Time in a Bottle - Railroader 

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I mean... SURE. But if we compare the reality of stean running VS the reality of diesel? Yeah sadly the diesels are gonna win each time.

The ACE3000 project was attempting to show us what a 21st century steam locomotive could look like, or at least a steam locomotive in the 80s. China rather famously was still building 2-8-2 and 2-10-2 locomotives into the 1980s, and continued to use the QJ 2-10-2s until 2006, while the JS class 2-8-2s have more recently been retired in 2018-2022. These weren’t even really modified designs, they were pretty much steam locomotives exactly as they would have come out of the factory in 1945. Zimbabwe and South Africa both had limited steam service as recently as 2006 as well. Steam could have and did survive into the 21st century as genuine revenue equipment, sadly North America was always gonna dieselize before everyone else, because at the time we were the centre of technological innovation in the world, especially when it came to trains. Funny how things change..

​@@Lv-sl3rmI mean. It actually depends on the cost of labor and available fuel supplies in a given country. Big steam can compete in raw power. it's just a maintenance & infrastructure hog.

It's unfortunately capped by the logistics of keeping steam engines in service, and supplied up and down the line. The real tragedy is the preservation wasn't as thorough.

Truly is a sad site to see for railfans

Ty!

Well, the technological advances caused it to happen, much easier to have an engineer and conductor flip a switch to start the locomotive instead of waiting a few hours for it to gain pressure. Even with all of the fuel access diesels are mechanically easier to fix

Many class 2s opted to run steam into the mid-60s, whereas some class 3s could be seen running steam as late as 1984

So yes they could and did run steam much longer than the mainlines, but not for 60 + years sadly, eventually technology reaches these lines

@@trainknut There must be like a few shortlines out there with steam right? Also I love this video.

@@jimmypetrock sort of, but at this point it's been so long, and it costs so much to run just one small steam engine, most of the lines that do have one or two steam engines very rarely run them, and when they do, it's usually for publicity events. However some railroads are known to occasionally move revenue freight with preserved steam engines. IRM(Illinois Railroad Museum) moved a string of empty coal hoppers they had been storing on their facility using Frisco 1630 a couple years back, resulting in lots of publicity for their little 2-10-0. This was back in 2018 I wanna say? Reading and Northern famously used several strings of coal cars(both empty and loaded) for 2102's break-in runs back in 2022, which was a big event because this was a full size road engine pulling mainline traffic, not just a little shunter pushing around boxcars in a railyard. Strasburg Railroad famously uses their steam engines(usually either 90 or 475) to serve a small handful of common carrier businesses on their line, which are then transferred to the NS via the former Pennsylvania RR. Then of course there's UP 4014, which isn't even a shortline anymore, that's straight up a class 1 railroad with the biggest steam engine on the planet... But they do also use her for occasional freight movements as well. It's exceedingly rare, and every time a steam engine pulls _actual_ freight it always(usually) gets a lot of attention. But it's not unheard of. What should be noted though is that 100% of the locomotives I just mentioned, and any other steam locomotive currently operating in 2024, have ALL been rebuilt since the end of the steam era. There isn't a single steam locomotive, not even famous UP 844, that has not had every component thoroughly checked, repaired, or replaced, since they were operating as common carrier equipment.

That’s in the works, I’m currently modeling a locomotive for the game rn so it’s not my top priority but it’s going to be the next video

Thank you! Much appreciated

Thank you so much!

Just max everything, and the right time in the day I suppose lol. I was surprised how good my game looked when I was filming this as well

@@Dee_fy I just used a command to empty the fuel

@@shortlinestudios alr

jesus, uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Wow.

What did the steamies do to deserve that?

@@tomofouterwarp1076 the future, that’s what happened

@AppalachianMountaineer1863 futures scary. Steam was nicer. Lol Not telling you how to run ur railroad. Good luck as im still stuck with early game steam

@@tomofouterwarp1076 gets expensive in the game running steam locomotives. When you get that first diesel it really changes how you play

what

Actually ya lol, I saw it and I thought it would be a goof song to do

Definitely on the list, I have a few other songs in mind as well

@@shortlinestudios that is so cool awesome I hope you have good luck in all your endeavors making a RU-vid channel peace out man thank you for checking out my list I love to share my music

Railroader it’s in the steam store for near 50 dollars

@@Bud-uz1bw THX.

@@isaacandme9742 np I gotchu