Allegheny's short life span

Engineer-Joe posted:

 

All the diesel haters out there should study what happened to steam. It appears to me that the big RR's weren't so tied to steam as it's fans are.

Diesels are less costly to maintain, operate and spend less time in the shops.  Even the mighty N&W had to come to that reality.

Rusty

It all came down to cost. What would move freight over the rails more efficiently.

If you look at the phase out of steam and talk to some of the railroad people at the time. Diesels reduced labor, had interchangeable parts,  and could be MU ed for additional horse power.... this alone sounded the death knell for steam.

11 years is not that bad. The NP had brand new Z8 challengers delivered that were scrapped out in less than half that time.

and parts sources were drying up.

Hey Joe I enjoyed the video. Thanks for posting.

I certainly do not know the answer to this question, but I worked at the Henry Ford Museum for three years during the 1990s. I walked by the Allegheny locomotive everyday and was inside the cab once. The immense size of this locomotive is unbelievable. One can only imagine what it would have been like to see this engine run down the rails. It is certainly fortunate for history fans everywhere that this example was saved and preserved indoors for future generations to see and experience. It is also a real tribute to American ingenuity that such a mechanical masterpiece was designed and built.

Great vid, thanks for posting it. (FWIW, I know it's  about the C&O but, aren't those Pennsy or N&W signals at 2:00?)

I read somewhere that the needs of the N&W weren't enough inducement to keep the doors open at several suppliers of steam specialties and that that was what brought on the final decision to dieselize.  Otherwise N&W management had little desire to drop the fires while some of their equipment was way way way below life expectancy.  The 1950 class of J's are the prime example as they were barely 8 years old when the hammer fell.

 Thanks for the info.

I think I watched this video a few years back. I just try and understand the history behind my toys.

If they scrapped those Z Challengers that fast, it had to be a huge savings with the diesels.

The way the N&W held out, reminds me of reading about certain RR's holding out on AC power nowadays. I can't help with my limited experience thinking that some management, refuses to be pushed into what maybe a trend.

Engineer-Joe posted:

 

The way the N&W held out, reminds me of reading about certain RR's holding out on AC power nowadays. I can't help with my limited experience thinking that some management, refuses to be pushed into what maybe a trend.

I can guarantee you that nobody ever pushed the Norfolk & Western railroad Mechanical Department into any trend. N&W marched to its own drum, and NS has continued to do so.

Somehow, I don't think dieselization of the N&W was "marching to it's own drum."  The N&W may have dieselized later that other railroads, but they still had to face the inevitable.  And lo and behold, the NS is buying the same diesels everyone else is and not building them from scratch.

Rusty

Railroads are corporations in business to make money. They are not museums on nostalgia trips . They have to compete or go under or into the boring  mergers we have today. Their cost accountants are tasked to find the cheapest way. 

Not building from scratch?  OK, I can accept that.  But what about Altoona?  Rebuilds, and NS could build up new locomotives from kits, like Conrail did.  Of course it was an ex PRR/PC/CR shop.  But it is now NS.

Don't know exactly what was going on in the C&O executive suites at the time of dieselization, but let me speculate.  C&O was wed to coal, it was their largest revenue generator and they wanted to display allegiance to their biggest shippers. So much allegiance that the C&O went on a wild buying spree of steam locomotives in the late 1940's (4-6-4's, 4-8-4's, 0-8-0's, 2-6-6-2's, 2-8-4's). Seemingly, the huge cost differential became fully apparent in the early 1950's, and C&O went on a diesel buying binge, to the point where steam was essentially retired by 1955. A huge upturn in business in 1956 brought back into service a bunch of stored C&O steam locomotives, but permanent retirement came by year's end.  That C&O was a bit reckless in their diesel purchases was displayed by a diesel surplus going into the recession of 1958, which allowed Nickel Plate to lease C&O diesels, and knock out steam operation by July 1958.

So, one might attribute all of this to bad managerial judgement. Of course, everything is clear as a bell, sitting in our arm chairs 70 years later!

(small addendum:  the 2-6-6-6's were "fully retired" at the end of 1956, not unlike other modern steam locomotives. Example: Louisville & Nashville's 1949 constructed 2-8-4's were also retired at the end of 1956)

"Don't know exactly what was going on in the C&O executive suites at the time of dieselization, but let me speculate.  C&O was wed to coal, it was their largest revenue generator and they wanted to display allegiance to their biggest shippers."

A very good point... it must have been a huge cost savings to go to diesels. The NP burned lignite coal... which was why most all of their locomotives had larger fireboxes. Lignite was as almost as common as dirt (Actually looking at the stuff it looked like dirt)... and it was free fuel for them... The NP had large land deposits that they owned and mined.

Now water on the other hand... the NP had probably spent more on water purification  for their steam engines than money on coal...

Hey wait a minute!  What short life span ?  Is there something I don't know yet?

Allegheny posted:

Hey wait a minute!  What short life span ?  Is there something I don't know yet?

Well, how long can you get out of a steam engine?

I had a post last couple of weeks on older diesels still running.

Engineer-Joe posted:

Allegheny posted:

Hey wait a minute!  What short life span ?  Is there something I don't know yet?

Well, how long can you get out of a steam engine?

I had a post last couple of weeks on older diesels still running.

Well, IRM's Russian Decapod, Frisco 1630, is 98 years old and still running.  She can still handle 135 cars if needed:

Sierra Railway's famous #3 is 125 years old.

All it takes is money, plus a lot of sweat, skill and passed down knowledge to keep them running.

Rusty

An oldtimer at the C&O shops in Huntington, West Virginia told me the following, "It takes two weeks to find what is wrong with them diesels and about 15 minutes to fix. On them steamers, it takes 15 minutes to find out what is wrong but takes two weeks to fix.". Not quite true, but I understood what he was saying.

Larry

The 4501 is 105 years old....takes $$$ and a bunch of hard work. 

colorado hirailer posted:

Railroads are corporations in business to make money. They are not museums on nostalgia trips . They have to compete or go under or into the boring  mergers we have today. Their cost accountants are tasked to find the cheapest way. 

I might add that locomotives are tools.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Their purpose is to provide the propulsion to move trains from point A to point B.  RR management is looking for the most efficient way to do this.  Steam locomotives are specialsed tools.  They were designed for specific purposes.  Diesel locomotives, especially the road switcher type, could be used for any type of service.  They were universal tools.  Not only were they more efficient to maintain, they were more efficient in their usage.  The diesel builders built a better mouse trap.

Tom

Let's see now,  NKP S-3 class were built in 1949 and retired in 1958.  9 years road service.  

C&O 2-6-6-6 order from 1948, retired in 1956.  8 years of service.

C&O 2-6-6-2 order from 1949, retired in 1956.  7 years of service.

N&W S1a 0-8-0 order from 1953, retired in 1959(?).  6 years of service (?)

WM 4-6-6-4 order from 1947(?), retired in 1952(?).  5 years of service (??)

Anything else in that short service life category?

Odd thing was that most of these had Equipment Trust financing in place, frequently 10 years.  So even if the RR didn't run them, they couldn't sell or scrap them without paying off the "mortgage" 

NKP S-2 class had 10 year equipment trusts on the locomotives.  The financing was paid off in ten years or 1954 and the trust plates were removed from the locomotives.  They ran another four  years after that.

As much as i love steam engines, the answer as others have pointed out is economics.   Diesels in their core are relatively simple beasts, you have a diesel engine driving a generator in turn driving traction motors that drive the wheels. While you have to fuel a diesel, you don't have to continually fill them with water and a diesel will go a longer way on a load of fuel (obviously, less so in the 1950's, modern diesels are amazingly efficient). 

On a steam engine, you have a complicated arrangement of the boiler, with the tubes in it, you have a series of cylinders and connecting rods to transfer that power to the wheels, and that brings complexity. My understanding, too, is that each mile of service takes a lot more out of a steam engine than it would with a diesel. I suspect, too, that in the post war world the standards of the FRA for steam engines likely got a lot more stringent, in terms of rebuilding and so forth, and it probably became more difficult and costly to maintain them (that is just my speculation, some of the other experts on here probably know more). 

Manpower wise, you can MU diesels (primarily because they are electrically controlled in terms of speed, you are varying the power to the electric traction motors, so easy to hook up in series) which means you can have helper engines controlled by 1 crew, steam would require multiple train crews. 

Probably what happened is that diesels by the time they scrapped the Alleghenies had improved to the point where they had the power they needed to run the long coal drags, and do so less expensively/more efficiently, and that settled the decision. They probably didn't take that much of a beating on the cost of those engines, 11 years doesn't sound like a long time but the way equipment is depreciated they often use rapid depreciation, so much of the cost is written off early in that 11 years, so they likely from a depreciated value view didn't have much left in them, so they likely didn't lose as much as you would think. As others have said, it is a business and when they weighed all the factors, apparently it came up that it made no sense to keep the steam engines going. I don't know if they got coal for free as part of their deal with the mine owners (doubt it, but you never know), but even if it was free, oil was cheap back then, too. 

Aside from direct comparisons of efficiency between steam locomotives and diesel electric locomotives, most people tend to overlook the absolutely HUGE requirement of support workers directly involved with maintaining & operating steam locomotives. Thousands upon thousands of Boiler Makers, Welders, Pipe Fitters, Machinists, Laborers, Firemen, and Water Service personnel, non of which were required for diesel electric units.

Not all diesels did last very long either.  FM's, Baldwins, some  ALCO's, and EMD SDP40F's!

Dominic Mazoch posted:

Not all diesels did last very long either.  FM's, Baldwins, some  ALCO's, and EMD SDP40F's!

As usual, that has NOTHING to do with the current discussion about the C&O Allegheny!

Not all Diesels were successful, but then again not all steam engines were, either (pennsylvania turbine, the one Lionel made the successful 671/681 series from, that had only one prototype I believe). Some designs were unsuccessful, unreliable, whatever, and that is true with any kind of product. Steam locomotives to me are beautiful beasts, the way horses are, but we ride cars now, not horses, farmers use tractors (well, okay, except for the Amish folk), it is the way things go. I think it is wonderful steam locomotives have been preserved, that people can enjoy them, but I can also understand why the railroads stopped using them.

Hot Water posted:

Aside from direct comparisons of efficiency between steam locomotives and diesel electric locomotives, most people tend to overlook the absolutely HUGE requirement of support workers directly involved with maintaining & operating steam locomotives. Thousands upon thousands of Boiler Makers, Welders, Pipe Fitters, Machinists, Laborers, Firemen, and Water Service personnel, non of which were required for diesel electric units.

I kept thinking about the cost of the engines. It seemed like a huge investment to abandon.

I couldn't see the whole picture. A couple of extra crew men didn't seem like a big cost back then.

I wonder how much was saved with dynamic braking?

It came down really to labor costs. Now when you begin to look at modern diesel-electric efficiency, and more advanced drive gear Steam engines do begin to close the gap. Valve gear cut off has improved, can now be shorter than before improving fuel economy radically, no nitrous oxide emissions (requires compression, a fire box has none.) Also way less picky on fuel, it has to be good, but not as ultra purified or cracked like many modern oil fuels (there goes up to about 50% of the energy right there depending on the fuel). The whole supply line for fully both has shifted since the 1950's, oil is harder to get , while coal is still hard. The testing in the 80's and 1950's showed cost wise it was a tie per ton moved for steam and diesel-electric. Today it is mostly down to insurance, not labor or fuel.

Allin posted:

It came down really to labor costs. Now when you begin to look at modern diesel-electric efficiency, and more advanced drive gear Steam engines do begin to close the gap. Valve gear cut off has improved, can now be shorter than before improving fuel economy radically, no nitrous oxide emissions (requires compression, a fire box has none.) Also way less picky on fuel, it has to be good, but not as ultra purified or cracked like many modern oil fuels (there goes up to about 50% of the energy right there depending on the fuel). The whole supply line for fully both has shifted since the 1950's, oil is harder to get , while coal is still hard. The testing in the 80's and 1950's showed cost wise it was a tie per ton moved for steam and diesel-electric. Today it is mostly down to insurance, not labor or fuel.

I don't know what the point is with this. I have never seen studies showing it cost the same to ship a ton of cargo via diesel versus a steam engine. Even assuming that the coal used in a steam engine was cheaper, diesels are orders of magnitude more efficient than a steam engine, plus given the cost of maintaining steam engines versus diesels I suspect the operating costs were much higher. If the cost/ton or ton mile was the same, they wouldn't have changed over to diesels the way they did. While insurance is expensive, I doubt that was the prime reason they switched over, it was that diesels were more cost effective than steam engines, pure and simple. If i remember the CSX ads, they say they can move 1 ton of cargo 400 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel, which these days I think diesel at the price they likely pay is probably a buck and change, is quite a feat. 

Allegheny posted:

Hey wait a minute!  What short life span ?  Is there something I don't know yet?

Kazar, do you have a preference as to which museum you'd like to be stuffed and mounted?  

bigkid posted:

Allin posted:

It came down really to labor costs. Now when you begin to look at modern diesel-electric efficiency, and more advanced drive gear Steam engines do begin to close the gap. Valve gear cut off has improved, can now be shorter than before improving fuel economy radically, no nitrous oxide emissions (requires compression, a fire box has none.) Also way less picky on fuel, it has to be good, but not as ultra purified or cracked like many modern oil fuels (there goes up to about 50% of the energy right there depending on the fuel). The whole supply line for fully both has shifted since the 1950's, oil is harder to get , while coal is still hard. The testing in the 80's and 1950's showed cost wise it was a tie per ton moved for steam and diesel-electric. Today it is mostly down to insurance, not labor or fuel.

I don't know what the point is with this. I have never seen studies showing it cost the same to ship a ton of cargo via diesel versus a steam engine. Even assuming that the coal used in a steam engine was cheaper, diesels are orders of magnitude more efficient than a steam engine, plus given the cost of maintaining steam engines versus diesels I suspect the operating costs were much higher. If the cost/ton or ton mile was the same, they wouldn't have changed over to diesels the way they did. While insurance is expensive, I doubt that was the prime reason they switched over, it was that diesels were more cost effective than steam engines, pure and simple. If i remember the CSX ads, they say they can move 1 ton of cargo 400 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel, which these days I think diesel at the price they likely pay is probably a buck and change, is quite a feat. 

Norfolk and Western in the 1950's Tested the Y6B against a set of F units, They found it to cost the same to move the same cargo per mile. In the 1980's it was tested again during a period of cheap coal, and again it was a dead heat, Again by a conglomerate of Railroads, the then Norfolk Southern was part of. Diesels-electrics have only now reached 60% efficiency in the main mover. After The fuel is cracked from crude ( according to my high school science text book) half the value is lost, so 50% is already the maximum, the you end up with a 60% of a 50% making it only 30% (Modern Diesel Electric) to SAR Class 26 #3450 14% , not nearly the margin I have heard. I keep seeing a pure electric motor used as a comparison, leaving out the generator prime mover and the supply line costs. Coal does not have the high energy loss in it refinement. i admit coal is less efficient, then it also has been mostly given up on, meaning I am comparing a nearly forty year old engine to one that came out last year.

Farmer_Bill posted:

Allegheny posted:

Hey wait a minute!  What short life span ?  Is there something I don't know yet?

Kazar, do you have a preference as to which museum you'd like to be stuffed and mounted?  

Hello Farmer_Bill,

As far as being stuffed and mounted in a museum goes.....Let's wait on that for a bit if you don't mind!  Unlike my namesake, I'd like to hang around a bit longer and put on a few more miles and continue in revenue service until my rods and boiler tubes give out.  

My fire box is still glowing red hot, but I have noticed that the head of steam I once had is beginning to wane.  

I'll have a talk my Fireman to find out why I'm not being fueled right.  Maybe the grade of coal being used is the problem.

NKP779 posted:

Let's see now,  NKP S-3 class were built in 1949 and retired in 1958.  9 years road service.  

C&O 2-6-6-6 order from 1948, retired in 1956.  8 years of service.

Correction:  C&O 2-6-6-6 order from Dec 1941, retired in July 1956.  14.7 years of service.

C&O 2-6-6-2 order from 1949, retired in 1956.  7 years of service.

N&W S1a 0-8-0 order from 1953, retired in 1959(?).  6 years of service (?)

WM 4-6-6-4 order from 1947(?), retired in 1952(?).  5 years of service (??)

Anything else in that short service life category?

Odd thing was that most of these had Equipment Trust financing in place, frequently 10 years.  So even if the RR didn't run them, they couldn't sell or scrap them without paying off the "mortgage" 

NKP S-2 class had 10 year equipment trusts on the locomotives.  The financing was paid off in ten years or 1954 and the trust plates were removed from the locomotives.  They ran another four  years after that.

Just a correction to the C&O 2-6-6-6 service time.

NKP779 posted:

 

Anything else in that short service life category?

 

Frisco's 4500-class 4-8-4s fit into that category:  the ones longest in service worked for 8 years.  They sat for more years than that in the yards afterwards before scrapping because the notes on their construction hadn't been paid off yet.

The efficiency is largely personnel costs.  RRs laid off whole classes of employees when they laid off the steamers.  I haven't looked into it, but I suspect that these layoffs contributed to the post-war economic doldrums in the US.

Were there a bunch of coal miner strikes also during this time period?  If your steamers are running off coal, they are "worthless" without fuel.

Minor point but there were a number of C&O 1600 orders with Lima.  The first one was in Dec. 1941 and the last order was built in 1948.  All classes were retired in 1956.  My example of the shortest service life was the last order so there were 8 years.

Allin posted:

bigkid posted:

Allin posted:

It came down really to labor costs. Now when you begin to look at modern diesel-electric efficiency, and more advanced drive gear Steam engines do begin to close the gap. Valve gear cut off has improved, can now be shorter than before improving fuel economy radically, no nitrous oxide emissions (requires compression, a fire box has none.) Also way less picky on fuel, it has to be good, but not as ultra purified or cracked like many modern oil fuels (there goes up to about 50% of the energy right there depending on the fuel). The whole supply line for fully both has shifted since the 1950's, oil is harder to get , while coal is still hard. The testing in the 80's and 1950's showed cost wise it was a tie per ton moved for steam and diesel-electric. Today it is mostly down to insurance, not labor or fuel.

I don't know what the point is with this. I have never seen studies showing it cost the same to ship a ton of cargo via diesel versus a steam engine. Even assuming that the coal used in a steam engine was cheaper, diesels are orders of magnitude more efficient than a steam engine, plus given the cost of maintaining steam engines versus diesels I suspect the operating costs were much higher. If the cost/ton or ton mile was the same, they wouldn't have changed over to diesels the way they did. While insurance is expensive, I doubt that was the prime reason they switched over, it was that diesels were more cost effective than steam engines, pure and simple. If i remember the CSX ads, they say they can move 1 ton of cargo 400 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel, which these days I think diesel at the price they likely pay is probably a buck and change, is quite a feat. 

Norfolk and Western in the 1950's Tested the Y6B against a set of F units, They found it to cost the same to move the same cargo per mile. In the 1980's it was tested again during a period of cheap coal, and again it was a dead heat, Again by a conglomerate of Railroads, the then Norfolk Southern was part of. Diesels-electrics have only now reached 60% efficiency in the main mover. After The fuel is cracked from crude ( according to my high school science text book) half the value is lost, so 50% is already the maximum, the you end up with a 60% of a 50% making it only 30% (Modern Diesel Electric) to SAR Class 26 #3450 14% , not nearly the margin I have heard. I keep seeing a pure electric motor used as a comparison, leaving out the generator prime mover and the supply line costs. Coal does not have the high energy loss in it refinement. i admit coal is less efficient, then it also has been mostly given up on, meaning I am comparing a nearly forty year old engine to one that came out last year.

It depends on what you are comparing here. Even with the inherent disparity between the efficiency of a diesel engine driving a generator versus a steam engine (and it is significant any way you measure the efficiency of a heat engine), coal because  it is an unrefined product is a lot more BTU dense than Oil is (and diesel fuel is a lot more dense than gasoline), there is no doubt. It could be using a Y6B running coal at some price, that the amount of coal used versus the amount of oil with 1 or more diesel engines for that ton may be such that the coal was cheaper or the same price per ton.  

The problem with that is looking at only the cost of fuel. On that basis, coal very well may have been competitive (as it was in generating power versus natural gas). However, when a business looks at those costs, they look at everything, and that is why the steam engine was replaced. If the fuel cost is equal, then you have to factor in the cost of maintainence (which includes labor and material), the cost to run it, safety factor costs, potentially the damage the engine does to the rails, and so forth, the cost/ton or ton mile is going to be a lot higher on the steam engine. Among other things, the boiler on a steam engine is a major liability both from a safety and maintainence standpoint, it operates under pressure, the cycle of heating it up and cooling it down causes all kinds of thermal stress if I remember something from a course in materials I took, and comparitively a diesel is  a simple beast.

Take a look at steam engines in use today at tourist railroads and what they go through in having to tear apart and rebuild the boilers (yeah, you can say it is all the evil regulations, but the FRA regs as far as I know were made during the steam era), and those are for engines that are running relatively little, imagine the wear and tear on engines used hauling coal and whatnot across the country. 

Labor costs obviously make up a lot of these costs, but that is true across the board, when a diesel injector is replaced on a diesel, the cost of that part reflects labor costs (not to mention the workers doing the replacement), in almost any industry the largest costs are labor. 

I suppose simple economics was the death-knell for big railroad steam. If I remember correctly, similar discussions on the forum spoke of a 1958 recession that pushed the last of the American steam off the rails in favour of diesels. Coupled with increasing diesel reliability, to use the language of corporate motivators, it was a paradigm shift. The locomotive efficiency efforts of experts like L.D. Porta and Chapelon couldn't save them.

A non-condensing steam engine, blowing all that exhaust up the stack, gets what? 7 -10% efficiency? Steam turbines with condensers might get into the 20s, but dragging a bulky, heavy condenser around was better-suited to ships, not railroads. Diesels are way above both, hitting the 50% range. The army of labour needed to maintain steam was another factor.

There are three DM&IR 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones on display in Northern Minnesota, and I stop to marvel at them when I can. I'd love to see one of the big guys run again, but the reason that so few locomotives are restored and running is basically the same reason that they were retired: it's a horribly expensive enterprise.