Its only a matter of time before metal fatiuge sets in and we have to build reproductions. I know that there are some 1950s models out there but what happens in 2050?
Oh my gosh - I would be the type to write an answer to that - but by sitting on my hands I can prevent it … just .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G-XAyBDWdw
If I know one thing for sure it is : I wouldn’t want to get 200 years old … [;)]
Juniatha
In all seriousness, will a steam locomotive still be running in 200 years? Well, I suppose it depends on how well it was built to begin with and how well it’s been maintained.
Not quite the same thing, but in the battlefield parks around Richmond Va. there’s a number of bronze cannon from the Civil War on display. Those guns can still be fired, the bronze was that durable.
So, it depends. Building replica wouldn’t be a bad idea.
And what happens in the year 2525 doesn’t concern me, I aint’ gonna be here.
It’s an interesting question, but it begs another: How much (by weight) of a heavily restored steam locomotive is truly “original”.
Every time a locomotive goes in for its 15 year or whatever, more original metal is replaced. It’s not hard to imagine a well funded locomotive like 844 or 4449 being almost entirely reproduction in 200 years.
Specifically, the USS Constitution comes to mind. It’s the oldest commissioned warship in the navy at over 200, but how much of the actual wood is original - not much.
I believe “Constitution” is about 60% original. Same with Admiral Nelsons flagship HMS Victory.
If it has been mothballed in a perfect environment all that time, it is quite possible it could be resurrected. But if it has seen periodic use it will be rather like the famous woodsman’s axe; the handle had been replaced 8 times and the head twice, but “it’s still great grandpa’s original axe”. In fact a number of the older steam locomotives extant today received considerable modernisation during their railroad career, including new boilers, cabs and valve gear.
The other problem is likely to be meeting the safety standards of the future if the current trend of ever more stringent regulation continues. As a sci-fi example, since boilers can explode perhaps their use may be completely forbidden if some radical new technology has made them obsolete.
John
I will not be able to run any locomotive 100 years from now.
I believe the John Bull that runs is a complete new rebuild, if new in 1939 is new. However, the orginal loco was fired up and run on its 150th.
The problem will be the new 24,000 or so regulations that will prevent anyone from running anything in one to two hundred years. If it runs on solar panels, it might be allowed.
CZ
John Bull is a British-built railroad steam locomotive that operated in the United States. It was operated for the first time on September 15, 1831, and it became the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operated it in 1981.[3][4] Built by Robert Stephenson and Company, the John Bull was initially purchased by and operated for the Camden and Amboy Railroad, the first railroad in New Jersey, which gave John Bull the number 1 and its first name, “Stevens”. The C&A used the locomotive heavily from 1833 until 1866, when it was removed from active service and placed in storage.
After the C&A’s assets were acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1871, the PRR refurbis
I would bet that we’re running largely original steam locomotives in 200 years, but none that are original. We aren’t really doing that now…already. Most that are rebuilt for modern safety and operational policies, laws, regs, etc, have major components that are new metallurgy and made with tools that didn’t exist 100 years ago. Most rebuilding shops have skilled machinists who can spec out a necessary component and build it from scratch with some time, materials, and money. I believe the new British Peppercorn is almost entirely new, if not entirely new.
Frames that are cast and not milled will probably have a tougher time as the years go by. Spoked wheels? How good will they be after 10K hours on them? Any pivoting or revolving surfaces will certainly be new after all that time. Decking, foot plates, running boards, fairings, smoke lifters…they’ll all be new. Unless it is pristine and very excellent ($) stainless cladding over the boiler, that’ll be new in almost every case.
And so on…
Crandell
Well, let’s see…
Inyo was built in 1875 and is steamed once a year - on July Fourth. Originally rated at 130psi, I believe she is currently limited to 40psi out of deference to the age of the boiler.
There were quite a few advances in metallurgy between 1875 and the end of steam. I would expect that a 1940-1950 locomotive, cared for as carefully as Inyo, could expect to steam into the 22nd century, with maximum pressure limited to 75 psi or so.
On the other hand, the future may well belong to a bunch of later-built replicas with ??? drives replacing that downright dangerous rolling bomb full of high-pressure steam and superheated water. One might look like N&W 611 or NYC 999, but be perfectly safe and totally ‘green.’ Will that happen? Can’t tell. I dropped my crystal ball and now it only works for the 35th - 37th centuries…
(Aside to Lady J. Some of the characters that populate the Confederation Universe have access to long-life therapy which allows several young ladies to claim that they are, "Sixteen going on seventeen - hundred. Sixteen physiologically, with seventeen centuries of memories and life experiences.)
Chuck (Occasional science fiction writer)
Hi Chuck
Hmm … seems like " strange days ( may then ) have found us " …
( sorry , I know I keep coming back on that line by Jim Morrison . it is so ‘universe-ly’ befitting )
What about a steam science fiction story …?
Regards
= J =
Hi, Juniatha
I’ve kicked around the idea of a major ship crashing on a habitable world and the survivors jury-rigging a railroad — Nah. They’d just rig a communicator and call in the Fleet Rescue Service…
However, I do have it on good authority that Senior Command Admiral T. P. Carlsen (CinC Confederation Space Navy) has a large, elaborate model railroad based on the Upper Kiso Valley in the Central Japan Alps as it was in 1964. Steam, electric and some diesel-hydraulic locos. He claims that it helps him maintain his sanity when dealing with those seventeen century old teenagers…
Fun, isn’t it?
Chuck
The good thing about steel is you can reset the “fatigue clock” by heating and then cooling. RRs do this all the time for truck castings and couplers reclaimed from old freight cars and locomotives - even (especially) after welding on them to restore dimensions.
The problem with boilers and fireboxes isn’t fatigue, its them wearing or corroding so that they are too thin.
How much of me is actauly original from 1965?
Hello,
Another point is the useful life of a steam locomotive. Late steam locomotives were built for daily service for about 40 years. Most were retired after about 20 years. So, in theory, they had 20 years of daily service left. Steam locomotives in preservation are often significantly more pampered than when in service, so they may have even more life.
Regarding the originality of steam locomotives, which is more important: a live steamer with replaced parts, or a dead “original” steam locomotive siting in a museum? I would much rather see a live steam locomotive!
NW.
This may be kind of a screwball thing to say, but since science fiction seems to be developing a habit of becoming science fact, it wouldn’t surprise me that in 200-plus years time someone would be able to get the steam locomotive experience through a holographic simulator, right down to the coal smoke and hot oil and steam smells.
An actual live steamer wouldn’t be necessary. I don’t know if that would be a pity or not.
At least if you didn’t pay attention to the sight glass and blew yourself up it wouldn’t be permanent.
Firelock, why not just go to virtual reality?
Imagine…
Watching trains on Horseshoe Curve in 1944?
Tehachapi Loop in 1938?
The possibilities are endless!
NW
Absolutely Northwest, hence my supposition that a live operating steam locomotive may not be needed at all. Again, I don’t know if that would be a good situation or not.
I’m guessing in 2 or 3 hundred years we’ll just be batteries for the Matrix, anyhow.
A “holographic simulator” IS an instantiation of VR. (Even if it’s fantasy magic masquerading as technology, as in the STNG Holodeck…)
You might as well use Keith Laumer’s contact screens and a bodysuit or actuator array. (I actually calculated the data rate for full-immersion, and it is surprisingly low, under 750MB/s). The chief issue remains that of smell, because you can’t use direct stimulation effectively (the receptors and mediation are VERY nonlinear!) so you would need to pipe the appropriate scents to the intake air – and it’s easier to modulate the temperature of the intake air to the nose than to approximate the effects with nerve stimulation on mucous membranes.
You ought to be able to mimick most of the haptic experience of firing and running with the normal sort of 6-DOF gimbaled frame with feedback sensors and actuators at the joints, and a good set of touch gloves.
This thread has bounced around to an interesting question: What part of running restoration involves the thrill of the experience, and what part the preservation of the artifact itself in running condition?
The experience even given by an evolved version of a ‘train simulator’ may be sufficient for many railfans. Note that the total development cost of such a thing would be far more than the cost to build, maintain, and run a replica PRR S1 – but the cost is spread in a much different way, the external gains and opportunities from the technology are much greater, and the alternative uses of the system and its models are much, much wider – across a much wider potential user ba