Steam making a comeback? Possible?

[BNSF5767]

Well, with the high gas prices and the supposed "running out of oil" supported by sciencists, do you think steam will come back with some other material needed to run it? For example, they need coal, what if we put solar panels on the tender then there would be heat-resistant tubes that would heat the water to over 212 degrees thus making steam. With the high cost of putting electric lines on a railroad do you think steam will make a comeback? Ever? :rolleyes:

[derekmorton]

Hi Alex,

Steam engines have VERY high maintenance.
On a sunny day solar panels on the tender would supply less than 1 tenth % of the power required to power a steam engine.

Steam also has a major disadvantage, a lot of the mass is not available for adhesion.

[Driverman2008]

Well there was a kind of a tank engine in Switzerland that didn't have a firebox, but it made steam. It got its heat from an overhead powerlines and it had a pantograph on the top of it. I started a thread about this locomotive in this section.

Also, steam locomotives pulling long passenger trains would be more beneficial, environmentally friendly, and economical. The driver of the world's newest steam locomotive (the Peppercorn A1 Tornado) said in a BBC interview that if you were to have a steam locomotive pulling a train of 13 passenger cars with 500 people and it was heading to either York or Bath, it would be more beneficial, environmentally friendly, and economical than having each of those 500 people drive an automobile to York or Bath. It would still not be the best way to preserve the environment (a diesel or electric would be cleaner), but it would be more beneficial than driving automobiles long distances.

[BNSF5767]

Well there was a kind of a tank engine in Switzerland that didn't have a firebox, but it made steam. It got its heat from an overhead powerlines and it had a pantograph on the top of it. I started a thread about this locomotive in this section.

Also, steam locomotives pulling long passenger trains would be more beneficial, environmentally friendly, and economical. The driver of the world's newest steam locomotive (the Peppercorn A1 Tornado) said in a BBC interview that if you were to have a steam locomotive pulling a train of 13 passenger cars with 500 people and it was heading to either York or Bath, it would be more beneficial, environmentally friendly, and economical than having each of those 500 people drive an automobile to York or Bath. It would still not be the best way to preserve the environment (a diesel or electric would be cleaner), but it would be more beneficial than driving automobiles long distances.

Steam doesn't hurt the air because it evaporates into the air, coal on the other hand does and is messy

[kevarc]

Steam is not going to happen other than tourist roads and maybe, just maybe, certain limited applications. Just get that through your head.

[danthecpman]

this may interest you
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7537462.stm

[jtr1962]

If oil prices stay high we'll probably be electrifying in a big way. True that it would be costly (several hundred billion to do most of the US mainlines), but the payback period would be on the order of a few years with $5/gallon diesel. Electric traction offers other advantages as well. With more power trains get over the road faster. This means less equipment to do the same work.

Steam could never be cost effective compared to electrification. You would need to design and build the locomotives. Then you would need to rebuild all the needed infrastructure to fuel and water the locomotives. And the locomotives would be more costly to run. When all is said and done what exactly are you gaining over electrification? It'll probably cost more but would be inferior from every perspective. It would be foamer compliant, but that's about it. Steam was great in its day, but that day has come and gone.

[derekmorton]

Think of it

GGace :-)

[plainsman]

I don't know, a methane fired steam turbine drive might be possible?? If you could find a way to get the boiler size down, who knows what might be possible with new technology? We tend to get trapped thinking about things from inside a box of our own limits of knowledge.

[USRailFan]

Well, with the high gas prices and the supposed "running out of oil" supported by sciencists, do you think steam will come back with some other material needed to run it? For example, they need coal, what if we put solar panels on the tender then there would be heat-resistant tubes that would heat the water to over 212 degrees thus making steam. With the high cost of putting electric lines on a railroad do you think steam will make a comeback? Ever? :rolleyes:

No

[Bill Hobbs]

With steam locomotives, maximum efficiency is limited by the energy that remains in the steam after expansion in the cylinder. The pressure cannot drop below atmosphere (except on condenser locos which never achieved wide use, so a large number of btus, namely those requied to heat the water from the intake temp to the exhaust temp, are going to be lost. Some are recovered by the injector, more can be recovered by a feedwater heater, but overall the efficiency of used energy to input energy is not going to exceed about 16% and with mechanical losses, even less. Diesels and electrics can do much better.

Generating electricity with steam offers a higher efficiency ratio because of the extreme pressures that can be used in conjunction with multiple step turbines each of which recovers additional energy from the steam exhausted by the previous turbine. Final exhaust is typically into a condensor system that lets the exhaust take place at below atmospheric pressure so that a portion of the energy used to heat the water to evaporation temp is also recovered. This kind of efficiency can be achieved only in large stationary setups designed to work under constant conditions.

As much as I love steam engines from an aesthetic standpoint, from an engineering one, they are not the wave of the future.
Bill

[DCRR1]

The technology of building more fuel efficient engines is here and improving. Look at how the auto industry has improved mileage. Nobody seems to be comparing cost to efficiency. Ex: Fuel is $5.00 a gallon. A locomotive uses 200 gallons per hour. Eventually that will be improved and under identical circumstances that same locomotive now uses only 100 gallons per hour. This reduces cost to $2.50 a gallon.

One problem with electric is that if the catenary comes down or a large portion is denergized, the system is down and all trains are dead until power is restored.

John

[rdamurphy]

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html

Robert

[DCRR1]

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html

Robert

*********************************************

Lot of pretty drawings.

Lot of pretty talk.

But no walk.

No prototype.

Nothing meaningful. Anytime there is an oil shortage or higher prices, these ancient articles pop up.

Don't start vast projects with half vast ideas.

John

[rd4man]

The technology of building more fuel efficient engines is here and improving. Look at how the auto industry has improved mileage. Nobody seems to be comparing cost to efficiency. Ex: Fuel is $5.00 a gallon. A locomotive uses 200 gallons per hour. Eventually that will be improved and under identical circumstances that same locomotive now uses only 100 gallons per hour. This reduces cost to $2.50 a gallon.
John

One problem with your example is that as fuel efficiency improves, so does the cost of the fuel. End result is ZERO improvement.

[ragtimer]

Steam will never make a comeback for the reasons posted above and that labour cannot be recruited to perform the heavy and dirty tasks needed to service,prepare and dispose of steam locos.In my view diesel is better than electric because with my diesel loco I can go anywhere and the expensive infrastructure is not required.My company is now urging us not to use Notch 8 despite the fact that is generally impossible to time most trains without using it.Typical management out of touch with reality.

[cp5513]

Well, with the high gas prices and the supposed "running out of oil"

The Alberta tar sands alone hold enough oil to power Canada and the USA for the next 100 years. Just expensive to extract (no problem now @ $125/barrel) and not very environmentally friendly to refine. Don't listen to doomsday people saying oil is running out ... maybe the 'easy' oil is, but petroleum will be around for a long time to come.

Oh and steam returning is as likely to happen as Middle East Peace.

[jtr1962]

The Alberta tar sands alone hold enough oil to power Canada and the USA for the next 100 years. Just expensive to extract (no problem now @ $125/barrel) and not very environmentally friendly to refine. Don't listen to doomsday people saying oil is running out ... maybe the 'easy' oil is, but petroleum will be around for a long time to come.

"$125/barrel" is the problem. Remember that $5/gallon diesel is killing the economy. Long term we need to find something cheaper. Indeed, a fossil fuel based economy can only work in the long run with cheap oil. There may be lots of expensive to extract oil available, but at $4 or $5 a gallon alternatives such as electrication are more than economically viable. Now if there were no viable alternatives, it would be another story but that's not the case. A good argument can be made in favor of nuclear power/electrification even with $1/gallon diesel. The expensive oil may indeed be economically viable to extract when the cheap oil runs out to use in plastics, not to burn for transportation.

[cp5513]

Sorry - didn't mean to imply that $125/barrel equates to diesel engines being around forever. I agree that current prices make other options economically viable, specifically electrification. Be it nuclear, or more likely from a variety of sources, the high price of all the catenary will eventually get paid off after a couple of decades providing diesel stays at around the $4/gallon mark.

Steam coming back is a fantasy.

And actually the tar sands became viable I believe when the price of oil hits $50/barrel, below that you loose money refining it. So at today's prices the oil companies up there are making a killing just the same.

[rdamurphy]

NO THEY'RE NOT! ELECTIFICATION IS NOT "ECONOMICALLY VIABLE!"

<Deep breath...>

Regardless of your wishful thinking, which is almost as bad as the wishful thinking about steam coming back, in order to electrify, you need support structures (those funny looking silver towers), millions of miles of expensive wire (copper ain't an easy resource either), transformers, not to mention labor!

There are 233,000 miles of track, and you'd have to hang wire over every bit of it, THEN, replace EVERY SINGLE locomotive on the rails, except the few in the NEC. And where is the electricity going to come from? There IS NO EXTRA CAPACITY right now. NONE! Therefore, we'd have to build enough power plants to supply that entire network. Oh, yeah, and how do you make electricity? Well, you can BURN OIL or COAL! And use the energy more inefficiently than you are already!

And where do you think the railroads are going to get that "$billions" of dollars? Out of their spare change account? Tax Credits? Wow, imagine the campaign ads against "Big Railroads" getting tax breaks!

Seriously, steam, electric, magnetic track, all of that malarky would make about as much sense as putting sails on westbound trains in Wyoming and shutting off the locomotives!

Another thing, railroads DON'T PAY $5 A GALLON FOR DIESEL FUEL! Please, read that again! They buy fuel on the commodities market, AND they don't pay all of the assorted HIGHWAY TAXES on diesel. Airlines buy their fuel on the commodities market also.

Please, I understand that this post is meant to be speculative, but could we at least take into consideration how business works?

Robert BS BM/A

[jtr1962]

You could make electricity a bunch of other ways besides burning coal or oil. That's just a red herring. Sure, electrification isn't cheap, but you don't have to electrify all 223,000 miles of track right away. Start with heavily traveled mainlines, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 miles worth, and bump the diesels which still have service life left in them to unelectrified branchlines. As the diesel fleet starts to wear out on the branchlines then electrify those also. It may take 30 years to do everything, but within ten we could get most of the ton-miles of freight pulled via electric traction.

You're neglecting two other things since you're talking economics. One, with electrics the trains get over the road faster. That means less equipment to carry the same cargo. As we both know, railroad cars aren't except cheap. Two, electric locomotives easily last twice as long as their diesel counterparts. Maintenance is cheaper, operation is cheaper. There's a reason why most of the rest of the world doesn't use diesel except on lightly traveled branchlines. And I have no idea what railroads pay for diesel fuel, but the price per barrel of crude sets a hard lower limit even if they're exempt from taxes. If diesel is $5/gallon at the pump, I'd guess the railroads are paying at least $3, perhaps even $4. Most electrification studies I've read put the break-even point at $1 a gallon. Above that and electrfication pays dividends in an increasingly shorter time frame as fuel prices go up.

Now if someone is brave enough to make a nuclear-powered locomotive, then we suddenly have the best of both worlds. And it would even be steam in a sense since it would likely use a nuclear-heated steam turbine to power the generator. But I'd guess the NIMBYs would stop something like this right in its tracks (pun intended).

[kevarc]

You could make electricity a bunch of other ways besides burning coal or oil. That's just a red herring.

Please tell us how? Nucs? Nimby's will have a field day with oil, coal or nuc. Solar? How well would that work in the NW US? Don't just say no to one way and not give the alternatives, you have to give your argument a foundation or it is worthless.

Sure, electrification isn't cheap, but you don't have to electrify all 223,000 miles of track right away. Start with heavily traveled mainlines, perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 miles worth, and bump the diesels which still have service life left in them to unelectrified branchlines. As the diesel fleet starts to wear out on the branchlines then electrify those also. It may take 30 years to do everything, but within ten we could get most of the ton-miles of freight pulled via electric traction.

You still haven't stated who is going to pay for all of this and

You're neglecting two other things since you're talking economics. One, with electrics the trains get over the road faster.

Beg your pardon, but this is wrong. You still have the limiting effect of TE and steel wheels on steel rails. You also still have the speed limitations posed by curvature and grade.

That means less equipment to carry the same cargo. As we both know, railroad cars aren't except cheap. Two, electric locomotives easily last twice as long as their diesel counterparts. Maintenance is cheaper, operation is cheaper.

Not so fast there. While maintenance may be cheaper on the engines, it is not on the infrastructure. Not only do you have the roadbed, but you also now have all the added costs of maintaining the catenary.

There's a reason why most of the rest of the world doesn't use diesel except on lightly traveled branchlines.

Rest of world? Please clarify. Outside of Europe, where is this so?

And I have no idea what railroads pay for diesel fuel, but the price per barrel of crude sets a hard lower limit even if they're exempt from taxes. If diesel is $5/gallon at the pump, I'd guess the railroads are paying at least $3, perhaps even $4. Most electrification studies I've read put the break-even point at $1 a gallon. Above that and electrfication pays dividends in an increasingly shorter time frame as fuel prices go up.

Are these studies online? If so where that others can be enlightened?

Now if someone is brave enough to make a nuclear-powered locomotive, then we suddenly have the best of both worlds. And it would even be steam in a sense since it would likely use a nuclear-heated steam turbine to power the generator. But I'd guess the NIMBYs would stop something like this right in its tracks (pun intended).

If you cannot document what you claim, then is may not be so.

[Bill Hobbs]

Prices of commodities on the futures exchanges are tied to cash market (spot) prices. The final settlement price for any contract will be equal to the spot market price for the same commodity on that day. Differences from cash market prices prior to delivery are the result of warehousing or financing costs. There are no free lunches in the futures markets; just the ability to buy or sell today for future delivery. The prices are wholesale prices and do not include taxes, but that does not mean that taxes will not be due if applicable.

Bill Hobbs

[GCRailways]

Has anyone heard of L.D. Porta? He was an Argentinian engineer who worked with Andre Chapelon. He rebuilt a South African 4-8-4 to where--as I understand--the coal is "gasified" (don't know how that's done), and some of the steam is sent back in to the firebox to chemically react with the burning coal to create a clean "water gas". There's a lot more to it; it's in one of my books. The engine is an SAR Class 26.

BUT...

Think about it... fewer steam engines means more coal left for those that are operational.

Maybe not total replacement, but a mixture of steam, diesel and electric, to some degree, on the same rail system? (Only this time without the intent of one replacing the others...) Just a thought...

[SD50]

I like JTR's comment about steam being "foamer compliant". That's about right. Most of these grand ideas like the Ace 3000 look good on paper (or web page), and that's as far as they go. Why do you think that is so?

A more likely scenario is to continue to improve efficiency of contemporary technology. Better efficiency from conventional diesel-electrics. Green Goats and hybrids. And so on.

In this thread, the main argument for a return to steam is to use a non-petroleum fuel (coal). Far more likely we will see diesel (or other internal combustion) with traction motors, using some "alternative" fuel. We've already seen natural gas powered units on the UP. I also saw methane and coal gassification discussed here. I think it's more likely that these fuels would power something more like today's diesel locomotives rather than steam.

Nuclear powered locomotive? I'm sure that comment was in jest, but an atomic plant may well power the catenary for electric locomotives.

The drawbacks to electrification have already been discussed too. MAYBE we'll see more use of this on the most densely used lines. But it's not a good investment for those lightly used branch lines.

[jtr1962]

The drawbacks to electrification have already been discussed too. MAYBE we'll see more use of this on the most densely used lines. But it's not a good investment for those lightly used branch lines.
I'll agree electrification makes little sense on a branch line with a few trains a day. For that either diesel or even something with a battery (if the range was sufficient) would work.


Nuclear powered locomotive? I'm sure that comment was in jest, but an atomic plant may well power the catenary for electric locomotives.

Half in jest actually. When I was in college I did a term paper for one class on the feasibility of a nuclear-powered locomotive. IIRC it would have needed four 3-axle trucks to deal with the weight (I even included the weight of a lead radiation shield). However, it would have made about 12,000 HP, and naturally run for years between refuelings. I concluded that it was technically feasible, may even have been economically feasible, but would probably have never gotten past the NIMBYs.

BTW, this term paper was typewritten (on a manual typewriter no less!) in the early 1980s so I don't have an electronic copy to share, as much as I would like to. I'll try to dig it out and scan it one of these days.

[SD50]

Half in jest actually. When I was in college I did a term paper for one class on the feasibility of a nuclear-powered locomotive. IIRC it would have needed four 3-axle trucks to deal with the weight (I even included the weight of a lead radiation shield). However, it would have made about 12,000 HP, and naturally run for years between refuelings. I concluded that it was technically feasible, may even have been economically feasible, but would probably have never gotten past the NIMBYs.

BTW, this term paper was typewritten (on a manual typewriter no less!) in the early 1980s so I don't have an electronic copy to share, as much as I would like to. I'll try to dig it out and scan it one of these days.

VERY interesting! You're probably right about the NIMBYs, but a very interesting concept nonetheless.

A typerwriter? What's that? Just kidding! I was in college during the same time frame and typed many a paper that way, retyping many pages because I couldn't just highlight and delete the mistakes!

[jtr1962]

A typerwriter? What's that? Just kidding! I was in college during the same time frame and typed many a paper that way, retyping many pages because I couldn't just highlight and delete the mistakes!
Yes, I remember those days well. I also remember having a penchant for writing lengthy term papers. If the teacher said 10 pages, I would often end up writing 15 or 20. No wonder I ended with with carpal tunnel syndrome by my late 20s. :eek:

[kevarc]

VERY interesting! You're probably right about the NIMBYs, but a very interesting concept nonetheless.

A typerwriter? What's that? Just kidding! I was in college during the same time frame and typed many a paper that way, retyping many pages because I couldn't just highlight and delete the mistakes!

Typewriter - Nothing like doing a 40 page senior project and having to type it that way. It paid to have a excellent proofreader.

[SD50]

So anyway, regarding your proposed nuclear-powered locomotive, was the basic layout similar to, for instance, a ship, where reactor heats water to produce steam, steam drives turbine, etc? Or was it some other approach?

[CSX4878]

Trains > Automobiles.

If it was possible to get Passenger trains running like they did back in the 50's and 60's, then we'd get some where. Same way with the frieght. The railroads needs to work with these areas that, they can easily do a truck to train transfer, and have the trucks haul short distances. Why attack trains when trains are more fuel effiecent thing a car or trailer truck!

[jtr1962]

So anyway, regarding your proposed nuclear-powered locomotive, was the basic layout similar to, for instance, a ship, where reactor heats water to produce steam, steam drives turbine, etc? Or was it some other approach?
IIRC the numbers were based on a pretty conventional approach-nuclear reactor produces steam which drives a turbine which in turn powers a generator to power the traction motors. It was basically a conceptual approach, so I never got around to actually thinking much about specifics. Suffice it to say that if today's computers existed back then the report would have been full of illustrations and diagrams, perhaps even MSTS screenshots.

[pmcn]

Typewriter - Nothing like doing a 40 page senior project and having to type it that way. It paid to have a excellent proofreader.

And lots of white out. :D

As to steam returning, not likely at all. The ecconomic factors will push to the most ecconomicially viable solution. Possably a hybrid for road use or hydrogen fuel. Until a new source of energy is mass produced, diesel will still be the most ecconomic.

Paul

[Jonatan08]

Interesting thread. Nuclear locomotives you say? I DID do this while I read about the ACEs, LOL!

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3589/nukelocopngif8.png
BNSF Nuclear Locomotive. The reactor generates enough steam for powering the locomotive underframe AND a whole set of traction motors for the wheels on the "cooling tower" tender. And I CAN build locos for MSTS so, oooooooh... look out, mad genious at work! :p

/Jonatan

[GCRailways]

Trains > Automobiles.

If it was possible to get Passenger trains running like they did back in the 50's and 60's, then we'd get some where. Same way with the frieght. The railroads needs to work with these areas that, they can easily do a truck to train transfer, and have the trucks haul short distances. Why attack trains when trains are more fuel effiecent thing a car or trailer truck!

That question may need to be aimed at the media, but I do see a bigger picture:

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this, but I'm wondering if maybe a bigger issue wouldn't be reviving rail service as a whole. The motive power concepts are definately an issue, but if our society continues to look down on and even ignore the rail world (especially as far as intercity passenger service), we may not have much space left to try these new loco concepts out-- be it steam, diesel, electric, hybrid, nuclear, etc.