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German fireless locomotive to return to work after 20 years in a museum
Diesel is at the end of the road? but I’ll like to see that spreadsheet on costs first
Great, maybe someone will do a follow up with pictures. They were quite common at PP&L plants.
I think the key to the cost question here is that the steam is already available since it is a power plant, i.e., the “fuel” is a free by-product. And if the locomotive is properly updated with modern mechanisms, the running maintenance would be minimal. So this is a unique situation not necessarily applicable to other places or industries.
It is an interesting idea. We have a lot of coal fired power plants. However, I think most of these are fed by unit trains and the road locomotives never leave the train.
The city’s correct name is not “Gelsenkirche” but “GelsenkircheN” with an “N” at the end. By the way, the city (roughly the same size as Buffalo, NY) is still an interesting place for railfanning despite the loss of most of its industrial branch lines and the old “Hauptbahnhof” (Union Station) which was torn down in the 1980’s. There are many freight and commuter trains and some remaining “Intercity” trains on one of Germany’s oldest main lines passing through the city, and there are streetcar lines linking Gelsenkirchen to its larger neighbors Essen and Bochum.