What's next for steam?

[joekiddcf]

Dear Trainz Community,
How about this for an addon for steam : ACE 3000.
I also have a question that needs to be answered. What possibilities do you think of steam returning to full time operation? Let's start putting our heads together and get steam out of museums and put them to work. Think about it! God had man build these machines and all they are doing at museums are rusting away! I mean if Union Pacific still has #844 on their roster why can't that be said for the ones that suffer wishing they were back on the road, working. It feels like to me that more and more people ignore the past and think they are better than everyone else. For some of us we respect the past and for what it has done. Stop being greedy! Save these Iron Horse giants! We will need them again!

 

[bassist118]

The 844 now runs on oil in my book that makes it a diesel with added smoke, coal is far to expensive and at too low a grade for loco coal these days. Great shame the UK rail network would have coped much better in the freezing weather if they still used steam, but the world moves on. (not always in the right direction tho lol) There have been a number of prototypes of modern steam engines but all have proved to be relatively un-economic.



Andy

 

[wholbr]

Hi Everybody.
I am afraid there is such as thing as looking back at the past through rose colored glasses. British Railways in the days of steam were very dirty and dangerous places to work with very high accident rates especially for the footplate staff. Even if all the locomotives were converted to oil, the dangers for those involved in running and maintaining these vehicles would still be unacceptably high.

With steam locomotives there is also the problem of high maintenance costs and levels which would make the numbers of people that would have to be employed to apply those levels unacceptably high in terms of the fares that it would be necessary to charge passengers and freight customers. I also do not believe that steam could in any way provide the necessary levels of punctuality, reliability and speed that today's public demand.

In the recent bad weather here in Britain the latest DMUs and EMUs performed abysmally in the freezing conditions and if the run of bad winters persists a drastic re-think of the Railways motive power will obviously be necessary. In that case I believe we could look back to the technology of the 1970s when the diesel push pull technology was introduced.

Known as the high-speed trains (HST 125) they are still running on the Paddington to the West country and South Wales services today. These performed much better in the snowy freezing conditions I believe due to the fact that the diesel engines and all the electricals are mounted much higher from the ground in the two power cars at either end of the train. Therefore it is perhaps to that era that we should be looking if we indeed need to look back at all.

Bill

 

[whitepass]

So are you going to use a hours or a car to get around in?

 

[NikkiA]

...

In the recent bad weather here in Britain the latest DMUs and EMUs performed abysmally in the freezing conditions and if the run of bad winters persists a drastic re-think of the Railways motive power will obviously be necessary.

...

While the fibre-glass 'lightweight' construction of modern MUs certainly won't have helped, I think it's fairly obvious that the real problem with the weather was a lack of infrastructure to cope with bad weather. Even in the 80s british rail was notorious for it's 'leaves on the track' spiel. It all boils down to a steady reduction in PW maintenance, and other things like selling all the snowploughs for scrap. Sure, almost everything can have miniploughs attached, but they don't really do much in more than an inch of snow.

Yes, the ECML was shut down for a day due to ice bringing a section of the OHLE down, but again, there used to be stuff to fix that - dummy pantographs on wagons hauled by a diesel loco would be used to clear ice off the lines.

We still have the locomotives to handle most of this, there are enough 47s, 57s, 60s, 66s, 67s and 70s around to do PW maintenance like this, just noone seems to think it's worth cutting the profits and bonuses by 0.001% to do it.

Our biggest mistakes all point back to the era of Beeching and the insistence that the railways needed to be profitable - the rest of europe was managing just fine with 50-60% subsidies on their railways.

 

[wholbr]

Hi Everybody.

So are you going to use a hours or a car to get around in?

Whitepass, could you please decipher and expand your argument there as I find it difficult to follow the point you are trying to make

While the fibre-glass 'lightweight' construction of modern MUs certainly won't have helped, I think it's fairly obvious that the real problem with the weather was a Lack of infrastructure to cope with bad weather. Even in the 80s british rail was notorious for it's 'leaves on the track' spiel. It all boils down to a steady reduction in PW maintenance, and other things like selling all the snowploughs for scrap. Sure, almost everything can have miniploughs attached, but they don't really do much in more than an inch of snow.

NikkiA, I would agree with you regarding the lack of infrastructure to cope with the recent bad weather, but that did not only involve the railways the infrastructure of the roads and airports were also seen to fail badly.

The problem is (as I see it) that up until the last two years Britain has had a series of mild winters where any local counsel or public body such as network rail would have been heavily criticized for spending taxpayers money on unnecessary things such as snowplows and other de-icing equipment. The simple point is how much are we prepared to pay as taxpayers and customers of these bodies for insurance against disruption in the form of equipment that could possibly go from year-to-year with no use at all.

The problem is also that with any form of transport whether that be road, rail or air there will be from time to time disruption. There will be accidents on motorways, derailments and breakdowns on the rail and delays in air transport. That is a simple fact of transport. However, the most concerning fact in the recent disruption was the length of time the disruption continued across all three transport systems.

In a country that relies on “just in time delivery systems” and where essential workers often travel many miles to their places of work, we could have found ourselves in a country without health care, food or electricity had the weather continued for several more weeks as he did in 1962-63 winter.

Our biggest mistakes all point back to the era of Beeching and the insistence that the railways needed to be profitable - the rest of europe was managing just fine with 50-60% subsidies on their railways.

I can unfortunately remember the Dr Beeching era. The problem for the railways was that freight transport had almost completely disappeared and passenger numbers were rapidly dropping. The future was seen as that of the car. For the first time the average worker could afford one, and everyone definitely wanted one. Dr Beeching.got his cuts through Parliament with very little opposition and in general with the overall support of the British people. The public wished to see government transport finance spent on the new motorways. Short-sighted it may have been, but that was the situation at the time unfortunately.

Bill

 

[whyfly2]

A quick web search turned up information that said during the last 30 years of steam (1930-1960), the thermal efficiency of a typical steam locomotive was 6%. Not much of a recommendation.

Art

 

[rweber95]

Steam vs Diesel

Very informative and entertaining to read Al Krug's article on Steam vs Diesel. Get it at http://www.railway-technical.com/st-vs-de.shtml.

Bob

 

[yeti12364]

UP 3985 Is now out and running, after 2 years in the shop.

Portland, OR has the SP Daylight GS-4 and SP&S 700, both running excursion events most of the year. There is a 3rd steam loco #197 undergoing restoration in UP's Brooklyn yard roundhouse (South Portland), where 700 and 4449 are housed.

All 3 locos will be moving by the end of this year to a new house, since UP wants to demolish that roundhouse to expand their intermodel operations.

 

[wholbr]

Hi Everybody.

UP 3985 Is now out and running, after 2 years in the shop.

Portland, OR has the SP Daylight GS-4 and SP&S 700, both running excursion events most of the year. There is a 3rd steam loco #197 undergoing restoration in UP's Brooklyn yard roundhouse (South Portland), where 700 and 4449 are housed.

All 3 locos will be moving by the end of this year to a new house, since UP wants to demolish that roundhouse to expand their intermodel operations.

It is great to see the steam era locomotives being restored and brought back into service once again. Here in Britain there are several heritage railways quite near to where I live and in the summer my wife and I love to visit and travel along their lines.

However, I believe the opening poster was referring to bring back the steam locomotives for full public use carrying out timetabled operations across the entire public rail network. That I am afraid (in my opinion) will never happen for the reasons that several of us have posted on this thread.

It would seem strange that the opening poster has not returned to further debate and defend what appeared to be his/her strongly held beliefs.

Bill

 

[bendorsey]

Another disadvantage to coal fired locos now days is almost al the coaling facilities have been rezed. The only one I know of that still exists and is still being used is the one at Chama, New mexico on the Cumbres & Toltec Narrow Gauge Railroad. The Durango & Silverton loads tenders via a payloader.

Oil on the other hand is readily available just about anywhere and is easily pumped into the tender.

Ben