My grandfather made steam engines, my father made a scale steam locomotive for taking children on rides in the park and at the fair. Some of my happiest memories as a child were of sitting behind my father in the coal tender, chugging down the tracks, so any picture of a steam engine brings back fond memories.
[ UPDATE: I hadn’t realized it from the photo above until later, but the 4-6-4 “Hudson” locomotive above is the one my dad modeled for the 1/8th scale train of my youth, except his had the feedwater tank over the front like this one. Our family had to sell the train due to financial hardship after his death to somebody in Lebanon Ohio (probably the saddest day of my life). I’ve since lost track of it and would give anything to get it back, but I fear it has been scrapped. I hadn’t thought about this in a long time but the image provoked some long repressed memories. On the plus side, I’ve located a Lionel model Hudson 4-6-4 Steam Locomotive 665 with 736W Tender on Ebay, and exact match to the engine and tender my dad constructed, which I hope to buy so that I can show it to my children, and pass on the story with something to show them, along with the family photographs. I never thought this topic would come up on my blog, but here it is, serendipitously hitting me with emotion. – Anthony ]
When I saw this, all I could think of is how silly this idea is. All the greens seem fascinated with high speed rail due to Euro-envy, and in California they are ramming it down our throat at an anticipated huge loss, even worse than Solyndra. With a forecast price tag in the tens of billions and growing, it is just nuts given the economic climate right now, not to mention we don’t have people clamoring to climb aboard.
In retrospect however, anything that would put a steam locomotive back on the tracks is music to my ears, even if they ran it on used McDonald’s french fry oil like some of those hippie buses we see here in California.
Here’s the strange part, they are converting an oil burning locomotive to run “biocoal”, and somehow they magically think the production process and the burning of it won’t produce any net CO2, saying the process is “carbon neutral”. I think they’ve left out some parts, like the energy needed to produce and transport the biocoal fuel in the first place. Excerpts from the MSNBC story:
A steam train built in 1937 is getting a makeover that will turn it into a “higher-speed” locomotive that runs on biocoal, a coal-like fuel made with woody plant material.
When finished, the train will be able chug along existing tracks at speeds up to 130 miles per hour without contributing to the greenhouse gas pollution blamed for global warming.
…
“Computer simulations already show that the locomotive is about as powerful as two modern passenger diesel locomotives,” Davidson Ward, president of the Coalition for Sustainable Rail, told me Thursday.
“But it will burn carbon neutral fuel.”
The biocoal is based on a so-called torrefaction process pioneered at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. To make it, woody material — in this case trees — are heated in the absence of oxygen. The resulting flaky matter is then rammed together under high pressure to create coal-like bricks.
The charcoal briquettes aka “biocoal”
Biocoal has the same energy density as regular coal, but is cleaner burning, and since trees (the fuel source) sequester carbon as they grow, the system is considered carbon neutral, according to Ward.
…
Today, most higher-speed passenger trains are diesel-electric locomotives, which generate their peak horsepower at low speeds — about 25 miles per hour. Steam locomotives, by contrast, get their peak horsepower at higher speeds — about 40 miles per hour.
“Initial computer simulations suggest that the CSR’s modern steam engine will significantly out-accelerate a modern diesel-electric locomotive to 110 mph,” according to the coalition’s website.
…
I got a big chuckle out of this part though:
If all goes according to plan, they might build a new steam locomotive from scratch, which will have some modern looks.
For example, “no cowcatcher,” Ward said. “You don’t need a cowcatcher today unless you are a ‘Back to the Future’ fan.”
Just wait until they plow into some green gawker driving a Prius, you know it is going to happen.
From the “Coalition for Sustainable Rail” website:
Once its modernization is complete, CSR 3463 will have little in common with the smoke-belching steam engine it once was. Featuring a gas-producer combustion system, improved steam circuit, modernized boiler, low-maintenance running gear and steam-powered electric generator (to power the passenger train), CSR anticipates 3463 will be able to pull a passenger train with electric-like performance for less than the cost of diesel-electric locomotives. In order to further prove the viability of biocoal and modern steam technology, CSR plans to test the locomotive in excess of 130 miles per hour, out-performing any existing diesel-electric on the market and breaking the world steam speed record. In light of this achievement, CSR has named this endeavor: “Project 130.”
Historical 3463 Tech Specs
Locomotive 3463, acquired by CSR through the generosity of its former owner, the Great Overland Station of Topeka, Kansas, is the largest locomotive of its type left in the world and features the largest wheels of any engine in North America. CSR will completely rebuild and modernize the locomotive, doubling its thermal efficiency, converting it to burn biocoal and more. When done, locomotive 3463 will share only the most fundamental resemblance to the engine it once was.
The table below outlines characteristics of locomotive 3463 as built in 1937 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works:
My first thought on reading this was “Has the Mechanical Engineering Dept. at the University of Minnesota gone completely off the rails?”
The answer is no. It is not the ME dept of U of Minn. that is involved in the project. It is the University’s Institute on the Environment that is behind the scheme. Despite the word “collaboration,” The Coalition for Sustainable Rail (CSR) and Sustainable Rail International were obviously formed solely for this project.
To see what a joke this really is go the CSR website at: http://www.csrail.org/
Not a mechanical engineer in the whole bunch.
dave38
June 1, 2012 12:09 pm
Jim Z says:
May 31, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Patrick and tallbloke,
I envy the you the locomotives of Britain. Stanier and Gresley designed the most beautiful locomotives of all times.
Hmmm please don’t forget George Jackson Churchward (CME of the Great Western Railway 1916-1921)
Dave
June 1, 2012 12:31 pm
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel. Don’t you want to leave anything substantial for your kids and grandkids to use? Of course it doesn’t pay off in a decade, but give it a century or two and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re government’s following Keynsian policies anyway, might as well spend the money on real concrete assets instead of complete crap.
I suggest anyone who doesn’t believe in HS rail should take a trip to London, then travel by plane to Paris. At the other end, have a day in Paris, then get the last Eurostar back. One direction the trip will be an ordeal, the other it will almost be a pleasure (and not just because you’re leaving France… :). By the time you factor in getting to the airports at each end, Eurostar will be quicker, and infinitely more comfortable.
To take the biggie in the US – LA to NY – it’s about a 6 hour flight as standard. A 250MPH train would do it in 10 hours or so. As a straight comparison, that doesn’t sound fantastic, although I think a lot of people would take the extra time just to sit in comfort, not breathe pressurised air, take as much luggage as you like, and avoid being invasively touched by TSA operatives or made to leave your drink behind.
However, it gets better, because the flight/train time doesn’t tell the whole story. High speed rail can leave from city centres, so you can factor in an hour at each end for transfers to the airport which you save when going by train. There’s also no need to check in hours ahead of time for the above mentioned bad-touch from the TSA. By this point we’re looking at pretty similar total journey times from door to door. Why would you want to inflict air travel on yourself in that case? That’s even before we talk about things like sleeper trains – leave NY at maybe 9PM, have dinner on the train, then retire to your bunk and wake up in LA at 7am or so – or trains which actually have enough space that you can sit and work during the trip.
well if they have solved the water loss issue well enough to run it w/o needing a water refill every so often then they may as well just nuke it and run as turbine.
what a foolish waste of time and money.
more soylent green!
June 1, 2012 12:47 pm
Billy Liar says:
June 1, 2012 at 9:21 am
Help! The dimwits and the clueless are trying to take over the world!
Trying to?
John Greenfraud
June 1, 2012 12:50 pm
Railroad song
more soylent green!
June 1, 2012 12:58 pm
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel. Don’t you want to leave anything substantial for your kids and grandkids to use? Of course it doesn’t pay off in a decade, but give it a century or two and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re government’s following Keynsian policies anyway, might as well spend the money on real concrete assets instead of complete crap.
I suggest anyone who doesn’t believe in HS rail should take a trip to London, then travel by plane to Paris. At the other end, have a day in Paris, then get the last Eurostar back. One direction the trip will be an ordeal, the other it will almost be a pleasure (and not just because you’re leaving France… :). By the time you factor in getting to the airports at each end, Eurostar will be quicker, and infinitely more comfortable.
To take the biggie in the US – LA to NY – it’s about a 6 hour flight as standard. A 250MPH train would do it in 10 hours or so. As a straight comparison, that doesn’t sound fantastic, although I think a lot of people would take the extra time just to sit in comfort, not breathe pressurised air, take as much luggage as you like, and avoid being invasively touched by TSA operatives or made to leave your drink behind.
However, it gets better, because the flight/train time doesn’t tell the whole story. High speed rail can leave from city centres, so you can factor in an hour at each end for transfers to the airport which you save when going by train. There’s also no need to check in hours ahead of time for the above mentioned bad-touch from the TSA. By this point we’re looking at pretty similar total journey times from door to door. Why would you want to inflict air travel on yourself in that case? That’s even before we talk about things like sleeper trains – leave NY at maybe 9PM, have dinner on the train, then retire to your bunk and wake up in LA at 7am or so – or trains which actually have enough space that you can sit and work during the trip.
We use plenty of rail transport in the US — but we use it for freight, not people. Europe uses plenty of highway transport, but they use it for freight, not people.
The USA has much less population density than Europe and commuter rail doesn’t work anywhere in the USA except in a few highly populated corridors. (“Doesn’t work” means the few get to benefit from the subsidies paid by the many.)
Also, how much land would you have to condemn in order to build a high-speed rail network in this country?
Big D in TX
June 1, 2012 12:58 pm
hell_is_like_newark says:
June 1, 2012 at 7:06 am
If anyone is interested in a modern steam engine, there is one being developed by a company in Florida. http://www.cyclonepower.com/technical_information2.html
A prototype is supposed to be delivered to Raytheon to power a submarine. http://www.raytheon.com/technology_today/2011_i1/engine.html
******************************
What? The raytheon link says it’s intended to replace battery technology? I don’t understand… maybe they mean replace the diesel engines on the old diesel/battery subs?
Don’t we use nuke power these days anyway? Am I missing something??
Ben Wilson
June 1, 2012 1:13 pm
For High Speed Dave;
You’ve obviously given some careful thought to the benefits of high speed rail; I do have a few questions, though. . . .
Regarding your NY-LA 250 mph rail line. . . .just how many trillion dollars do you think that sucker will cost? Where do you propose getting the money for that project?
Now I live near Portland. . . .how much will the Portland/NY 250 mph high speed rail coast? How about the Portland/LA high speed rail? The Portland/Denver High Speed Rail? The Portland/Dallas High Speed Rail? The Portland/Atlanta High Speed Rail?
And I can certainly see the advantages to having a number of high speed rail lines converge on the center of Los Angeles or New York — if you happen to live in the middle of Los Angeles or New York. But how is it to my advantage to have to drive to downtown LA — if I don’t live in downtown LA? I may missing something here, but it’s much, much more convenient for me to go to PDX instead of downtown Portland to board my high speed transportation of choice — even though they are both the same distance from where I live.
I wonder if it would even be possible for the United States to construct a rail system you envisage — I don’t think that short of seizing land without compensating the owners that the US would ever be able to construct a 250 mph nationwide rail system that could replace air travel.
“…Mallets were huge, magnificent, machines with two sets of cylinders, driver wheels, etc. However, even though they were being operated by (or for) coal mines, it was found that diesels were more powerful and more economical.”
If one were to take a comparable diesel and steam locomotive, the diesel would exhibit a greater tractive effort (starting force) at rest, whereas the steam locomotive would produce higher power once underway.
N&W didn’t dieselise for want of power, it was operating economies demonstrable on an annual profit and loss sheet and the growing difficulty in obtaining affordable components once manufacturers began to disappear which encouraged the change in traction, shortly after a change of general manager.
Dieselisation compelled the N&W to borrow money to cover the far higher capital investment of complicated diesel-electric traction which had not been neccessary when building it’s own steam traction in-house
The economics may have been short sighted; a 1977 study by the South African Railways demonstrated that the economic lives of 25NC class steam (introduced in 1953), 31 class D-E (introduced in 1958) and 4E class electrics (introduced in 1953) were 42, 18 and 24 years respectively and the average annual maintenance costs over the first 13 years of service were 0.65, 1.15 and 0.42 rands per output unit, the cost for maintenance of electric traction being exclusive of the the cost incurred in maintaining power supply equipment.
(D. Wardale, ‘The red Devil and Other Tales From the Steam Age’)
Pablo an ex Pat
June 1, 2012 1:21 pm
Erny72 says:
June 1, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Interesting claim, even if true, a five yearly rebuild does become unneccessary with correct boiler feedwater treatment.”
Ah but there was the nub of the problem. Feedwater treatment. A old style steam locomotive needed to take on water regularly and the water varied in quality from refill to refill, especially in terms of Hardness, Alkalinity and TDS. Unless there was infrastructure at the watering stops to pretreat the water, In the the UK during the Golden Age of steam pretreated water was a rarity, the locos were fed with whatever water was at hand. Can’t speak for US or Canadian practices.
Hence the feedwater treatment requirement varied watering stop by watering stop. Some sources were hard, some soft and obviously some were right in the middle. All the sources were at ambient temp hence they were saturated with oxygen and they stayed cold in the tender as there was zero condensate return because the cylinders exhausted to atmosphere.
In which case “correct feedwater treatment” for scale prevention becomes almost impossible to manage and corrosion control is pretty hard too. Oxygen scavengers don’t work well at low temps which really leaves corrosion resistant film forming materials such as Tannins.
In the UK some RR companies had primitive approaches to water treatment, others did nothing at all preferring to tear them down and rebuild their locos as part of the cost of doing business. Hence the large maintenance shops employing many thousands that serviced the locos at Swindon, Derby and York that are now mostly if not all gone as there’s no need for them.
I know that the above is a bit inside baseball but from what I see on WUWT the people that visit here have wide interests.
I promise, last one for today :O)
“…One argument against the traditional steam loco was that the steam was exhausted to the air, greatly reducing their efficiency. I understand that an condenser, which would immediately raise efficiency, would be impossibly large…”
Condensers improve cylinder efficiency by reducing the backpressure against the cylinders to below atmospheric pressure and allowing a greater difference between cylinder inlet and exit temperature, small gains in heat loss can also be obtained since the condensate retains some of its previous heat when fed back into the boiler.
On a ship or power station with a large heat sink (the sea) condensers are a no-brainer; on a locomotive the rejected heat must be absorbed by ambient air and the efficiency gains become economically marginal (L.D.Porta estimated 4-5% thermal efficiency gains, see: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/ldp/usa1978/usa1978.html)
The use of condensers on locomotives historically is primarily limited to 3164 German 52KON kreigsloks (which were intended to reduce the visual signature of the exhaust plume to allied fighter-bombers) and 90 South African 25class (which were intended to overcome a critical shortage of water on the De Aar-Touws River section of the Cape Town-Johannesburg main line) neither application being driven by efficiency considerations.
(see: http://www.kondenslok.de/ for a more detailed examination of condensing locomotives, use google translate unless you’re conversant with German)
The Henschel condensing apparatus was removed from the 25 class following electrification of the line they were built for; the cost of removing the equipment was lower than the cost of overhauling the locomotive with the condensing equipment still in situ and conversion to free-steaming 25NC class also approximately halved the maintenance costs incurred by the locomotives.
(D. Wardale, ‘The red Devil and Other Tales From the Steam Age’)
An alternative to conventional radiator type condensers might be a heat pump (see: http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/newsteam/modern36.htm)
Silver Ralph
June 1, 2012 1:48 pm
Tom says: May 31, 2012 at 11:48 pm
News for you – 130MPH is not “high speed rail”. 125MPH is standard speed rail, 175+ is high speed.
——————————————————
Tom, 175mph is sooo last century.
A TGV 150 did a sustained run of over 500 km/h (310 mph), with peak speeds of 575 kph (355 mph).
Check out the external shots, at the end of the video, and watch that baby fly…
.
Silver Ralph
June 1, 2012 1:57 pm
And if you want to see the newest steam engine in the world, here she is.
Tornado – a Peppercorn A1 class engine, made in 2008. Trouble is, she weighs 110 tonnes, which is one reason electric trains are faster – much faster. http://www.modelrailforum.com/reviews/Bachmann-Tornado/52_-_Didcot.jpg
.
ANH
June 1, 2012 1:59 pm
The funniest bit is them saying that ‘computer simulations’ have shown them that this locomotive can out-accelerate a diesel electric between 40-110 mph. Are these the same computers that give us such wonderfully accurate predictions of future world temperatures?
Much of what I was going to write about steam locomotives has been mentioned already but if I could just add a couple of bits…….
Tornado is an A1 class identical to the 50 locomotives built to Peppercorn’s design after World war 2. No A1 locos were preserved so a group of enthusiasts decided to build a new one. They gave it the number 60163 because the previous A1 class had numbers going up to 60162.
Mallard whose final BR number was 60022 was in a pretty bad way after the famous run, and it could never have been a speed that could have been attained regularly for many reasons although A4s frequently did exceed 100 mph in regular service. Incidentally the commemorative plaque carried by the loco now is not the original which belongs now to a private collector in Cornwall (all done legally apparently – that’s what he told me when he showed it to me).
It is one of my proudest achievements that I saw all 34 surviving A4s before they were scrapped. (There were 35 built but one was destroyed by a German bomb at York.)
Yes I know I should get out more.
China uses steam locos almost 100%, I guess because they’ve got the coal domestically, but not the oil. and their labor costs are low.
Nope. Diesel like everyone else, at least the passenger trains.
Catcracking
June 1, 2012 2:30 pm
Anthony,
Thanks for the memories this post brought to light for me.
In my youth I enjoyed, and played for hours with a Hudson 4-6-4 5344 that my father built from a Lionel kit. It must have taken hours to assemble all the parts, but then there was no TV to divert one from more idustrious hobbies. As a Master Mechanic with a basement workshop with a lathe and drill press, my father could make or fix almost anything.
This was a perfect scale locomotive with all the detail accurately scaled from the actual Locomotive . The Locomotive looked exactly like this http://www.steamlocomotive.com/hudson/
The train was an O 72 (72″ diameter circle) and the track we used was also T real scale and was assembled with actual bolts and nuts with joiner plates. It took hours to assemble the track every Christmas, but it was worthwhile since it was likely the beginnings of my long Engineering career.
The Lionel Locomotive was first class in every way and had a worm drive electric motor that would allow it to craw along the tracks at very low speeds as well as travel quietly at much faster speeds.
There was a coal car that was also to scale and the passenger cars were also scale but O 83.
Again, thanks for bringing back great memories. This is a great site.
Gail Combs
June 1, 2012 2:52 pm
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail….
_______________________________________
Population density, inconvenience and TIME.
I lived in Europe for a while and I loved your rail system however it just doesn’t work here in the USA. A great place for high speed rail would be BosNYWash, the Washington DC/New York City/Boston Mega city and even that is 450 miles long. About half the distance from London to Rome (896 miles)
The USA is huge and the EU would fit in just New England. The USA just does not have rail system within biking distance of the places where we live. Unless you do as I did and deliberately pick an apartment near a station, rail just makes no sense. If I can drive to work in less than an hour but it will take me a half hour to get to the commuter rail station, an hour on the rail and another 15 minutes to walk to work, sorry I will drive.
High speed rail is even worse. To be high speed you have to be traveling relatively long distances so unless I am at the start of the rail system and want to go very close to the end or stops in between, it is just not worth it.
Air travel makes a lot more sense or if you are cheap and have the time bus. Here in the USA the Unions have jacked the price of rail up so high that the airlines are cheaper, so why the heck would I spend a couple days on the train flying from New York to Denver CO when I can fly in a couple of hours.
Here is an example: Amtrak
Depart: 10:05 AM Sat Jun 02 2012 New York, NY – Penn Station Cost $363 ONE WAY
Arrives: 7:15 AM Mon Jun 04 2012 Denver, CO
….. Greyhound Bus
Departs 08:20 PM Fri, 06/01 New York, NY – Penn Station Cost: $189 ONE WAY
Aririves: 07:00 PM Mon, 06/04 Denver Union Sta, CO
….. Airlines
Departing: New York Arriving: Denver Cost: $347 ROUND TRIP
LGA 7:00am DEN 9:17am So why the heck should anyone except those who can not travel by air pay twice as much and take twice as long to travel by rail??
Dr. Dave
June 1, 2012 3:10 pm
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
“Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel. Don’t you want to leave anything substantial for your kids and grandkids to use? Of course it doesn’t pay off in a decade, but give it a century or two and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re government’s following Keynsian policies anyway, might as well spend the money on real concrete assets instead of complete crap.”
____________________________________________________________________
First off, any country interested in long-term survival should eschew Keynsian economics which have proven to be an abject failure. Freedom and liberty loving countries should embrace the Austrian and Milton Friedman schools of economics. If HSR, fuel ethanol, wind power and solar are such swell ideas, let the private sector raise the capital and make (or, as likely as not, lose) a fortune. The federal government has no business playing venture capitalist with the taxpayers’ money. Further, if you think a HSR that can achieve speeds of 250 mph (on existing rail infrastructure) can go from LA to NYC in 10 hours you’re out of our mind. There would be MANY stops along the way Of all the HSR lines in operation in the world today (most in Europe, the UK, Japan and China, one TWO actually manage to break even or generate a profit, They subsist of subsidies (i.e. everyone is taxed for the convenience of a few). Swell futuristic idea…economically and culturally (in a large country accustomed to automobiles) utterly unworkable. Particularly on century long time scales.
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel.
It is not hatred, just understanding that it is totally impractical for the vast majority of the continental U.S for many reasons.
In your example you are suggesting a trip from London to Paris. That is a trip between two metro centers that combined have a population of 9.9 million people in their metro areas, concentrated in a land area of 672 sq miles for London and 40.7 sq miles in Paris, population densities of 12,733/sq mile in London and 54,300/sq mile in Paris.
The metro area of Paris has a population of 2.2 million in 40.7 sq miles, the City of Denver where I live, has a population of 620,000 in an area of 155 sq miles, the Denver Metro area has almost the same population as Paris 2.55 million but we are spread over 8,414 sq miles. Our metro area population density is a small fraction of either London or Paris at 3,874/sq mil. our population density is 14x lower than the Paris metro area, and 3.3x lower than London.
The logistics of movement are totally different in Europe compared to the majority of the U.S.
I drive 20-30 miles each way just to get to work, and often drive 60-70 miles each way just to visit friends. I have driven 300+ miles round trip just to go out to eat.
Due to the way infrastructure grows geometrically with area, the infrastructure costs to build rail lines that provide even a few key hub city to hub city connections would dwarf all the money both the UK, France, and Germany spend on rail transit. Those infrastructure costs would never pay for themselves because the rail lines would never have enough paying passenger miles to cover even basic maintenance costs, let alone replacement as they age.
You can pay the bills for several hundred miles of low speed rail line and the hundreds of rail crossings it has to maintain if you run multiple 300 car coal trains or freight trains a day down the lines but not by running periodic rail service when population density would dictate that on any given train you might only have 10 paying passengers if the runs were made frequently enough to be useful to people.
Even bus service does not function effectively in these large metro areas, and peak load only provides enough passenger load to fill 3 -4 buses each rush hour between key suburban centers like Boulder and the core city of Denver. If you work at a traditional job that happens to fit with the local bus schedule, the morning and evening express buses work for a very small fraction of the population, but are useless for probably 85% of the population because the buses do not travel frequently enough to be useful. They often do not go where people need to go. Even if they do allow connections between home and destination it might take 4 hours each way to go between points you can drive to in 20-30 minutes. Most people are not willing to bike or walk 4-5 miles just to get to the nearest major bus terminal to catch the peak hour express buses. If you are going to drive 5 miles to get to the bus you might as well drive the additional 7 or 8 miles to your destination and pay parking rather than bus fare and also have the car handy for doing other things on your way home at your schedule rather than the transportation district schedule.
It is simply a case of trying to put a square peg in a round hole. The portions of the U.S. where population densities are high enough to support even commuter rail are trivially small geographically compared to the land area where the majority of the population lives.
LA to San Francisco, or Washington DC to New York and similar core areas are the only places it even is worth considering. You are talking about totally different cultural environments, the solution for one is not necessarily applicable to the other.
Larry
Gail Combs says: June 1, 2012 at 2:52 pm
There are a lot of factors that determine whether one would take the train or fly. I decided to take the train from New Haven to Chicago for the Heartland Conference. My RT ticket on the Lakeshore Limited was $267, flying out of New Haven would have been $438, out of Bradley $435 and out of LAG $302. Limousine service to the out-of-town airports would have been about $50 each way and added two hours to my travel time.
The train featured a dining car with sit-down waiter service and well-prepared meals. The café car had snacks and people gathering with guitars and decks of cards. The seating is comfortable and spacious. If you wanted REAL service, an extra $460 got you a room with bed, private toilet, shower, three excellent meals, and valet service (I just couldn’t afford that. Sigh.)
You also get to see a lot of the country-side up class and make interesting discoveries. At one spot in Ohio I found an old friend on the side of the right-of-way: an old EMD FL9 Diesel Electric, Number 2007, which saw service on the old New Haven Railroad when I worked as a brakeman. Its windows were covered with plywood and was in pretty poor shape. I guess Ohio is where old locomotives go to die.
Sometimes the train is just a better deal, and does have the advantage, for now anyway, that you don’t have to take off your belt and shoes, empty your pockets and get groped and humiliated by the TSA. I’d love to take the train across the country, but to get to California I’d probably just fly.
Mr Lynn
June 1, 2012 5:25 pm
Robert E. Phelan says:
June 1, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Yep, if you’re not in a hurry (and why are we?), the train is a much more comfortable way to travel. I have an Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard, which accumulates points quickly enough for me to travel up and down the Northeast Corridor (and once to New Orleans on the Crescent) for free. Can’t beat it.
/Mr Lynn
Is new steam something special? I would say NO ! Remember always that most people are comparing the steam technology **at the time it become obsolete** due to cheap diesel fuel with the diesel engines we have now. Modern steam engine can be made pretty smoke less and need for single man operation.
The Swiss company DLM-AG (<< google) made already several projects and redesigned also an old full size steam engine to modern technology. The most ambitiousness one is "steamization" of a not very profitable, but very beautiful regional rail line of the Swiss city Basel. They plan to build a modern steam tank engine controllable from a cab car. The steam train will run as a commuter train in the morning and evening and as tourist train during the day. I think this would be a very cool idea. Other projects they have already done
a) rebuilding of a full size european fright engine
b) building of several new steam engines for rack railroad in Switzerland & Austria
c) rebuilding of lake steamers
d) rebuilding of fire less steam switchers for industrial use
e) rebuilding of stationary steam engine running on bio fuel
Gail Combs
June 1, 2012 5:27 pm
Robert E. Phelan says:
June 1, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Gail Combs says: June 1, 2012 at 2:52 pm
There are a lot of factors that determine whether one would take the train or fly. I decided to take the train from New Haven to Chicago for the Heartland Conference….
____________________________________
I realize that. I have done the NYC to Denver in Amtrak which is why I picked it. However who are the passengers?
1. Business travelers: They will go by air or by private car if they are salesman with a territory.
2. Vacationers: Most people in the USA have 2 weeks vacation. They will not spend 4 days traveling if they can do it in two. If they have a family they will go by car. In Europe the vacation is normally four weeks and Europe is a LOT smaller so train is a much more reasonable means of travel.
3. College Students: They go for cheap and either all pile in one car (BTDT) hitchhike, or travel by bus.
4. Retirees: This is the class of people most likely to travel by train or Winnebago
I do agree that “Grop~n~Fly” has convinced me never to fly again unless I have no other choice. However I am semi-retired and do not have a boss or timetable to worry about.
most people are comparing the steam technology **at the time it become obsolete** due to cheap diesel fuel with the diesel engines we have now. Modern steam engine can be made pretty smoke less and need for single man operation.
The Swiss company DLM-AG (<< google) made already several projects and redesigned also an old full size steam engine to modern technology. The most ambitiousness one is "steamization" of a not very profitable, but very beautiful regional rail line of the Swiss city Basel. They plan to build a modern steam tank engine controllable from a cab car. The steam train will run as a commuter train in the morning and evening and as tourist train during the day. I think this would be a very cool idea. Other projects they have already done
a) rebuilding of a full size european fright engine
b) building of several new steam engines for rack railroad in Switzerland & Austria
c) rebuilding of lake steam ships
d) rebuilding of stationary steam engines running on bio fuel
e) rebuilding of fire less steam switchers for industrial use
Locomotive 3463, acquired by CSR through the generosity of its former owner, the Great Overland Station of Topeka, Kansas, is the largest locomotive of its type left in the world and features the largest wheels of any engine in North America. CSR will completely rebuild and modernize the locomotive, doubling its thermal efficiency, converting it to burn biocoal and more. When done, locomotive 3463 will share only the most fundamental resemblance to the engine it once was.
My first thought on reading this was “Has the Mechanical Engineering Dept. at the University of Minnesota gone completely off the rails?”
The answer is no. It is not the ME dept of U of Minn. that is involved in the project. It is the University’s Institute on the Environment that is behind the scheme. Despite the word “collaboration,” The Coalition for Sustainable Rail (CSR) and Sustainable Rail International were obviously formed solely for this project.
To see what a joke this really is go the CSR website at:
http://www.csrail.org/
Not a mechanical engineer in the whole bunch.
Jim Z says:
May 31, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Patrick and tallbloke,
I envy the you the locomotives of Britain. Stanier and Gresley designed the most beautiful locomotives of all times.
Hmmm please don’t forget George Jackson Churchward (CME of the Great Western Railway 1916-1921)
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel. Don’t you want to leave anything substantial for your kids and grandkids to use? Of course it doesn’t pay off in a decade, but give it a century or two and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re government’s following Keynsian policies anyway, might as well spend the money on real concrete assets instead of complete crap.
I suggest anyone who doesn’t believe in HS rail should take a trip to London, then travel by plane to Paris. At the other end, have a day in Paris, then get the last Eurostar back. One direction the trip will be an ordeal, the other it will almost be a pleasure (and not just because you’re leaving France… :). By the time you factor in getting to the airports at each end, Eurostar will be quicker, and infinitely more comfortable.
To take the biggie in the US – LA to NY – it’s about a 6 hour flight as standard. A 250MPH train would do it in 10 hours or so. As a straight comparison, that doesn’t sound fantastic, although I think a lot of people would take the extra time just to sit in comfort, not breathe pressurised air, take as much luggage as you like, and avoid being invasively touched by TSA operatives or made to leave your drink behind.
However, it gets better, because the flight/train time doesn’t tell the whole story. High speed rail can leave from city centres, so you can factor in an hour at each end for transfers to the airport which you save when going by train. There’s also no need to check in hours ahead of time for the above mentioned bad-touch from the TSA. By this point we’re looking at pretty similar total journey times from door to door. Why would you want to inflict air travel on yourself in that case? That’s even before we talk about things like sleeper trains – leave NY at maybe 9PM, have dinner on the train, then retire to your bunk and wake up in LA at 7am or so – or trains which actually have enough space that you can sit and work during the trip.
well if they have solved the water loss issue well enough to run it w/o needing a water refill every so often then they may as well just nuke it and run as turbine.
what a foolish waste of time and money.
Trying to?
Railroad song
We use plenty of rail transport in the US — but we use it for freight, not people. Europe uses plenty of highway transport, but they use it for freight, not people.
The USA has much less population density than Europe and commuter rail doesn’t work anywhere in the USA except in a few highly populated corridors. (“Doesn’t work” means the few get to benefit from the subsidies paid by the many.)
Also, how much land would you have to condemn in order to build a high-speed rail network in this country?
hell_is_like_newark says:
June 1, 2012 at 7:06 am
If anyone is interested in a modern steam engine, there is one being developed by a company in Florida.
http://www.cyclonepower.com/technical_information2.html
A prototype is supposed to be delivered to Raytheon to power a submarine.
http://www.raytheon.com/technology_today/2011_i1/engine.html
******************************
What? The raytheon link says it’s intended to replace battery technology? I don’t understand… maybe they mean replace the diesel engines on the old diesel/battery subs?
Don’t we use nuke power these days anyway? Am I missing something??
For High Speed Dave;
You’ve obviously given some careful thought to the benefits of high speed rail; I do have a few questions, though. . . .
Regarding your NY-LA 250 mph rail line. . . .just how many trillion dollars do you think that sucker will cost? Where do you propose getting the money for that project?
Now I live near Portland. . . .how much will the Portland/NY 250 mph high speed rail coast? How about the Portland/LA high speed rail? The Portland/Denver High Speed Rail? The Portland/Dallas High Speed Rail? The Portland/Atlanta High Speed Rail?
And I can certainly see the advantages to having a number of high speed rail lines converge on the center of Los Angeles or New York — if you happen to live in the middle of Los Angeles or New York. But how is it to my advantage to have to drive to downtown LA — if I don’t live in downtown LA? I may missing something here, but it’s much, much more convenient for me to go to PDX instead of downtown Portland to board my high speed transportation of choice — even though they are both the same distance from where I live.
I wonder if it would even be possible for the United States to construct a rail system you envisage — I don’t think that short of seizing land without compensating the owners that the US would ever be able to construct a 250 mph nationwide rail system that could replace air travel.
“…Mallets were huge, magnificent, machines with two sets of cylinders, driver wheels, etc. However, even though they were being operated by (or for) coal mines, it was found that diesels were more powerful and more economical.”
If one were to take a comparable diesel and steam locomotive, the diesel would exhibit a greater tractive effort (starting force) at rest, whereas the steam locomotive would produce higher power once underway.
N&W didn’t dieselise for want of power, it was operating economies demonstrable on an annual profit and loss sheet and the growing difficulty in obtaining affordable components once manufacturers began to disappear which encouraged the change in traction, shortly after a change of general manager.
Dieselisation compelled the N&W to borrow money to cover the far higher capital investment of complicated diesel-electric traction which had not been neccessary when building it’s own steam traction in-house
The economics may have been short sighted; a 1977 study by the South African Railways demonstrated that the economic lives of 25NC class steam (introduced in 1953), 31 class D-E (introduced in 1958) and 4E class electrics (introduced in 1953) were 42, 18 and 24 years respectively and the average annual maintenance costs over the first 13 years of service were 0.65, 1.15 and 0.42 rands per output unit, the cost for maintenance of electric traction being exclusive of the the cost incurred in maintaining power supply equipment.
(D. Wardale, ‘The red Devil and Other Tales From the Steam Age’)
Erny72 says:
June 1, 2012 at 11:46 am
“Interesting claim, even if true, a five yearly rebuild does become unneccessary with correct boiler feedwater treatment.”
Ah but there was the nub of the problem. Feedwater treatment. A old style steam locomotive needed to take on water regularly and the water varied in quality from refill to refill, especially in terms of Hardness, Alkalinity and TDS. Unless there was infrastructure at the watering stops to pretreat the water, In the the UK during the Golden Age of steam pretreated water was a rarity, the locos were fed with whatever water was at hand. Can’t speak for US or Canadian practices.
Hence the feedwater treatment requirement varied watering stop by watering stop. Some sources were hard, some soft and obviously some were right in the middle. All the sources were at ambient temp hence they were saturated with oxygen and they stayed cold in the tender as there was zero condensate return because the cylinders exhausted to atmosphere.
In which case “correct feedwater treatment” for scale prevention becomes almost impossible to manage and corrosion control is pretty hard too. Oxygen scavengers don’t work well at low temps which really leaves corrosion resistant film forming materials such as Tannins.
In the UK some RR companies had primitive approaches to water treatment, others did nothing at all preferring to tear them down and rebuild their locos as part of the cost of doing business. Hence the large maintenance shops employing many thousands that serviced the locos at Swindon, Derby and York that are now mostly if not all gone as there’s no need for them.
I know that the above is a bit inside baseball but from what I see on WUWT the people that visit here have wide interests.
I promise, last one for today :O)
“…One argument against the traditional steam loco was that the steam was exhausted to the air, greatly reducing their efficiency. I understand that an condenser, which would immediately raise efficiency, would be impossibly large…”
Condensers improve cylinder efficiency by reducing the backpressure against the cylinders to below atmospheric pressure and allowing a greater difference between cylinder inlet and exit temperature, small gains in heat loss can also be obtained since the condensate retains some of its previous heat when fed back into the boiler.
On a ship or power station with a large heat sink (the sea) condensers are a no-brainer; on a locomotive the rejected heat must be absorbed by ambient air and the efficiency gains become economically marginal (L.D.Porta estimated 4-5% thermal efficiency gains, see: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/ldp/usa1978/usa1978.html)
The use of condensers on locomotives historically is primarily limited to 3164 German 52KON kreigsloks (which were intended to reduce the visual signature of the exhaust plume to allied fighter-bombers) and 90 South African 25class (which were intended to overcome a critical shortage of water on the De Aar-Touws River section of the Cape Town-Johannesburg main line) neither application being driven by efficiency considerations.
(see: http://www.kondenslok.de/ for a more detailed examination of condensing locomotives, use google translate unless you’re conversant with German)
The Henschel condensing apparatus was removed from the 25 class following electrification of the line they were built for; the cost of removing the equipment was lower than the cost of overhauling the locomotive with the condensing equipment still in situ and conversion to free-steaming 25NC class also approximately halved the maintenance costs incurred by the locomotives.
(D. Wardale, ‘The red Devil and Other Tales From the Steam Age’)
An alternative to conventional radiator type condensers might be a heat pump (see: http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/newsteam/modern36.htm)
Tom says: May 31, 2012 at 11:48 pm
News for you – 130MPH is not “high speed rail”. 125MPH is standard speed rail, 175+ is high speed.
——————————————————
Tom, 175mph is sooo last century.
A TGV 150 did a sustained run of over 500 km/h (310 mph), with peak speeds of 575 kph (355 mph).
Check out the external shots, at the end of the video, and watch that baby fly…
.
And if you want to see the newest steam engine in the world, here she is.
Tornado – a Peppercorn A1 class engine, made in 2008. Trouble is, she weighs 110 tonnes, which is one reason electric trains are faster – much faster.
http://www.modelrailforum.com/reviews/Bachmann-Tornado/52_-_Didcot.jpg
.
The funniest bit is them saying that ‘computer simulations’ have shown them that this locomotive can out-accelerate a diesel electric between 40-110 mph. Are these the same computers that give us such wonderfully accurate predictions of future world temperatures?
Much of what I was going to write about steam locomotives has been mentioned already but if I could just add a couple of bits…….
Tornado is an A1 class identical to the 50 locomotives built to Peppercorn’s design after World war 2. No A1 locos were preserved so a group of enthusiasts decided to build a new one. They gave it the number 60163 because the previous A1 class had numbers going up to 60162.
Mallard whose final BR number was 60022 was in a pretty bad way after the famous run, and it could never have been a speed that could have been attained regularly for many reasons although A4s frequently did exceed 100 mph in regular service. Incidentally the commemorative plaque carried by the loco now is not the original which belongs now to a private collector in Cornwall (all done legally apparently – that’s what he told me when he showed it to me).
It is one of my proudest achievements that I saw all 34 surviving A4s before they were scrapped. (There were 35 built but one was destroyed by a German bomb at York.)
Yes I know I should get out more.
rogerknights says:
June 1, 2012 at 10:01 am
Nope. Diesel like everyone else, at least the passenger trains.
Anthony,
Thanks for the memories this post brought to light for me.
In my youth I enjoyed, and played for hours with a Hudson 4-6-4 5344 that my father built from a Lionel kit. It must have taken hours to assemble all the parts, but then there was no TV to divert one from more idustrious hobbies. As a Master Mechanic with a basement workshop with a lathe and drill press, my father could make or fix almost anything.
This was a perfect scale locomotive with all the detail accurately scaled from the actual Locomotive . The Locomotive looked exactly like this http://www.steamlocomotive.com/hudson/
The train was an O 72 (72″ diameter circle) and the track we used was also T real scale and was assembled with actual bolts and nuts with joiner plates. It took hours to assemble the track every Christmas, but it was worthwhile since it was likely the beginnings of my long Engineering career.
The Lionel Locomotive was first class in every way and had a worm drive electric motor that would allow it to craw along the tracks at very low speeds as well as travel quietly at much faster speeds.
There was a coal car that was also to scale and the passenger cars were also scale but O 83.
Again, thanks for bringing back great memories. This is a great site.
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail….
_______________________________________
Population density, inconvenience and TIME.
I lived in Europe for a while and I loved your rail system however it just doesn’t work here in the USA. A great place for high speed rail would be BosNYWash, the Washington DC/New York City/Boston Mega city and even that is 450 miles long. About half the distance from London to Rome (896 miles)
The USA is huge and the EU would fit in just New England. The USA just does not have rail system within biking distance of the places where we live. Unless you do as I did and deliberately pick an apartment near a station, rail just makes no sense. If I can drive to work in less than an hour but it will take me a half hour to get to the commuter rail station, an hour on the rail and another 15 minutes to walk to work, sorry I will drive.
High speed rail is even worse. To be high speed you have to be traveling relatively long distances so unless I am at the start of the rail system and want to go very close to the end or stops in between, it is just not worth it.
Air travel makes a lot more sense or if you are cheap and have the time bus. Here in the USA the Unions have jacked the price of rail up so high that the airlines are cheaper, so why the heck would I spend a couple days on the train flying from New York to Denver CO when I can fly in a couple of hours.
Here is an example:
Amtrak
Depart: 10:05 AM Sat Jun 02 2012 New York, NY – Penn Station Cost $363 ONE WAY
Arrives: 7:15 AM Mon Jun 04 2012 Denver, CO
…..
Greyhound Bus
Departs 08:20 PM Fri, 06/01 New York, NY – Penn Station Cost: $189 ONE WAY
Aririves: 07:00 PM Mon, 06/04 Denver Union Sta, CO
…..
Airlines
Departing: New York Arriving: Denver Cost: $347 ROUND TRIP
LGA 7:00am DEN 9:17am
So why the heck should anyone except those who can not travel by air pay twice as much and take twice as long to travel by rail??
Dave says:
June 1, 2012 at 12:31 pm
“Whilst it looks like the biocoal steam-engine is nonsense, I don’t understand the hatred for HS rail. It’s the only civilised way to travel. Don’t you want to leave anything substantial for your kids and grandkids to use? Of course it doesn’t pay off in a decade, but give it a century or two and it’s a no-brainer. If you’re government’s following Keynsian policies anyway, might as well spend the money on real concrete assets instead of complete crap.”
____________________________________________________________________
First off, any country interested in long-term survival should eschew Keynsian economics which have proven to be an abject failure. Freedom and liberty loving countries should embrace the Austrian and Milton Friedman schools of economics. If HSR, fuel ethanol, wind power and solar are such swell ideas, let the private sector raise the capital and make (or, as likely as not, lose) a fortune. The federal government has no business playing venture capitalist with the taxpayers’ money. Further, if you think a HSR that can achieve speeds of 250 mph (on existing rail infrastructure) can go from LA to NYC in 10 hours you’re out of our mind. There would be MANY stops along the way Of all the HSR lines in operation in the world today (most in Europe, the UK, Japan and China, one TWO actually manage to break even or generate a profit, They subsist of subsidies (i.e. everyone is taxed for the convenience of a few). Swell futuristic idea…economically and culturally (in a large country accustomed to automobiles) utterly unworkable. Particularly on century long time scales.
It is not hatred, just understanding that it is totally impractical for the vast majority of the continental U.S for many reasons.
In your example you are suggesting a trip from London to Paris. That is a trip between two metro centers that combined have a population of 9.9 million people in their metro areas, concentrated in a land area of 672 sq miles for London and 40.7 sq miles in Paris, population densities of 12,733/sq mile in London and 54,300/sq mile in Paris.
The metro area of Paris has a population of 2.2 million in 40.7 sq miles, the City of Denver where I live, has a population of 620,000 in an area of 155 sq miles, the Denver Metro area has almost the same population as Paris 2.55 million but we are spread over 8,414 sq miles. Our metro area population density is a small fraction of either London or Paris at 3,874/sq mil. our population density is 14x lower than the Paris metro area, and 3.3x lower than London.
The logistics of movement are totally different in Europe compared to the majority of the U.S.
I drive 20-30 miles each way just to get to work, and often drive 60-70 miles each way just to visit friends. I have driven 300+ miles round trip just to go out to eat.
Due to the way infrastructure grows geometrically with area, the infrastructure costs to build rail lines that provide even a few key hub city to hub city connections would dwarf all the money both the UK, France, and Germany spend on rail transit. Those infrastructure costs would never pay for themselves because the rail lines would never have enough paying passenger miles to cover even basic maintenance costs, let alone replacement as they age.
You can pay the bills for several hundred miles of low speed rail line and the hundreds of rail crossings it has to maintain if you run multiple 300 car coal trains or freight trains a day down the lines but not by running periodic rail service when population density would dictate that on any given train you might only have 10 paying passengers if the runs were made frequently enough to be useful to people.
Even bus service does not function effectively in these large metro areas, and peak load only provides enough passenger load to fill 3 -4 buses each rush hour between key suburban centers like Boulder and the core city of Denver. If you work at a traditional job that happens to fit with the local bus schedule, the morning and evening express buses work for a very small fraction of the population, but are useless for probably 85% of the population because the buses do not travel frequently enough to be useful. They often do not go where people need to go. Even if they do allow connections between home and destination it might take 4 hours each way to go between points you can drive to in 20-30 minutes. Most people are not willing to bike or walk 4-5 miles just to get to the nearest major bus terminal to catch the peak hour express buses. If you are going to drive 5 miles to get to the bus you might as well drive the additional 7 or 8 miles to your destination and pay parking rather than bus fare and also have the car handy for doing other things on your way home at your schedule rather than the transportation district schedule.
It is simply a case of trying to put a square peg in a round hole. The portions of the U.S. where population densities are high enough to support even commuter rail are trivially small geographically compared to the land area where the majority of the population lives.
LA to San Francisco, or Washington DC to New York and similar core areas are the only places it even is worth considering. You are talking about totally different cultural environments, the solution for one is not necessarily applicable to the other.
Larry
Gail Combs says: June 1, 2012 at 2:52 pm
There are a lot of factors that determine whether one would take the train or fly. I decided to take the train from New Haven to Chicago for the Heartland Conference. My RT ticket on the Lakeshore Limited was $267, flying out of New Haven would have been $438, out of Bradley $435 and out of LAG $302. Limousine service to the out-of-town airports would have been about $50 each way and added two hours to my travel time.
The train featured a dining car with sit-down waiter service and well-prepared meals. The café car had snacks and people gathering with guitars and decks of cards. The seating is comfortable and spacious. If you wanted REAL service, an extra $460 got you a room with bed, private toilet, shower, three excellent meals, and valet service (I just couldn’t afford that. Sigh.)
You also get to see a lot of the country-side up class and make interesting discoveries. At one spot in Ohio I found an old friend on the side of the right-of-way: an old EMD FL9 Diesel Electric, Number 2007, which saw service on the old New Haven Railroad when I worked as a brakeman. Its windows were covered with plywood and was in pretty poor shape. I guess Ohio is where old locomotives go to die.
Sometimes the train is just a better deal, and does have the advantage, for now anyway, that you don’t have to take off your belt and shoes, empty your pockets and get groped and humiliated by the TSA. I’d love to take the train across the country, but to get to California I’d probably just fly.
Yep, if you’re not in a hurry (and why are we?), the train is a much more comfortable way to travel. I have an Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard, which accumulates points quickly enough for me to travel up and down the Northeast Corridor (and once to New Orleans on the Crescent) for free. Can’t beat it.
/Mr Lynn
Is new steam something special? I would say NO ! Remember always that most people are comparing the steam technology **at the time it become obsolete** due to cheap diesel fuel with the diesel engines we have now. Modern steam engine can be made pretty smoke less and need for single man operation.
The Swiss company DLM-AG (<< google) made already several projects and redesigned also an old full size steam engine to modern technology. The most ambitiousness one is "steamization" of a not very profitable, but very beautiful regional rail line of the Swiss city Basel. They plan to build a modern steam tank engine controllable from a cab car. The steam train will run as a commuter train in the morning and evening and as tourist train during the day. I think this would be a very cool idea. Other projects they have already done
a) rebuilding of a full size european fright engine
b) building of several new steam engines for rack railroad in Switzerland & Austria
c) rebuilding of lake steamers
d) rebuilding of fire less steam switchers for industrial use
e) rebuilding of stationary steam engine running on bio fuel
Robert E. Phelan says:
June 1, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Gail Combs says: June 1, 2012 at 2:52 pm
There are a lot of factors that determine whether one would take the train or fly. I decided to take the train from New Haven to Chicago for the Heartland Conference….
____________________________________
I realize that. I have done the NYC to Denver in Amtrak which is why I picked it. However who are the passengers?
1. Business travelers: They will go by air or by private car if they are salesman with a territory.
2. Vacationers: Most people in the USA have 2 weeks vacation. They will not spend 4 days traveling if they can do it in two. If they have a family they will go by car. In Europe the vacation is normally four weeks and Europe is a LOT smaller so train is a much more reasonable means of travel.
3. College Students: They go for cheap and either all pile in one car (BTDT) hitchhike, or travel by bus.
4. Retirees: This is the class of people most likely to travel by train or Winnebago
I do agree that “Grop~n~Fly” has convinced me never to fly again unless I have no other choice. However I am semi-retired and do not have a boss or timetable to worry about.
most people are comparing the steam technology **at the time it become obsolete** due to cheap diesel fuel with the diesel engines we have now. Modern steam engine can be made pretty smoke less and need for single man operation.
The Swiss company DLM-AG (<< google) made already several projects and redesigned also an old full size steam engine to modern technology. The most ambitiousness one is "steamization" of a not very profitable, but very beautiful regional rail line of the Swiss city Basel. They plan to build a modern steam tank engine controllable from a cab car. The steam train will run as a commuter train in the morning and evening and as tourist train during the day. I think this would be a very cool idea. Other projects they have already done
a) rebuilding of a full size european fright engine
b) building of several new steam engines for rack railroad in Switzerland & Austria
c) rebuilding of lake steam ships
d) rebuilding of stationary steam engines running on bio fuel
e) rebuilding of fire less steam switchers for industrial use