what some of you people fail to see…or dont know is…that the 2 main reaons for the prices of oil (gasoline) to go up are…
1…increased demaind for crude…not just in the US…but on the world market…and the number 1 reason is china… it is haveing an economic boom (thanks to walmart and eveyone that buys anything made in china from walmart)…with china buying more oil for its own uses…it drives the market value of oil up since thier is more demand across the board then thier is oil being produced…
2… lack of oil refiners here in the US… thier hasnt been any new oil refiners build here in the US since the 70s… (thanks to the tree hunggers once agin)…and the ones we do have still running are falling part… its not so much an issue of not getting enough oil here in the US…its the fact that we dont have the capasity to refine it here to keep up with the demainds for gas…
also…someone mentioned above that trend is to shift from coal fired power plants to oil isnt true… the shift is from coal to naturel gas fired power plants in the 70s 80s and 90s…but the same thing with oil has happend to natural gas…the need for it is greater then the amount of production can keep up…so what was cheeper to burn then coal a few decands earlier is just about as much burning coal if not more…
and on one last note… on coal…coal is cheeper and more economical to burn…the costs that make coal unattractive is the costs of the emmistions scrubbing equipment… the emmitions controlls are exensive to put in and that is an investment that alot of power comanys dont want to make since it will take for ever for them to ever get a return on the investment of building a new one…
and now one note on electification… it sounds good on paper… but the capital investments to build the infostructor would bankrup evey railroad in this country… and then the added costs for upkeep…and down time due to down catinary from storms and other unforseen problems that take t
Hmmm. Steam driven trains powered by nuclear reactors. I like it!!! A small reactor heats on-board water and converts it to steam. Steam drives turbines that generate power sent to either DC motors or AC motors in the trucks. So, you’d have nuclear/steam powered locos that look like modern diesels, and that work like them from the deckplate down. Just for fun, we could even fashion some like the steamers of old with all the rods and cylinders…Hey, I said just for fun!!
Csx engineer is right on. The biggest problem is not the supply of oil, but the U.S. capacity to refine it into something useful like diesel or gasoline. Oil companies stopped building new refineries in the 70’s because the peanut farmer we elected president decided to change the depreciation/tax rules to make building new refineries unprofitable. I guess he thought that would somehow reduce the demand for oil (???)
Bottom line is after inflation, fuel prices are really no more expensive than they were in the 1960’s. We just got spoiled with really, really cheap fuel prices in the 80’s & 90’s. It is still cheaper, and considering the current alternatives, just to keep burning diesel/gasoline.
If diesel really does get expensve in relation to inflation, they will just convert coal into diesel. That doesn’t solve the mining problems, but it still would be cheaper to do that than to have steam locomotives or large scale electrification.
Coal is good on tourist railroads. But coal being used on excursion trains could be pricey. Plus, how many coaling stations are there in America?
Coaling stations? Hah… just a good backhoe or hydralic crane and a little time will do it.
Our family did reduce dependance on gasoline last several years by adjusting our lifestyle to be closer to home. I estimate we burn about 1500 gallons less a year of gasoline because we moved alot of things closer to our town instead of the big city far away.
And how much time would need to be allowed to refill a tender with 10-15 tons of coal using that method? Coaling towers were designed to reload a tender relatively quickly by a gravity feed. Refilling the tower might take some time but that was not as important as getting the locomotive refueled promptly.
You tempt me.
Let me just say that I have used a Cat 936 Front end loader and it might take 3 scoops to get that coal tender full. I just need two dump trucks to bring the coal. Thumpith-bang… coal dumped. Three scoops later, engine is good to go while I clean up the few tons that is left over.
=)
loading coal has never been a real big time killer… taking on water is where the real time killers are at with steam locomotives…
csx engineer
I grew up on steam trains, My Father and my Grandfather both worked on the railroad. Seems that the basic problem about the lack of passenger rail service began way back in the 40’s when General Motors (and the other automakers )lobbyed Congress to go the way of the bus (gas was cheap after the war ended). The buses were powered by gasoline engines. Then Eisenhower forced the creation of our great Interstate system of hiways, notice not one thing was created for railroading. We (the unwashed public) went along for the ride, after all it was easy to pop the kids in the back seat of the old jalopy and fill up the tank with 15 cents a gallon gasoline. Even in the 50’s gas was at an all time high of 25 cents a gallon. A buck went further back then. Why don’t we have more commuter rail systems? Ask your congressman or women, better yet, ask your neighbor. We probably won’t see any increase in commuter rail systems until the “warp” engine has been perfected.
Oh I liked steam and my Grandfather hated diesels. Those days will never return.
eisenhower created the interstate system for nation defence for cold war troop deployments if the old red russkies attacted…and for major metropoloten civilan evacuation routes should thier be a nuclear bomber strike from the soviets…(this all started befor the profection of the ICBM deliver system for nuclear warheads) when a long range bomber was the only way to deliver a nuclear bomb…with the ICBM evacuation is a moot point since after a launch of a ICBM was detected…it would only be about 30 mins befor the warhead reached its target…what started out as a cold war project now only is a way to get from point A to point B with no traffic lights…and higher speed…
csx engineer
Your best bet would probably be a coal turbine.
But I wouldn’t mind seeing a concept similar to the ACE3000.
~[8]~ TrainFreak409 ~[8]~
Interesting thread…however I’m not seeing another important consideration the RR’s hold very dear; the condition of their track (& those maintenance costs).
JIm Boyd’s book ‘The Steam Locomotive’ has an interesting side bar on pg 103 concerning Ross Rowland’s (the producer of the Freedom Train) and American Coal Enterprises experiments to determine whether there was a viable ‘alternative fuel’ locomotive in the wake of the 1970’s oil crisis. These tests were run in the early 1980s.
They used the N&W’s steam turbine as will as the C&O’s 4-8-4 #614 running tests between Huntingdon & Hinton W.Va. Needless to say…the 614 never missed any of it’s assignments.
However…The data proved that a 1948 vintage steam locomotive really does POUND the daylights out the track and cannot match the performance of a modern diesel-electric (The author points out ‘It is much more spectacular to watch, however.’).
If we do anything with alternative fuels, it will be to power the electrical generators on board existing traction designs.
My[2c] in keeping to the facts.
Happy Railroading…
Mark
Another thing about the labor required to keep a steam engine maintained: we are talking about boiler makers, machinists, blacksmiths, i.e., skilled, high priced, talent. And not just any welder is qualified to work on the type of pressure cylinder required for a locomotive boiler. (And that was using technology from 50 years ago. Use of high tech materials and systems are going to add to the costs as well.)
It is no coincidence that steam lasted longest in countries with lots of inexpensive labor.
Water is another issue. A lot of railroads were happy not only to eliminate water stops, but also water treatment plants, and having to ship good water to bad water districts. I’m sure railroads are also grateful not to have to be involved in the legal disputes over access to water sources that exist in some regions.
I tend to believe electric transmission will continue to be the norm. Any change will likely be what fuel the prime mover will use.
I remember an article in an issue of the R&LHS Bulletin, discussing the failure of the ACE-3000 project. When oil prices dropped in the 1980s, apparently the managments of EMD and GE approached the railroads supporting the ACE-3000 project, and pointed out that they (EMD & GE) were already doing research and development on alternative power, and that they would have suitable offerings when the railroads needed something different, and that it made no sense for the railroads to invest in the R&D for new motive power technology.
From a purely railfan standpoint, I’m not sure a steam turbine would really seem all that different from the high-horsepower diesel-electrics currently in use. I doubt such an engine would have anything like the appeal of the old steam locomotives.
Greetings from UK. Glad you have heard of David Wardale’s new design for an oil-fired steam ten-wheeler that looks like a real possibility - for main-line tourist trains, which still have a kind of marginal existence in the UK. As for environmental concerns, the new oil-fired Swiss steam locomotives and lake steamboats have lower emissions and are quieter than the diesels they have replaced. All that says nothing, of course, about burning coal or hauling 10,000 tons of freight. There is a place for new steam but I believe it is only in the tourist sector and at the small-scale end of that sector. Even Wardale’s 4-6-0 is not quite the most practical project, which would be a small modern 2-6-0 or 2-6-2T built to UK loading gauge. Such a locomotive could go anywhere in the world on standard gauge. The tourist lines in UK and USA could get together and order a batch of such engines at a very attractive unit cost. As the Swiss have shown, this pays off in tourist numbers. People want to ride behind steam! Better forget it for those big freight trains, however. As for electrification - that has come to a halt in the UK, where conditions suit it far better than the US situation. Your distances and your weather extremes are not electric-friendly. Enjoy your wonderful diesels (as I did in PA in June) and look into those forgotten processes whereby Nazi Germany produced liquid fuel from coal.
One way to cut costs of energy is to push more freight from trucks to railroad.
Two things are accomplished. Highway congestion and polution from trucks is reduced. i know this dosn’t answer the steam question, but heh.
There were oil fired Steam you know…
Essentially we’re trying to find a way to turn the wheels on a locomotive in some fitting fashion.
So far the electric motor using oil engine electric generator fashion is the stage at the moment.
Sideroded lokies had counterbalances to negate the weight of the siderods.
I recall however a recent fantrip I watched NKP 517 and another engine and the ground shook like an earthquake.
There may need to be some kind of shift away from oil as a major energy producer
to service needs. We may need to go back into that experimentation phase to find out, and steam is one of those proven ideas. You have to iron out the problems and make it work.
The future is not in the past, and never will be. Steam will remain for tourist lines, not main lines. Coal is too dirty, inneficient, and combined with extra maintanence, etc, not cost effective. The future lies in ever more efficient diesel engines, like the new GE locomotives, that use the braking power of the engine to recharge the batteries to power the motors that drive the trains. Creating diesels that run on less gas, harness what up untill recently was wasted energy, and looking for certain fuel alternatives like biodiesel is where the industry is headed.
I think the one development in railroading that is here for a long time to come is the traction motor geared to a truck axel. There are just too many problems with the reciprocating piston transmission, too many ways that electric transmission makes maintenance, control, and life in general easier.
America is the Saudi Arabia of Coal. The biggest complaint about using COAL for steam generation is the smoke and pollution. South Africa is using a steam locomotive that actually runs CLEAN, over long distances and is very efficient.
Another big problem is the number of man hours needed to maintain a steam loco. Norfolk and Western was extremely close to even solving that problem when they built the last new American Steam design in the early 50s. Part were built to be self lubricating. The loco didn’t have to go down every Sunday for maintanence. Combining the low maintanence of N&W’s design with the South African clean burning engine, and we’d have it. I would love to see what today’s design technology can come up with for steam. Now let’s get the passengers back on the rails to save airline fuel, and we’d be in great shape.
The theory of coal over oil is a good thought . But the oil patch gang &EPA nuts would really kill the whole grand scheme. Switch8frg.