1966 The Case for A Better American Steam Locomotive

thanks for posting, interesting article.

I don't totally agree with that statement.  Certainly inventions like feedwater heaters, super heaters, Super Power, thermic syphons, roller bearings and poppet valves all helped to improve the efficiency of the basic steam engine, dramtically in some cases, it's just when you are working with something THAT inefficient, all the improvements in the world can only do so much.

Thanks for posting, I'll get back to you after I read the article. But in hindsight I feel that Trains magazine had become a substandard magazine awash with nostalgia in the 1960's.

For further reference, here's an interesting guy to Google;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livio_Dante_Porta

better yet ...fast forward to 1974..."Did we scrap steam too soon"  Wm. Withun.  Here is a look at what might have been, and what would have been if ACE had been attempted. IMHO, the correct course to keep coal alive without wires, was a GE version of N&W's TE1; Jawn Henry.  It's the electric drive coupled with the possibility of a real MU steam operation. Of course all this would have been wiped out in a generation, even with total success.  In the end, even the worst Diesel is light years beyond steam in any format or configuration...unless you're a Baldwin Centipede! 

A very interesting article to read.

Thanks for posting it "electroliner"!

I saw this piece in something the sustainable rail coalition sent me recently.  Reasonable arguments well marshaled and argued, but . . .

I love steam locomotives, particularly big ones of fully-developed design as made in the late 30s and the 40s. Just grand.  But I can see the appeal, and eventual "win" of the diesels: modular, easy to control . . . easy to design, standardize, and manufacture, too, and lower in cost to maintain and run (well, at least when well-designed).  

I hope the sustainable rail coalition sees through its dream of breaking the steam land speed record  with its hot-rodded ATSF Hudson 3463, and I'm giving them $346.30 a year to support their cause.  But I think N&W 611 might stand a chance of doing it better/faster if given a chance and I hope someone does.  Regardless . . . I don't think  steam hadmuch of a chance against diesel.  Don't think it ever did, and certainly not now.  At least in the real world.  However, on my layout, its an entirely different matter.

One thing (among many others) that modern steam advocates seem to be glossing over; Pollution laws, especially particulate matter standards. A turbocharged EMD 710 can no longer meet the newest standards, how are you going to do it with a coal burning, or even oil burning steam locomotive? GAME OVER. Be happy we can still take the old ones out and play with them.  I could certainly see a day when even THAT won't be possible.

IIRC, the N&W Y6b test on the Radford had the four unit F7 running a little ahead in performance, not surprising when consider the specs of both types of power.  The big EMD had more HP (some say 1700HP on 567BC engines) and TE by a considerable margin. Costs were fairly close.  Make that a three unit F7, and the elephant wins, but costs more!  Out on the flatlands, the A Class 1239 gave the EMD a real fight. Sadly the cost picture would continue to push steam power further and further out of the arena, even on the road that boiled water like nobody else! Turns out that EMD burned Diesel like nobody else, and not even Big Jawn could save Roanoke. By this time the Penn was actively seeking to protect their investment and things would get ugly for steam uber quickly. RaceHorse was buying Diesels in 1955, and in '58 the compost hit the ventilator ! 

No steam engine is going to pass a Tier IV test for particulate matter, and probably not NOX either, no matter what you do to it.  Coal fired electric power plants can't do it under stationary and much more controlled enviroments, hence exhaust stack scrubbers.  It would basically be impossible to effectively control combustion in an open firebox like you can in the combustion chamber of a diesel where a computer controlled fuel injector can adjust the fuel volume dozens of time per second.  While you MIGHT be able to get a steam engine to run "reasonably" clean under an exact steady load for a short period of time, the instant the throttle gets moved or the load increases or decreases or any other situation that causes the fire to change, you just went out of spec enough to flunk the test.  

The interesting thing is the rise of liquefied and compressed natural gas for fuel in cars, trucks, diesel locomotive conversions and ships. The emission problems are greatly reduced, but would it improve steam loco efficiency? L D Porta and Andre Chapelon may have brought the steam locomotive to its highest possible point of development.

There's still all that once-through exhaust going up the stack, and adding a condenser sends the power-to-weight ratio out the window. Water-tube boilers have been done too, but you never know when an idea will make a comeback. 

Even well-controlled combustion of the anthracite coal is dirty compared to modern emission and particulate standards, as if fuel oils for that matter.  

But I don't see why a modern steam locomotive could not run on natural gas - much cleaner, plentiful, and easy to store in liquified form.  further, it is much easier to control its combustion precisely for optimum results ever time.  

Still, I don't think steam can compete. Porta was a clever engineer, dedicated to steam, and I have a reprint of one of his small books that the coalition provided for download, which is interesting, but modern reciprocating internal combustion is pretty hard to complete against.

Even if you could produce a perfect pollution free high power recip steamer...your're still in trouble. It's the electric drive that makes Diesel power so outrageously unstoppable.  Yup. your old clunky Alco RS1 can compete with a steamer many times it's HP thanks to the superior drive it's sitting on....at least in typical RR speeds.

Yeah, a good point.  If I were to try to design a "modern steam loco" to compete, I think I'd go with a several-stage steam turbines driving a generator driving what are essentially diesel locomotive electric trucks.  I think you could make it work well.  Well, better than a traditional reciprocating piston and driving rods approach.  But why?  At best I think it would perform only as well as diesels, while being more complicated and expensive. 

Concerns over its explosiveness may be the reason.  The outcome of a tender full of liquified natural gas being smashed in a serious wreck is a fairly intimidating prospect.

I don't know for certain, but I'd guess that railroad managements have entertained similar thoughts about the recent diesel-to-gas experiments, too.

UP #57 was successfully fueled on NG back in the early fifties.  The extra work/time involved plus the danger prevented more conversions.  But it certainly did work.

Why don't we ask some one on the forum who owns and runs a main line, narrow standard, or broad gauge steam locomotive about this?

Interesting request.

First let me state that there is no way that ANY reciprocating steam locomotive can EVER compete with the diesel electric drive system. The steam locomotive is essentially a constant torque, variable horse power machine. The diesel electric is a constant horse power, variable torque machine.

Second, the very best steam locomotive EVER produced and/or modified was barely 10% efficient at the rail head. Current, modern computer controlled diesel electric locomotives exceed 50% at the rail head.

End of discussion!

Since the post that this post was responding to disappeared, this post won't make a lot of sense, but here goes... OK, but how does a steam engine improve on ANY of that? You STILL have to have polluting heavy industry and steel making to build steam locomotives, and as for fuel, remember that diesels CAN burn many of the heavier fuels that steamers can, it was just that there ended up being no advantage to doing so (never mind the pollution), and coal has it's own set of issues.  You also mentioned water.  What wastes more water than a steam engine? This all reminds me of all the alternative automotive fuel advocates.  Most people fail to (or refuse to) understand how close to perfect gasoline is as a motor fuel.  It wasn't an accident that we use gasoline, and it wasn't some evil oil company plot either.  ALL things considered, it just flat out does the best overall job at the most acceptable price of ANYTHING that has even been invented for the task.  That MIGHT change SOME day, but it hasn't so far, and it might NEVER.  We may be FORCED to use something different, but it probably won't have anything to do with cost, efficiency, and suitability.  I love a steam engine as much as I love a beer wagon being pulled by a team of draft horses, but their day as a practical TRANSPORTATION option has come and gone.  Let it go.

All these reasons stack up so heavily in favor of diesels that steam just can't - and shouldn't make a come back.  I love steamers, big, bold, powerful, hot, noisy and dirty - and beautiful and nostalgic.  They had their time.  Something much better replaced them.  Big bands probably aren't coming back, either.