There is also another expression: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” What are the compelling reasons to replace the Diesel-electric locomotive as the primary source of rail motive power?
Anthony V.
WW, it may sound trite, but culture, with the force of its customs and biased thinking, is really what makes or breaks the process of renewal or re-evaluation. I feel that well run businesses have learned this, and that is why good leaders know to bring in “fresh meat” once in a while, someone still keen and perspicacious who knows how to ask the right questions. Unfortunately, though, the newcomer is sometimes resented and mis-trusted. If an organization is bent on examining itself, then the current leadership, formal and informal ( [;)] ) must encourage frankness in the organization. They must give the nod to those who will be approached by the newcomer, giving them permission to tell it like it is.
It is almost always too much to ask, and certainly to rely upon.
-Crandell
I agree.Sometimes organizational cultures become so rigid that they lose their bones along the way. At times I have been placed in a position where even what is feasible versus what is not gets lodged between the people who do the work and upper management who wants to “improve” the work. Simply saying this or that is so does not mean what you are saying translates into feasibility. I met with one company who said we want to do so and so and we want Mr X, Yand Z to do it,well these fellows in the field were barely keeping their heads above water through no fault of their own. As a result of management by priority (which had no idea how the work actually got done) the work was being made overly complex, with more focus on reporting the work done, than doing the actual work. When I went back and told them they either needed more resources in the field or a more autonomous regional organization, they looked at me as if I had three eyes and two heads. Entropy is a quantifiable number at times.
$140+/barrel oil, $4+/gallon #2 Diesel fuel.
You might say that once a technology gets superceded that it never comes back. Kind of like jets replacing propellers on airplanes.
Only there had been a major initiative to bring propellers back into major-carrier airline operations. It went under names such as Prop Fan (United Technologies) and UDF (unducted fan – General Electric). There was a lot of interest in this as a fuel saving technology around the time of the 1970’s oil crisis. Perhaps nothing came of it because 1) the noise suppression technology was iffy, and to bring back the noise and vibration of props into the cabin would be a major setback, and 2) ducted turbofans were a moving target – there were incremental improvement to fuel economy that closed the gap.
Don’t know if there are any initiatives to bring back piston prop planes. The Pennsy T1 of aviation engines was the Curtis-Wright R-3350 Turbo Compound – powered the DC-7, Lockheed Constellation, the P-2 Neptune Navy sub hunter, and the Douglas Skyraider close air support plane of the Viet Nam War. It represented the peak of piston power and fuel economy (the P-2 Neptune set some distance records), but I understand that it needed inordinate amounts of maintenance.
On the other hand, Diesels are sort of like still running prop planes. With Diesels you have pistons and the need to replace pistons (changeout of “power assemblies”). You suppose those regenerative turbines discussed on another thread will finally make inroads into the Diesel market?
As I recall the Skyraider didn’t use the Turbo Compound-- just the straight R3350.
The P2V distance record was in 1946, also with the R3350. (Perth to Columbus, which remained the unrefuelled straight-line distance record until 1986, or maybe later.)
Paul:
According to the paper, modern steam would save the railro
When I started with Conrail in the late 70’s, some of the most vehement anti-steam guys around were the Mechanical guys who “cut their teeth” on steam. To quote on of them, “the only thing anybody should be doing with a steam locomotive is filling it’s boiler with concrete”. To be fair, I think part of his point of view was shaped by knowing exactly how much stored energy there is in a hot boiler and exactly how easily things can go wrong in a very bad way.
Consequently, when the ACE3000 dog and pony show came to town, they sent me to it. I still have the info and my write up somewhere.
The record in question was broken sometime in the mid-1960’s by a SAC B-52 which raised the record to around 12,500 miles.