In the early 1980’s, I remember my dad coming home from a BRS union meeting and showing me a stack of paperwork that was handed out to the members. It addressed the development of the ACE 3000, a new steam locomotive from American Coal Enterprises (ACE). Apparently, a representative from ACE was at the meeting and gave some kind of presentation.
If I recall correctly, this new locomotive differed from its older cousins in that it was equipped with:
Low-pressure firetube boiler and Belpaire firebox,
4-cylinder compound drive,
Computer-controlled boiler, fuel delivery, and firing,
Exhaust scrubbers,
System to collect ash for use in the manufacture of building products.
I found this online information relating to the ACE 3000, including pictures, diagrams, and technical data:
Maybe it’s time to take another look at the development of a 21st century steam locomotive. Since the ACE 3000’s conception, steam turbine efficiency has increased to 40%. Add a generator and create a new hybrid locomotive.
…It does make one wonder just what might be possible with today’s technology.
In my own mind I believe if money was not the total {limiting}, issue in developing such, a viable workable unit could be designed and built. But a production unit would probably not be competitive in performance, {maybe cost}, competitive to the point of servicing…requiring too much man power and equipment…as well as road side facilities along the lines it operated on…as is current state of the art diesels.
Of course fuel, {if coal was used}, one would think would be an advantage since we have so much of it…
I simply think it would not be competitive overall with today’s diesel engines offered.
Wonder what it would sound like…Especially if it was of a turbine design.
The requirement of having to put all of that support infastructure back in place would seem to be the biggest barrier to coal. Not many coal docks left.
Perhaps if the ACE 3000 was built during the 1960s, it might have been able to compete with a SD40 or U30C, but then the SD40-2 and C30-7 came out, and diesels have not stopped improving since.
Hooray ! Someone has remembered this information, I was beginning to think I was losing my mind, I remember a bit of press on this topic and then nothing,as if it was being supressed, but lo and behold guess how many coal mines and coal fired electric plants are being re-opened ?? With today’s technology and coal on the horizon why couldn’t the steam loco be back?? why hasn’t the ACE ever responded again about this new locomotive—great article.
The tests were done in the 1980’s. I have some shots of steamers operating on the New River Trains. A few pulled the Cardinal from Huntington to Hinton. Get the America by Rail DVD set with Winter Wonderland in the Gregg Scholl America by Rail series. $20 @BB.
The ACE relied on Ross Rowland. I think he was a trader on the chicago exchange that met with severe financial difficult & BK. Seems to me every time an idea comes along, the price of oil drops, the price of coal soars, so no money is left to develop a new steamer. Even the last holdovers in Africa, India, or China appear to be dropping their fires.
I have an idea the technology exists to burn coal cleaner than in the past.
I don’t remember all the stuff but the ACE loco was NOT a new loco.Just re-built and modified. I think it did well in the tests but did not show any advantage over the diesels of that time.I did not see the trials, which lasted for some time, but did see the loco. It sounded like steam engines we all know and love.
Ross Roland’s biggest problem with the ACE3000 project was that he was unable to find the capital to make this concept go. The numbers could not be made to work. Fuel oil/petroleum prices bottomed during the mid 80’s and coal was not considered practical for locomotives. For that matter, with crude oil at $55/bbl ($1.00/gal), coal still isn’t going to fire a locomotive boiler efficiently and cleanly enough to be viable.
There was no market for a 300 ton, very complex, GP40 - which was about all the performance you could expect from the ACE 3000. The differential in fuel cost was nowhere near enough to begin to get anybody even to seriously consider it.
Some of the guys I worked with when Ross R came around pitching the ACE3000 were around during the last decade of steam. They were more vehimently anti-steam than any of us new guys were.
…Perhaps the fellows that actually witnessed how much man power and equipment…and maintenance, and all the rest were envolved knew it was a real up hill battle to create a competitive “steam engine” to work along side modern diesels. As a railfan I have memories of plenty of manpower swarming all over steam engines at stops…and the equipment along the lines required for them…{water, coal, etc…}. I believe it was really an up hill battle to be thinking of trying to make “steam” competitive with the then current diesels…and even more so today.
I think some of it was a gut reaction to just how nasty they were to work on. I heard stories about cinders getting in your eye, about going into the firebox of a “hot” locomotive to repair a steam leak, about how big and heavy the parts were and about how dirty and grimey they were. One guy would admit that they did sound great when they were in good condition, but another was of the opinion that they were just too dangerous for any tourist line to operated. Too much could go wrong catastrophically.
I have made an oath to myself not to get drawn into the perpetual Catch 22 of circular arguments of steam versus diesel. However, the design premise of the protoype was overly ambitious by trying to throw every practical item of various roads wish lists into the mix and ended up being in effect, a design by committee. The best overview of this situation was written by David Wardale entitled The Red Devil and Other Tales From The Age of Steam. If you are into this sort of pondering, this book is indispensible. It would have been much more practical on many fronts to take an existing engine and modify it to demonstrate the real world advantages of Porta’s design improvements, lempor exhaust, gas producing combustion, lowered restricted free air grate,secondary air inlets, kordina, …etc…far too many to list here. The shame of it is, most part, Porta’s work like Telsa’s, will probably religated to the dusty backshelves in the library of history. It’s a real shame. Below is a link to DLM, who is continuing this work, sucessfully, in Germany. http://www.dlm-ag.ch/index2.htm
…You know we actually have a direct comparaison in another vehicle…Automobiles. It seems no contest for anyone to even think of making a competitive steam model with the gasoline automobile now in modern times. The Stanley’s were unique and complicated too to operate…{and quiet}, but no one is talking today that it woudl be competitive with the internal combustion engine automobile. Recently watched some Stanley steam automobiles and they really are something unique and different but do require someone that really knows how to operate and deal with them. I note Jay Leno tools around at times in one {or more}, of his.
I vaguely recall my Dad telling me many, many years ago that no one ever knew just how fast a Stanley Steamer could run. They were never opened wide up I guess because the rest of the car’s components, steering, wheels, suspension, etc.could not operate at the top end speeds the engine was cabable of producing. I also recalling him telling me that the Stanley Corp.offered a monetary prize to anyone who would (could) run one of their cars at full throttle. The prize was never claimed. Can anyone confirm this?
The fuel would have been coal slurry, one selling point was the tender had a replaceable bunker so instead of using coal chutes etc. you would just have a crane lift one out and put in a fresh one - though I think you could refill one in place if you wanted to. The tests with the restored steam engine were featured on I believe a Video Rails video, not sure if it’s still available??
A lot of the problem had to do with oil prices. In 1979 Iraq invaded Iran and the first thing both countries did is destroy each other’s oil shipping/production facilities. This lead to a world shortage of oil and a huge increase in prices/inflation (which in the US helped defeat Jimmy Carter, as the Republicans blamed his policies for the inflation.) By 1984, both countries had found alternative routes for their oil (Iraq built a pipeline across Jordan for example) and were selling all the oil they could, at a price below the world market price, so they could use the money to fight the war. This caused oil prices to plummet, as did inflation and other prices (which Ronald Reagan used to his advantage in the 1984 campaign.)
Had the ACE 3000 been built in 1980, when there would have been considerable savings in using coal instead of oil, it might have caught on. But by 1984-85 the savings of switching to coal just weren’t there anymore, and didn’t justify building the engine.
We were sitting around the switch shanty in Alliance, NE when the Railfan article came out. So we looked at all the specs and started trying to figure out how well this would work for the BN lines out of the PRB. It was obvious the idea was pretty much unworkable when we determined that the dozen or so tank car loads of diesel fuel used at Alliance would need to be replaced with about two 100 car trains of coal each day to keep the steamers fueled. Plus the rotary dumper, the coal stock pile, dozens of new 100 car train sets between the PRB and the steam plants. The better idea seamed to be conversion of the coal to a liquid fuel instead. The ACE units could not just be as good as a GP40, they had to be way better to compete.