Wishful thinking will only relate it to to a steam program, but it's nevertheless interesting to still see these skills being required today--especially by a railroad.

The above snipet from the job description would not apply to a stationary boiler, only a steam locomotive. Might someone have grabbed an old job description, or might this really be the start of a new steam program?

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

I wonder if some wag in the personnel department borrowed a rather ancient description of the craft.

FWIW, in todays' world, the boilermaker craft is responsible for fabrication/repairs to the structures of diesel locomotives. I believe 1/4" is the demarcation between sheet metal worker and boilermaker.

Given the consolidation of the industry and the trend to outsource heavy collision repairs, I suspect that this craft has languished on many properties. Hence, the need to build up the ranks of same.

Dave

Sounds to me like someone in the personnel department didn't have a clue of what the job entailed, so looked up an old description. Very typical of today's railroading, where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

On CSX, this is the job title for a heavy metal fabricator. One of the two lead foremen at the Riverside Shop in Baltimore is a boilermaker by craft. As stated before, this is the guy who straightens out the pilot after running over misplaced autos at grade crossings.

One of the standard blue flag throttle chips still stocked in CSX storehouses is "Boilermaker working on train do not move"

Steve Zuiderveen

Everyone,

It would be fun to entertain the thought of CSX following UP's example in some sort of who can run the biggest steam engine if CSX wanted a steam program.

My thought would be what engine would CSX have to offer at this point that is comperable to the Challenger?

How about an a 1600 series like the 1604 at the B&O museum? Or possibly one of the 1300's. There is one of these in Hunginton, WV and one in Baltimore as well.

What if CSX took a 2700 C&O 2-8-4 Berkshire and turned back the clock to create an L&N Big Emma?

Just a fun thought. I know it will never happen.

IF it were to happen, they would need a real boiler maker or two.

Have a great day,

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian

IF CSX wants steam, there are plenty of steam locomotives available to be used for a program without requiring them to rebuild one of their own. Dreaming is fine, but let's try to do it realistically with the fewest number of willing suspensions of disbelief.

dave

I believe you'll find that this is the job description negotiated between the union that represents the position, and the railroad. It may be that it has never been updated (re-negotiated) because either management or labor didn't want to open up that can of worms.

JAC

"Boilermaker" does indeed mean welder these days. When Pere Marquette 1225's superannuated thermic syphons blew out during the 1991 NRHS convention excursions at Huntington, WV, CSX boilermakers patched it up for the trip back to Michigan where new syphons could be made. I suspect this was the first actual boiler those relatively-young welders had ever worked on.

Dave, let the man have his moment of fantasy! I have wondered if a shortline or even a branchline would be profitable using a restored Kanawha and leasing Ross's Greenbriar. Figure a line that hauls coal and provides it's own fuel from that resource. Now haul legitimate freights down to the mainline and run some passenger extras up to where the switching was being done... It would be a thrill and an education just to what two large locomotives of the same parent road, working side by side. Day shots, night shots, scheduled servicing shots at night, and basically the whole late steam experience brought back to life by an outfit that carefully crafted how they could make it profitable.
I recently viewed the video of Blue Mtn. and Reading 2102 working as a coal drag loco a few years ago. I'm sure something similar could be created again, but deep within the old Chessie territory. How fine a line is it between fantasy and "vision"?

The short answer is, really, "No." Railroading as a business involves selling transportation as a commodity under commodity pricing conditions. In a business where margins are razor thin to begin with, voluntarily introducing costs that are otherwise entirely avoidable (and using steam as motive power represents a massive voluntary upgrade in costs) is a recepie for failure.

I like big steam, and I like to see it run when and where I can. But I agree with Dave that we need to concentrate on honing realistic models for doing this over the long term. Steam in freight service is not such a model.

Not to mention how today's railroads would like to be perceived by the general public. Check out Norfolk Southern's latest tv spot titled, "Tree" linked below.
http://www.nscorp.com/nscorphtml/video/ ... ree_30.mpg

Under what circumstances would steam freight be economically feasable today?

To what extent can the economic differential between coal and oil costs be boosted with technological advances in steam since 1955 to achieve enough savings to justify the additional maintenence costs and replacement of the missing support infrastructure?

I'd venture to suggest that fuel costs have NEVER been critical factors compared to other costs in the railroad industry. Had it been, fuel efficiency in steam would have been a motivating technological factor and created innovation rather than inrceasing how many ton miles could be hauled by one unit operated by one crew - labor being more costly than fuel by a wide margin.

Possible realistic scenarios for steam freight seem to me to be limited to steam expperience programs, where a shortline would offer steam operation to fans wanting to get hands-on (at relatively high cost) and relive experiences common a century ago, or as exhibit photo charters. Both can be subsidized by having steam available for use paid for by tourist passenger operation, or by making income on the freight hauled to a lesser extent, preferably both.

I wonder if Henry Posner has developed such a plan for his QJs? It would be great to see them working on the regionals.

dave

Almost none. In a global, history-and-future-of-the-planet sense, both oil and coal are FAR too valuable as petrochemical resourses to ever put a match to. But for now, until we convert to nuclear-powered railroad electrification and hybrids for local switching and branches, we're stuck with it.

To use steam economically, one would have to see coal become cheaper than oil by a large factor to overcome the inherent expenses of steam: new facilities, new fuel and water networks, servicing expenses, the return of a fireman as a fireman and not just another brakeman, etc. The problem is that as petroleum prices rise, coal prices currently rise along with them as utilities and other consumers shift insofar as possible. Thus, projects like the ACE 3000 and China's steam program have typically been centered around either asserting energy independence from foreign nations (in the case of the ACE 3000) or using "abundant" fuel that doesn't have to go through a middleman (as in China, the N&W in the 1950s, etc.).

It might be possible to shift economically to steam provided one were able to handle the servicing costs of steam with convict/prison labor, and/or ran a socialist state with assigned jobs and universal menial pay, either in a country with abundant coal resources and a brazen disregard for air-quality standards. Hmmm, do we know any country that fits that description? (Sorry for the political spin, but I consider it an important factor in the real answer to the question.)

The only other way steam works economically is if you already have the steam locomotive, can't afford the diesel, have a crew that understands the steamer and is willing to put up with it, and are planning weeks ahead instead of years ahead. Such a situation applied to the last holdouts of steam--the Northwestern Steel & Wire 0-8-0's, the Edgemoor & Manetta, the Crab Orchard & Egyptian, and others.

Well think of it as this type of business model...the Durango and Silverton,which it seems is very profitable,has the infrastructure and the people in place to make it work.A standard guage freight hauler with steam could work if you had the pieces in place and the steady cash flow,like the D&S. That steady flow cannot always be seen in freight operations but it might offer some economic lessons if one wanted to see how it might work.