lot more about the specifics, and a touring show we can book might be in the offing.

dave

There are sensible people involved in the development of 3463 as an 'improved' locomotive.

I have it on first-hand authority that:

1) No work will be undertaken without first having funds in hand. Intelligent and knowledgeable people are involved with assuring the funding, and its 'adequacy'. The amount so far budgeted is in line with what will be required to have the 'reserve' to put the engine back to visually-complete condition and assure display "indoors" (that word was highlighted in red in the e-mail I received from the VP/treasurer).

2) All meaningful pieces removed during the renovation will be catalogued, stabilized, and kept. The only things going to scrap would be the normal things discarded in a steam-locomotive restoration, and even then, expect the dimensions and metallurgical data, etc. to be kept on record.

3) While there may be political and economic reasons behind acquisition of 3463, it is undeniably the best 'base' candidate for a high-speed conversion -- look at the cylinder dimensions, putative boiler capacity, and driver radius. The engineering and design work will be overseen by a well-known name in steam work. I'd be glad to discuss off-list any of the potential engineering and design issues that are necessary to achieve 130+ speed with a reciprocating locomotive, but there has already been too much odd BS on this topic in too many ways. The basic reason for the 3463, and the 'project 130' idea, is (as you might suspect) to make things "sexy" and interesting: what I'd hoped was that more people would look past the "1937, antique, inefficient" parts and comprehend that many people prefer things that go fast and seem alive while doing it to... well, quasi-hidden 614T testing on coal trains, for example.

A significant advantage of starting with a complete engine is that all the dimensions, tolerances, metallurgy, etc. is already 'done' and doesn't have to be expensively regenerated from drawings or records. The frame, for example, may be replaced with a modern alternative, but that cost doesn't have to be incurred before there's a valid engineering reason to do so. (And, as noted above, everything not used will be kept... and I wouldn't be surprised if, at the end of all the experimentation, most of the original pieces could be reassembled into... well, an ATSF Hudson display with a permanent financed lease on life...

4) Laugh at the torrefied fuel if you want, but there's grant money available for alternative fuels. This represents a 'close-to-coal' fuel (as opposed, say, to taking the torrefaction product and doing Fischer-Tropsch conversion and synthesis to liquid fuel) and I note, for example, that part of the testing will involve the practicality of GPCS firing with this fuel... a legitimate technical study, not just a boondoggle for the tenure-concerned. (Again, I'd be happy to discuss this stuff off-list.)

5) I don't think I can be more clear than to note that 'follow-on' locomotives using the torrefied fuel would NOT be two-cylinder reciprocating locomotives. (Something akin to the PRR V1 with Bowes drive, for example, handles most of the running-stability concerns; the issue with diesel 'competition' is not so much a question of thermodynamic efficiency as it is net bottom-line cost, and there has been some intelligent and non-foaming work done on practical ways to implement external-combustion power in a diesel world).

I wanted to raise, briefly, something more on-topic to preservation. It's pretty clear that nobody's cared about keeping 3463 in any sort of preserved state up to now. Sure, there's the 'well, now that you've gotten my attention, let's fix it up' sort of effect, but I don't expect that to persist much longer than... well, how long it took to get the National Enquirer back at the checkout racks after Diana died.

But this isn't just about 'keeping the last of the 3460s intact' -- there is the wider question of how you handle preservation of significant improvements. In my (not-so-humble) opinion, something like a Chapelon-improved Pacific is more worthy of preservation than the 'original as-built' version. Likewise, the Red Devil was worth preserving as a demonstration of modern approaches to engineering, and (again in my opinion) it would have been an act of vandalism to remove the modifications to preserve her as a 'normal' class 25.

If there is a movement in Europe to put 18 201 back to the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug tank configuration, I haven't heard of it.

So there's something to be said for value-added preservation of the artifact itself, *provided* we lose nothing of the original history in doing so.


RME

How many man-hours of engineering and design are estimated for modernizing the ATSF locomotive?

The objective seems fantastically large. The fuel production manufacturing process, the biomass production, the modernized ATSF locomotive, the spin-off stationary power production plants all seem doable. Replacing diesel-electric and straight electric motive power with carbon-neutral steam seems like a lot to bite off, but still doable.

But the very last thing I would expect out of all of this would be returning the ATSF locomotive back to its original historic configuration. I just don’t see the road that leads there. Even if nothing goes forward after the locomotive is modernized, it will stand as a symbol of the effort and the vision. I cannot imagine that after all that effort, anybody is going to want to throw in the towel, and reverse the locomotive back to 1936.

Nobody can dispute that it is claimed to be a provisional option of the plan, but the likelihood seems zero.

This, I do not understand. Preserving means to keep it the same. How can you say that changing the function of an historic locomotive to add value is preserving it?

You speak of preserving artifacts and of preserving history.

Preserving the locomotive and preserving history are two different things. History gets preserved automatically. History is just a record of thoughts. There is no way to prevent the preservation of history anymore than you can prevent the sun from coming up. The locomotive is not history. It is an object that has its place in the historical record. You cannot change the locomotive’s place in the historical record, but you can surely destroy the historical locomotive itself by modernizing it.

Preservation has saved much but it has not preserved the natrual law of evolution, development and modernisation of the steam locomotive. This work might ? help to continue working steam. If not steam will die shortly for ever.

Yes, I agree. The continuing development of steam locomotives could be preserved to continue, or that development would end.

Southcoast Rail in Massachusetts is slated to spend $2.4 Billion on commuter service restoration to cities in SE Mass. The head of the State EPA has decreed that clean new technology in locomotives will be given priority. If anybody is really serious in the claims about "new" steam being better than Diesels, here is a chance to prove it. They just have to bid the power and land the contract. If the locomotives can't make it in commuter service where they are never more than 80 miles from the shop and come in for maintenance every evening, then they would have no chance with Amtrak or Class Ones. So there is the opportunity.

Now who can come up with a working product?

PC