Quoting from an early-twentieth century college textbook on railway design regarding servicing time for steam locomotives, leastwise in the early twentieth century:
“Engine delays at terminal points are nearly constant. Almost regardless of the length of run, from five to eight hours are necessary for the overhauling of an engine at the terminal on the completion of its run. About three-fourths of this time, which is occupied in ashing, coaling, wiping, inspection, etc. is independent of the length of run, while the remaining quarter of the time is occupied in making light repairs, varies to an extent with the length of the run. Therefore, the greater distance between terminals, the smaller the proportion of the time spent inactively by the locomitive, and the less terminal engine costs per engine-mile.”
your post raises more questions than answers. i was born too late to ever work around steam but i read that in later years the N&W had it down to a science and could “turn” a steam locomotive in about an hour or less at major terminals. another factor would be the general condition of the roads power. some of the wooden axle outfits had to do a lot more repair work between runs. late in the steam era it is doubtful that engines got wiped down like they did in earlier years since they were on their last laps anyway and steam cleaning the running gear was only done to the extend necessary for inspection. if the stay bolts and brick arch needed inspection then furnishing that man with an asbestos suit would speed things up
if the engine did not require much in the way of repairs, it probably never even saw the inside of an engine house. i would think that cleaning out the ash pan and smoke box was the most time consuming of the usual service operations and ash pan capacity was a factor in the length of runs. NYC evidently did not have much of a problem with that since they ran the J class hudsons all the way from Harmon NY to Chicago with only one stop for coal and took water on the fly. probably roller bearings and modern lubricators played a big part in that. of course, oil burners did not have that problem at all.
i would think a fully staffed, modern steam terminal could put one back on the road in a couple of hours or so where as a one man band could take a lot longer. railroad work almost always expands to fill the time allowed for it.
on my model railroad, we operate on the fi-fo or first in first out principal for all road power, steam and diesel. while steam yard engines work every other shift and diesels work 16 hours out of 24.
a lot of real railroads stagger starting times on yard jobs partly to give the engine house time to give the locomotives a quick once over and servicing betw
Most railroads was quite efficient in turning locomotives from the inbound engine track to the outbound ready track…After all each division was assign so many locomotives to get the work done…8 hours seems way to long and wasted men hours.
Now when locomotives was assigned to engineers then the roundhouse crews may have had longer time .
I would say the book is probably right for c.1920, 5-8 hours total time. Remember that one of the reasons railroads went with diesels as quickly as they could was the fact that diesels were available for work a much higher percentage of the time compared to steam engines, and had fewer maintenance issues.
Some assume that all steam would have the same maintenance. Later steam included oil fired boilers which would negate the need to clean the ash. The side rods would probably need greasing but I’m sure the earlier noted 1-2 hour time frame is probably a good one.
Well, maybe. The N&W could turn an engine in an hour (ash dumping, lube, sand, coal and water) and they were making money hand over fist while other railroads, either partly or totally dieselized, were struggling. N&W dropped steam locomotives not because they weren’t efficient, but because the suppliers of steam locomotive parts and accessories were either going out of business or had gone on to other fields. N&W built its last steam locomotive, an 0-8-0 in 1953 (December IIRC) and didn’t order a diesel until 1955.
I wouldn’t be so quick to to ascribe the triumph of the diesel to the steam locomotive’s supposed weaknesses. N&W designed and used their steam locomotives appropriately (i.e. used them in the kind of traffic where the locomotives performed most efficiently). Properly designed, utilized and having facilities approaching those of N&W in efficiency and the diesel wouldn’t have won so easily. Remember, the N&W tested Y6b’s against 4 unit EMD F7’s and then built more steam. When you consider that one area where the diesel was considered superior (low speed tractive effort), the N&W tested a 16 driver steam locomotive versus a diesel set with 32 drivers and found the former superior in the service for which the Y6b was designed, which, ironically, is relatively slow speed coal service.
If you want some visual evidence of what a well maintained steam locomotive can do with a train, check out the YouTube video of UP #3985 accelerating UP Archer Hill with a stack train normally assigned to a 3 unit 4,000 HP diesel set (
andre make a good point but let’s not forget that the early diesels were not all that great by today’s standards and some of them were pure junk from the very start.
steam locomotive servicing had been going on for over a hundred years and most of the workers knew what they were doing. i wonder how much down time on diesels was related to some poor old head having to read the manual before he put his work gloves on.
just like when some of us talk about the good old days but forget that our 53 chevy needed a tune up every 12 thousand miles and a valve job at 50 thousand. if you tried to run one across the state of Montana at 80 mph, you would have made the last half of the trip behind a tow truck.
unfortunately, for many railroads the really good modern steam power only made up a small part of their entire locomotive fleet.
Good points Andre but if steam was on par with diesel as far as the railroads go, they’d still be with us. I do wish some survived normal service but it’s worked out otherwise.
Besides, today the environmentalist and so called “Green” movement would be finding ways to tax the smoke at this point.
There are also the government rules concerning steam pressure vessels. Steamers had to have at least a monthly boiler wash, Twice yearly inspection, and constant attention to adjustments. The overhead costs involved with steam locomotives was astronomical compared to diesel maintenance. Just stocking and maintaining the coaling facilities costs the roads millions of dollars a month in crews, material, and lost cars that could be hauling revenue freight instead of supplies. That is just fuel. Consider the cost of water. From towers, reservoirs, stand pipes, track pans, pumping, heating and protection from freezing, and testing and treating chemically.
The N&W tried valiantly to save the steam locomotive in revenue status but had to succumb to the fact that in order to survive they had to have diesels.