I started this topic to keep the replies from getting lost in the never ending thread of a similar name. On that other thread steam locomotives have been proclaimed to be superior to diesels in the following aspects:
Lower operating costs (primarily coal vs diesel fuel price differential)
Lower initial captial cost per equivalent hp
Superior performance (more hp at higher speeds where it is needed)
Longer service life
Lower repair costs
Easier on trackage (resulting in reduced MOW expense)
I personally am not convinced of the validity of all these claims (particularly 5 & 6), but for purposes of this discussion let’s assume all are valid. The $64 question then becomes, why aren’t the railroads jumping on the bandwagon and at least seriously studying the use of steam locomotives as a replacement for diesels on some of their routes where the supposed benefits would be greatest? A corrolary question is, why hasn’t some firm recognized the market potential and stepped forward to design and build a truly modern steam demonstrator for actual in-service trials?
I have nothing much of value to contribute, but I would ask how you can be sure they are not?
It seems that the optics of such a proposal would stick in people’s craws. Coal? What are you thinking? Steam locomotives? Get real! The environmentalists have their minds made up…we’ll all die if we dont’ cease all combustion right away, not even cooking fires (how’s that for pollution control?). No home heating unless it’s electrical heat pump type…but the electricity will have to be saved up from lightning strikes…I guess.
Okay, I got the ball rolling with some tongue-in-cheek stuff, but …what? Will Washington get on board and show leadership when votes are at stake? Mmmmm…no.
That I can answer. The railway and railway supply industry is not. At least not anyone in a position to command meaningful financial resources, publically or in private that I am aware of.
…All that is very interesting, and it will be fun to watch.
And I agree, if so many advantages are there to utilize…Where is the rush to them…Diesel costs are getting to a point we’ve not been to before.
With diesel at or near 5 dollars a gal. over on the interstates…I simply do not see how the truckers are making an acceptable profit to stay in business.
I often wondered about this question myself. The larger question is “Is steam making a comeback anywhere”? Except for the largest central power generating stations and some cogeneration systems, steam seems to be abandoned for other technologies like gas turbines and Diesels. Even in large container ships, an application that on the surface would seem to favor steam, gargantuan Diesels are being employed. I can’t understand why would this be occuring if steam had such an overwhelming advantage over Diesels.
If steam was, in fact, viable we’d see its resurgance on ocean ships, river towboats, harbor tugs, etc. The people on this forum that claim the railroads worldwide are dolts for not returning to steam can’t explain why the very diverse water transport industry isn’t embracing steam.
The obvious answer is that the economics of diesel power still trump the economics of steam power. But that’s the problem, the answer is too obvious and you can’t build a conspiracy therory of dolts around it. So, seeking a melodrama conspiracy “play” some people get into meaningless discussions of how much lubricant steam requires vis a vis diesel, etc.
Another obvious fact is that if the spread between the price of diesel fuel and coal gets wide enough it will make sense to hire Sim Webb’s great-great-great grandson, give him a shovel, and have him start throwing coal underneath a boiler. We’re (again obviously) not there yet or we’d be smelling coal smoke along the Mississippi from steam powered towboats.
And BTW, the US Senate is considering a bill that will eliminate coal generation of electric power by 2030. Now there be dolts.
It’s a rhetorical question, in that we can ask the same thing about other “obvious” situations:
Why isn’t the US building more nuclear power plants?
Why isn’t the US building CTL plants?
Why isn’t the US offering financial aid for new transcon railroads?
Why isn’t the new WTC building up yet?
The answer, such as one exists for all these questions, is that such new projects take time, lots of time - decades in some cases, just to get off the drawing board, out of the public hearing rooms, through the voter initiative process, past the frivolous lawsuits, etc etc etc. The question them becomes “is it worth going through all this BS?”
Maybe you should revist this thread in ten years, maybe by then something might have happened on the steam locomotive front!
Let’s look at a few of the reasons we moved from steam to diesel.
Maintainence costs less with diesel
Less manpower with diesel
Cheaper fuel costs
That was 60 years ago.
My question is why couldn’t a steam engine be built with modern cleaner coal burning, self lubricating parts, and modern longerl asting parts. If I were a rich industrialist I would love to build at least a prototype. They say history can repeat itself, who knows. Remember the test ran in the mid 80’s hauling coal? I believe it was successful, but diesel costs were very low compared to now. And it was discarded. I do not think it is going to happen but I believe the concept is possible on an engineering level if not a practical level.
Maybe the answer to the question, why isn’t steam making a comeback? is that the economics if rising oil prices have not yet reached the point where it happens. The fact that diesels are still used in ships does not mean that steam will never make a comeback. Steam may make a comeback in ships and locomotives. It may even comeback in ships first. I noticed that there are two underlying themes of the question of the thread, Could steam make a comeback?
One theme is that the rising price of oil will force a fuel substitution, and that the substitute fuel would be coal. Then there are three subdivisions of that theme as follows:
Burn coal directly in locomotives
Electrify the railroads, and burn coal in fixed power plants to generate electricity to power them.
Convert the coal to liquid fuel that would be burned in locomotives.
There are also propulsion subdivisions to the first subdivision above as follows:
Burn coal in locomotives to make steam for reciprocating propulsion.
Burn coal in locomotives to make steam for turbine propulsion.
Burn coal in locomotives to make gas for turbine propulsion.
Burn coal in locomotives as direct fuel for diesel engines.
Number 3 and 4 fall outside of the specific question about steam making a comeback, but are implied in the connection with alternate fuel driving the possible comeback of steam.
Then there is the second of the two main themes of the question, Could steam make a comeback? That second theme is that the railroads made a mistake by abandoning steam for diesel
Nope. People move pretty fast when there’s money to be made.
The examples you cite involve government medling. Building a freaking steamboat to push barges on the Mississippi would be done toot suite if’n somebody could make some money doing it. It’s not being done because it doesn’t make economic sense at this time.
He wasn’t. It was sarcasm, the device he routinely employs to denigrate the contributions of those he disagrees with, even as he is unable to make a positive contribution of his own.
Steam isn’t making a come back and never will because the only saving would be on fuel. Everything else would cost more. The whole probably with the arguement is that supports have really only looked at the price of coal vs. oil and not really much beyond that. Much of the arguement for steam neglects to account for increase in labor costs, the cost of water (yes water cost money and should be counted as fuel), the increase in unsafe working conditions (namely communication and visability) and increase in maintanence. Buying new locomotives and building new facilites are the upfront costs which doesn’t need to be covered. The annual operaterating costs is what needs to be examine. Basically, any savings in fuel (coal/water) would have to be greater than the expected increase in operating expenses before steam could be considered a viable alternative. Let’s look at some detail:
Labor - Two men crews would have to be expanded to 3 man crews since the union probably won’t allow the conductor to also be the fireman. That means hiring more people. Let’s assuming that only one locomotive is needed per train. For the sake of math, BNSF would have to hire 5,000 fireman at $50,000/yr (includes salary and benefits). That comes to an additional $250,000,000.00 per year just in labor. So whatever saving in fuel would have to over come that cost. As doubleheading a train or helpers, although it is possible to computer control a steam engine, that probably would not be allowed by law or make sense (someone has to watch the fire). So you would have to hire more engineers and fireman (no conductors). So a crew of 2 with a diesel can jump to a crew of 5 plus which is more money. For the sake of math it would could BNSF another $500,000,000 per year to run the extra engines on their trains.
Lost Time - The great thing about diesels is that they can go a long distance with out the need to refuel.&nb