I was thinking about how the railroads can ssave on diesel fuel costs. Bring back steam and burn coal. Of course the evironmentalists who complain about big oil will start complaining about big coal.
Ungern
Sounds good to me, bring back the Hudsons!
One of the reasons that China/India have been so slow to convert is because of the fact that they will become/have now become so dependent on foreign oil (just like north america).
Don’t think there are too many steam loco’s left in China/India now though.
…US companies would not put up with the army of workers it would require to put steam back in charge again…Too costly. Infrastructure is not in place to support such efforts either…even down to requiring truntables…or building turning wye’s…and many other reasons beyond that.
Well it will never happen with that attitude. [:(!]
…I’m not trying to present any attitude…just facts.
An attempt to build an advanced technology steam locomotive in the 80’s failed because they tried to go directly from concept to serviceable locos. They were able to overcome most drawbacks to steam. In theory new steam could be comparably practical to diesel and cheaper where coal is plentiful. Britain is taking another crack at it. www.5at.co.uk
Wi***hem luck.
Remember the ACE3000? Never even built. (Besides, it just looked like a GE AC4400CW with a squari***ank car coupled to it, where’s the steam locomotive in that?)
You wi***he steam engine will come back, but if it did it would probably look and sound just like a diesel, a steam turbine electric.
please see the thread on the other fourm i think it was trains mag. …and look for the title futuer power… that would give you some more insight to the bring back steam issue
csx engineer
oh yea…by the way…it would not help reduce oil usage…steam engins use a hell of alot of oil to lubricat the veriouse working mechanics… such as side rods for an example… so how do you think that not burning it to provide fuel… but useing to lub up some metel is going to save oil? sounds like your just trading one use for another… bottom line…NO SAVEINGS…
csx engineer
…Well…even if we had a “modern” steam engine the trade off of “saving oil” would be erased by the many added expenses of labor and all sorts of railroad plant support to supply the daily routine needs of such machines…The diesel electric engine is just too much challenge for steam to be competitive. I suppose one could say it’s fun to watch and hear running but not to pay for…and keep running. In the past when steam was all that was available…it did the job but now we have better ways of doing that job.
As long as automobiles and gasoline are such an important source of tax revenue for local, county and regional governments it’s likely that they’ll only go through the motions of attempting to reduce dependence on them. I’ll believe they really mean it if they start prohibiting any new development that is not at least as accessible and functional for non-motorists as it is for those who drive. The way we build now it seems that in many new communities the shortest and safest way to walk from one place to another is on the railway tracks, rather than a two- or four-lane hightway with no sidewalks. I wonder how many railfans live in places like that and don’t complain.
Aymen to L5390, it IS safer to walk on the tracks then those multi lane mini freeways all over the place. Maybe not completely safe, but safer non the less.
If you realy want to save on fuel oil, use hydro electric power and/or windmill power and string catenary up along the tracks. This may not be practical everywhere but it can be done in the mountains where trains use a high portion of fuel getting over. It may or may not cost more than oil, but it does save oil and it is not rocket science.
-Don’t scrap all our diesels yet, just remove the prime mover and repalce with a transformer and power collecter. To save even more fuel send all the truck traffic by rail this way, now you’re realy saving fuel.
-A traditional style steam engine would just use more coal than the oil it would save, and what about water? It consumes that too.
What’s the deal with places being so pedestrian un-friendly.
When I was out in Ontario about a year ago, I didn’t have a car so I mostly walked everywhere, there were some places where I would try and go and there wasn’t even a way to get there by foot!
I had to get a taxi in some areas so I could cross over highways that didn’t have pedestrian overpasses.
You don’t realize how dependent we have become with cars until you don’t have one yourself, and try and get around!
With respect to the idea that coal fueled locomotives are a thing of the past, a good analogy to consider is the fuel debate regarding power generation for the nation’s electricity grid. Just a few years ago it was thought that coal was a thing of the past, that all new generation would come primarily from natural gas, due to the efficiency of combined cycle technology and the fact that natural gas only cost around $2.00/mmBtu. For “clean coal” technology to compete, the price of natural gas would have to be over $3.50/mmBtu, and that just wasn’t going to happen in our lifetimes, right?
Now look at what has changed. Natural gas now costs over $5.00/mmBtu. Coal has once again become the primary fuel feedstock of choice for electricity generation, even with the added costs of clean coal technology and the added capital costs, manpower costs, etc.
Whose to say that the same won’t happen in the transportation field? It may not necessarily be rod driven steam, but some new form of coal powered prime movers. If oil prices are projected to stay high for the long term future, a new coversion back to coal may not only become a reality, it may become a necessity!
I remember when I was thinking of converting my car to natural gas a few years ago, still would be cool, but prices sure have skyrocketed since then! Not looking like as good a deal as it was back then.
In relation to steam powered loco’s…never say never, ANYTHING can happen.
So what is “clean coal”? Is this simply polluter propaganda or is there real technology and verified data on how much cleaner it is? Links please.
its like this…
steam is dead… even if you where to use a turbin system… you still have to deal with all the suport issues that go with steam power… ie water fusilitys… coaling stations… and also…a turbin is a hell of alot more complicated power unit then a good old Desiel engin… useing a closed steam genoration system like the Navy uses on the subs would be impratical simply becouse of the size of the power plant needed …it would be to big to use on the rail system we have today… not to mention down time of how long it would take the locomotive from the start of being fired…up to ready for service status…and the big question… range…how far will you be able to get on a coal fired steam engin… vers the Desiel…how would you be able to MU the units together to get them to run as 1…like todays power…how are you going to fire them?with an auto stoker? that is only half of it… now you have to have a real fireman back on the trains to manage the firebox… and besides the rail roads will not buy power that if you have to have another engineer to run each engin in a multy unit consist…hell…they want to get ride of as many jobs as possable…
csx engineer
In the exhaustive studies we did as part of the American Coal Enterprises effort(1980-1986) largely funded by BN and CSX we found that at 80 cents a gallon for #2 diesel fuel vs. $40/ton for 13,000 btu eastern coal that the Ace3000 would reduce the carriers fuel bills by approx. 60%! When you consider that fuel is the rr’s second biggest expense item(just below labor) this is a HUGE savings!
Equally significant the same study showed that when ALL costs were included(cost to buy the ACE 3000vs. the diesel, expected usefull life before major rebuild,water treatment plants, fuel shipping and loading, maintenance steamvs.diesel, etc.,etc.,etc.) that the Ace3000 gave the buyer a 300% Better return on investment vs. the diesel.
If that’s true then why didn’t these two giant coal hauling rr’s pony up the relatively small $5o million to build a first proto-type and prove in real service what the computer studies said would happen?? Very simple. On the eve of the go-no-go decision the world price of oil plummeted from $32/barrel to$9/barrel(#2 diesel fuel went from $1.25 to$.50) and all the near term urgency evaporated,AND it would have taken 4-5 years to build/de-bug and start producing new engines in quantity. For corporate leaders who are judged largely on next quarters earnings(and the price of the common stock) 4 to 5years is unthinkable!!!
The reason we stuck with the"old" reciprocating drive system was that we found that 1. it allowed us to get rid of the high voltage electrical system that to this day is the achilles heel of the diesel electric locomotive,(about 60% of all loco. maintenance $'s are spent on the electrical side) and 2. that it allowed the ACE3000 to develope it’s peak horsepower output at speed thus giving a far better over the road performance vs. the diesel.
When the world price of oil gets to and stays above $40/barrel(equals about $1.10/#2 diesel fuel) someone will build a successfull coal fired modern steam locomotive for the railroads,the economic
Mr Rowland, why not press it now with all that is going on in the Middle East? Oil is only going to go up and up and up and we dont seem to be making any friends over there. Off the topic though, I grew up watching the Chessie Steam Specials and in my opinion 614 has the best sounding whistle in the world, I have been trying to get that sound for my Live Steamers for a while now.Thank you for letting a little kid see one of the best shows on earth.