On Sunday, I filled my gas tank with gas that cost $2.399 a gallon. Last night, there was a line reminiscent of the '70s when a local station continued selling gas at $2.689 when everyone else was at $2.919 or $2.999 (yes, I got in that line). Everyone seems to be over $3 this morning. This is in central South Carolina, I don't want to think what the poor folks out in California are paying.How high would the price of off-road diesel have to go before the increased fuel cost offsets the extra maintenance required for a coal-fired steam locomotive? My gut says it's in the $6-10 range. Any thoughts?

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With the meteoric rise in fuel prices since Katrina wiped-out the Gulf Coast and New Orleans areas, you could give away coal and it will still cost substantially more because of the price of energy to get it out of the ground, process it and ship it to where it will be used. If gasoline prices continue to stay high after the effects of Katrina are over (and this will be a LONG time), the whole economy will suffer greatly. If some tourist rail operations are suffering now from lack of ridership, expect some of the more remote and distanct ones to come on very hard times. The happenings of this week will affect this nation for a long time, if not forever.Don C.

Don:It WOULD be interesting to see if an operation that already had steam on hand for tourist operations IN SEASON, would take a look at the burgeoning cost of oil and investigate whether it might make sense to use the coal-fired steamer as a more cost-effective solution to OFF SEASON operation that ordinarily uses diesel.A good example would be the Grand Canyon except that they already converted coal fired 2-8-2 4960 to burn oil instead of coal. Any other operations out there that might be in a position to take a look?Les

It seems to me that the Strasburg railroad is running more steam than anyone else in the tourist industry. They have a short line but they run a lot of trains and run most of the year.And it has been some years since I went there, but aren't all their locomotives coal powered?Anyway the much greater amount of labor required to operate a steamer is so great that oil will have to go out of sight to make up the difference.Ted Miles

The Roaring Camp & Big Trees is operating oil-fired steam daily (as is always done during the summer season), and often double sections on peak days. In addition, it's only about 70 miles from San Francisco and Oakland, and just under thirty from San Jose...certainly not among the remote tourist lines to be found elsewhere in California and the rest of the nation.

A somewhat more likely response to permanently high diesel fuel prices would be electrification of the highest density main lines. Freight electrification in the United States was discontinued largely because the electrified segments were too short to be operated economically. The exception was the Milwaukee Road Pacific Coast extension, which never should have built in the first place.

When I see Ohio Central running 6325 (on coal) in freight service, then I'll know it's cheaper to operate a large steamer rather than a pair of SD-40-2s :) Here is 6325 with a unit train of coal, in case you were wondering what that would look like. She had no trouble with these 54 cars.

You have to start your calculation with the relative fuel efficiencies of internal vrs external combustion engines -- then throw in the cost of the labor to build and maintain the equipment.Without doing a complete wheel to wells analysis, the steam engines are typically about 3 percent fuel efficient and diesels an order of magnitude higher.It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the rest of the calculation is a waste of time.Bob H