We love our steam locomotives, they just weren't the best thing maintenance-wise... Merch: hyce.creator-s... Join my discord: / discord Become an ES&D Train Crew Member and get extra perks! / @hyce777
I think one of the most profound things you ever pointed out to me in this regard was that most shops on modern railroads don't *have* any machine tools... Diesel shops are set up to swap parts, steam shops are set up to *make* parts.
That's right! Blew my mind when I started working at Interbay. We had a drill press. That was the most advanced machine we had. Topeka, KS backshop where they do the huge 20 year rebuilds on the locomotives has *everything* and true machinists, but the rest of the shops don't.
Diesel shops are set up to swap parts. Whether the parts are available to be swapped is an entirely different matter. I don't know if railroads jury-rig as much nonsense as I've seen in automotive production. . . .
@@gamerfan8445and it was usually because of crappy prime movers, (aside glance at Deutz, who still have problems making reliable prime movers, *sigh*).
And this more than anything is why diesels (and in other countries, electrics) killed steam. Sometimes steam was stronger, or faster, or more powerful than the new technologies, but rarely was it less maintenance intensive.
I would also argue that versatility/flexibility was another huge factor. Diesel-electric trains are simply more flexible than steam trains. You basically needed to build a steam engine for a type of job, but diesels are far more practical to just have a couple models and stack locomotives as needed to do the job. But, yes, it was as never about what they are able to pull. It was always the other factors like maintenance, flexibility, reliability, ease of use, etc that made steam not commercially viable.
Steam choo choos have each their own personality for sure - and that extends to their parts lists. Diesels definitely make more sense just to move much freight around, but thank goodness there's preservationists who work crazy hard to keep the old girls alive and kicking so the rest of us can enjoy those quirky personalities. THANK YOU!! to steam railroaders everywhere. Possible video idea: it would be interesting to see what has to be done for 30-day, quarterly, and annual inspections. The 1472 day seems to be summed up as: "blow choo choo into component parts, inspect, replace, put back together."
@@Hyce777 that is unfortunate. Apart from a separate cameraman, I don't see how you could film work like that unfortunately. Maybe set up a few cameras around the shop, looking at the loco from a few angles, and cut to whichever shows you working at the time. But that would be difficult too
5:55 Actually, there IS one thing that needs to be lapped on a Diesel engine: the Valves (Exhaust only on a 2 stroke EMD engine and both Intake and exhaust on a 4 stroke GE Engine) its essentially the exact same principle of the Turret Valves on a steam engine, where a good valve seat is essential to proper operation. For steam its to prevent equipment from operating, but on a diesel its to have an airtight combustion chamber with good compression (Diesel is a compression Ignition engine; if the combustion chambers arent airtight, the engine will be hard to start if it even starts at all!
My great grandfather worked in the Ipswich railway workshops in Queensland, back in the days of steam. He was a blacksmith... which in the railway workshops meant him plus five other guys holding onto the end of a shaft, forging it in a huge hydraulic press. They did their own axles etc. My grandfather (his son in law, and aa machinist/diesel mechanic) went to visit him at work a few times and recalls seeing them welding a broken side rod from a locomotive by touching the two ends of the break together, striking a monstrously powerful arc between the two to heat them and then ramming them together to form the join. Gnarly stuff, and obviously hugely labor intensive.
I used to work for John Martz Luger carbine maker from Lincoln, CA and one of the things I did was barrel lapping of new barrels. He didn't want to do the job because he didn't have any patience; I did as I had the patience and the skill to do lapping. Lapping is labor intensive but the nice part of lapping nowadays is one can buy various lapping compounds for all purposes. Nice exhibition of the old parts and what needs to be done to keep the old locomotives running.
It sure is nice that we've got compound that we can just grab. We use Clover for steel, and Timesaver for bronze. Had no clue barrels needed to be lapped, but that does make sense.
I'm kind of interesting to hear your opinion on why Diesel replaced steam, because I've only ever really heard the British opinion of it. The Beaching report said we have to. But in short, it's cleaner, and more economical. By the end of steam, most of the parts of steam locomotives in the UK were already at a point where you could just take spare parts of a shelf and fit them. Engines had specifically been redesigned so that multiple different models used interchangeable parts. In fact, that's a key feature of the new P2 2007 Prince of Wales. A lot of the parts are interchangeable with the Tornado, so they only need to stock one spare part for either engine, instead of one for each engine.
So diesel replaced steam because diesel was cheaper to fix and work on (manpower wise). also, that multiple diesels can be controlled with a total of 2 people compared to multiple steam engines that use 2 people per engine. However, a steam engine can still do the work that they were built to do after 80 years or more, but the railroads don't use them because it just too expensive to use and required a lot of manpower. Am I right or not?
There are a lot of ancient diesel locomotives still around too. They’re just much less efficient and capable, and more difficult to continue repairing. But it can be done if you know what you’re doing
All this steam vs diesel debate makes me wonder what would happen if someone made a modern steam locmotive. Like fully designed a new steam loco with modern principals applied to it. Would be interesting to see what happens
I think it would be still inferior because burning solids is harder than burning liquid, and steam locomotives would still need a lot of water (or a giant ass radiator). Everything that is liquid or gaseous would be burned in a ICE, or in a gas turbine. These are more efficient. Even with modern Steam Turbines.
There's a guy and his dad on youtube that do exactly that. Steam makes sense for them as they have a big (presumably farm or orchard) with excess wood.
I wish my dad was alive to watch this. He fired steam, and qualified as engineer, a year or two before the B&O ended steam in 1956. He fired and ran Pacifics and Midados running at 80 mph on the Washington Branch. I bet Hyce would love to have that experience once or twice. All the old steam heads I used to work with say they'd pay decent money to have the steam experience a few times again, but would quit if they had to go back to steam on a daily basis. I have a photo in a B&O history showing the Mt. Clare shop crew that built a 4-8-2 locomotive. There must have been a thousand men and a few women standing for that photo. They probably used the fire-box and boiler from a 2-10-2 "Santa Fe" type. I used to work for the Big Nothing in Denver, mostly at 38th Street. Spent some time at Rice Yard as well. My first job as a clerk was at the storehouse using fork-lifts to load and unload things like traction motors in box-cars. B&O 1970-1974 BN 1974-1981 Reaganomics hit and railroading was no longer fun.
It’s a labor of love though!! I worked on H-53’s in the Marines and I believe at one point we were at nearly 40 maintenance hours to 1 flight hour, but seeing the big girl take off was such a reward so I imagine when 20 is running again it will be a great feeling
In 1991, a Navy A-7 pilot told me that if the costs of getting a B-52 ready were linked in real time to Donald Trumps’s bank account, he would be broke by the time the wheels lifted off the runway.
Thats one thing I think no one gives credit to the industrial revolution for. Before the revolution, labor was cheap and technology was expensive, after, Technology is cheap and labor is expensive.
One of the main reasons why diesel replaced steam is quoted time and time again as "maintenance costs", and after seeing this video, I can see why! Even though later on many steam locomotives had standardized parts, they still had the "multiple uses" ideal, while the diesels almost right off the bat had the "throwaway parts" ideal. Very interesting. Loved this video, Hyce. Cheers!
Maybe not “throwaway parts”, but “replaceable parts” definitely. There are many parts on diesels that must be replaced when worn, but there are many others that can be refurbished
So taking environmental factors & carbon footprint including the production & delivery of fuel into account. If steam powered locomotives were to be drawn up from scratch vs diesel & electric! What’s got the most going for it when it comes to cleanest , dependable & lifetime cost effectiveness???? & supporting infrastructure ?
@@concernedaussie1330 Electric by far has the fewest moving parts, so on a per-loco basis, that. Plus power for them can be generated in completely clean ways - geothermal, solar, hydro, nuclear, etc.
@@davidfuller581 those forms of electric would require large expensive infrastructure to supply the power from fixed locations would it not ? Surely a steam powered turbine/generator on board to power electric motors would require far less foundational/infrastructure ??? No copper wires & on going maintenance to supply. Potentially even provide moblie power supply incase of natural disasters??? Or major power outages ??? Run on bio fuels or solid fuels ie wood or other compressed waste & even coal as a emergency back up. I'm thinking vast distance infrastructure , over flood , fire , seismic or mountainous terrain could complicate things. The same technologies could be used on current railroads with no change needed . Upgrading the whole rail network with little compilations . Only water & fuel that's grown or sourced locally. Just my thoughts. Kiss: keep it simple stupid 😁. Btw pre heated hot water could be used , with pre heating could be done by tapping heat sinks from the hot bitumen roads . That's a totally wasted solar heat generating panel system that's already present & abundant.
Something I'd love to see would be an honest attempt at a steam locomotive with all the advances that have been made possible in last hundred years and with the appropriate concessions to maintenance cycles to make them competitive with diesel locomotives in that regard, such as the use of regular parts wherever possible to facilitate "shotgun" maintenance by technicians; the individual parts could (I think _should_ in fact) retain their ability to be remanufactured because this allows application to scale easily, the smallest operators could do maintenance as you do, bringing the unit down while the individual part is reconditioned or swap it out at a supplier like you do with a car alternator and get the unit back up shortly. Larger operations could have spares ready to go easily and could shop out the rebuilding of worn components, while the largest concerns would have their own part-rebuilding facilities either on-site or off as appropriate to their situation. Ideally three designs would be made, the first holding closely to "classic" steam locomotive appearance and function; direct-drive from pistons, steam-dome, boiler shape, etc. The second would only be held to the basic appearance of a long boiler and connecting rods on the drivers, mainly to allow for the use of a turbine as this is probably a critical concession to economy. Electro-motive drive could even be used to keep the turbine running at favorable speeds. The third design would make no concessions to appearance at all and would probably end up looking like an M-1 or an ACE-3000 but it would potentially be the most economical. The ultimate question would be, does this exercise result in something competitive or would the initial outlay of cost be too great due to the inclusion of exotic materials needed to ensure safe operation for long periods?
Working in a shop trying to keep three steam engines operating is kinda funny because now when we have to do a 92 day on one of the diesels it’s almost a welcome relief. I think we’ve had to make 3 custom part for a diesel in three months and it was just a bracket and some stack covers
My instant thought when I saw the notification for this video. 0:00 "This is gonna make me really mad." 11:00 "Well, I learn more history, and facts that I never knew about."
I think something that is somewhat overlooked is the rise of efficient and compact traction motors. If you had a steam train today, it would be an oil-burning turbo-electric - like UP briefly had. Which could arguably be less complex than a diesel engine (though lacking in other areas). A lot of the complexity of classic steam trains is really to do with the transmission. Getting the power from the pistons to the wheels and being able to throttle the power and reverse it and so on - something that traction motors completely solve.
Even with the reasoning laid out its still hard to watch that clip of 3985 hauling 143 freight cars, doing with 4 pistons what would take 48 pistons today and not think "why TF did we ever replace steam?"
If steam had stayed around into the modern day, keeping multi use equipment, it would make sense for the railroads to have extra parts to swap, then have a crew just to repair those parts, and take less time in the shop
Some railroads did just that. With large classes they could easily swap wheels, boilers, motion rods, and all sorts of parts with ready refurbished spares, and then refurbish those parts ready for the next one
True it would not bes as bad as it is now, but there are still much more individual parts on Steam vs Diesel. Lots of components are interchangeable between cylinders or cylinder heads, the traction motors usually are, the turbos as well.
Fuel economy and labor were also part of the reason. Diesels are much more efficient than steam. They also save on labor because they don’t need a fireman. And they need less maintenance because they don’t have connecting rods, so the wheels can be much better balanced, reducing the wear and tear on the bearings, and there’s also fewer parts that need lubrication.
I get why diesels took over the steam locomotives services but I love the steam locomotives whistle, stack talk, chugging chuffing sounds, it takes longer to get steamers to have full pressure of steam
Honestly if i could choose between driving a steam train vs a modern electric/desiel train. I'd pick the steam train any day of the week I bet it is 1000X more satisfying to finally get a steam train rolling vs just easily making a modern day train run I bet powering up a train and getting it to roll must feel so amazing, like your motivating this huge beautiful beast to press on In short, steam trains have far more personality and life in them. I completely understand why steam trains aren't the norm anymore, but honestly I'd rather pick personality more than regular efficiency Which is why I'm glad heritage railways exist
During the change it was said that with steam five hours were required to find the problem and five minutes to fix it. With diseasels it took five minutes to find and dive hours to fix it. Or. Ice versa
Its also the on going maintenance as you go. My father remembers the days when there was a man at the train station with a big oiler that had to lube all the joints for the rods. It had to be done every 100km or so
Great video! I've lapped a few valves into my van's engine head but this is something else 😂 Curious to know, how did you discover the turret shut off leaked? Is that part of the annual inspection? I assume usually it's wide open to feed the appliances, or does it ever get shut off as part of normal operation? Or maybe there is a routine check of its function for safety?
To make thread cutting easier, flip over the tool and run the process backwards. You will still get correct left/right-hand threads, but because tool is auto-feeding away from the chuck you don't have to worry about smashing it into the part.
We may see the steam-a-fication of farm equipment again if Mackwell locomotive gets his in production I already told him that if the tractors hit the market and I get my carrage shop and horse drawn farm implement shop up and running I'd like to be a dealer for the modern steam tractors to the Mennonites,huderites&Amish my friends continue to this day to use steam tractors to fill Amish silos at their farms running off waste materials
I am so excited to see what Mackwell comes up with! They're making operation and boiler things way more convenient, though the engine will still be a steam engine... I am interested to see how they come up with a solution that helps keep maintenance down. :)
The US was much richer than Europe during the period (still is, but less). This gave more money to upgrade and meant upgrading would save more money, since labor costs (wages) were higher. So the US was ahead in R&D in the 1930s. Then there's WW2, where the diesel-only companies (GE and GM-EMD) were allowed to keep making diesel locomotives. Everyone else stopped making them for the duration, just not the source of most of the world's oil at the time. The US also built a lot more ships with locomotive derived diesel-electric powerplants. So when the war ended and Europe's railways were worn out or bombed, they couldn't afford to switch. But US railroads could, and the locomotives were already rolling off the assembly lines.
@@morat242yeah it was a money thing. but we in europe basically killed the steam engine with electric. diesel wasnt a huge deal unless we are talking branch lines.
WWII Absolutely ramrodded interchangeable parts into the world for good. The liaison from Rolls Royce to Merlin commented something about how the workbenches at Packard didn't have vices because if you needed to modify the part then the part wasn't to spec. Diesel - electric had much lower maintenance hours because of the ability to just replace parts with like parts. And that was on top of the fact that Diesels had 1 consumable to supply. Fuel. Where a steam engine had fuel, water, and steam oil. Diesel-electrics could also be fired up quicker and were much safer to leave idling. The switchover was inevitable.
...and thats why SLM machines have all screwed valve seats: unsrew them, take a pass on the sealing surface on the lathe on both the seat and valve, then lap it for 5min with fine lapping compound. worst valve about half a day of work, including polishing all parts before putting them back together
The work that folks like Porta and others did later on after the death of steam in America confirms this. I'd love to see what true modern steam would look like.
@@Hyce777 I’d imagine some electric examples, like that one train of thought video. I just thought about the look of modern company steam engines like Amtrak and BNSF lol.
That was why I paused and said there's probably diesels that need that work, haha. The stuff the big RR runs today doesn't need any of that but I'm not surprised that the work exists
So here's a question - with modern tech, is there anything thats _easier_ to do in maintaining steam than back in the day? I'd imagine primarily better machining equipment.
Not really, actually; the machine tools haven't really gotten better, save for CNC being a thing. CNC is great, especially for batch work - but really not useful for steam, because each part has to end up being so custom. I could see a space where a railroad like the D&S, which runs several of the same class, could get benefit of CNC making the rough part and then a machinist finishing the custom diameter and etc. manually, but it's really not that much of a savings.
Porta water treatment reduces the rate of corrosion quite a fair bit, and if you're making a boiler from scratch, GPCS stops the coal particulates from scratching up your metal, but that's not that helpful for pre-existing locomotives.
@Hyce777 With modern carbide tooling you can make a part faster than back in the day when they mostly used HSS or even carbon steel tools. That only saves actual machining time though, all the measuring, fitting and fettling is the same... and in my experience takes longer than the actual machining.
The main thing that has changed between now and then is actually quality and consistency of material - the steel we can make today is much stronger and more resistant to fatigue due to holding fewer unwanted inclusions, and more wanted inclusions, and being better homogenized to distribute the inclusions more evenly. So, realistically, making strong steel parts for locos now would be easier than it was back then, though it probably wouldn't make that much difference overall.
Only 50 seconds in, I'll watch the video but I know the answer: operating costs. Diesels are way lower maintenance and can be brought online and offline much faster. Sure in some situations you might need multiple diesel locos to replace one steam loco but adding an extra diesel loco to a train is much less of a big deal than a double header steam train. No Ash, no water just fuel a few crew and go. The first diesels had at best marginally better fuel efficiency than steam and in some cases slightly worse but they were still cheaper to run. As time passed they became extremely efficient and cheap to run. In outback Australia you have Iron ore trains that are completely crewless and most freight trains need only a couple of crew, even for multi engine trains.
What killed steam locomotives had nothing to due with maintenance. It was having to stop very frequently to take on water to make the steam. Time is money. The railroads even experimented with scoops and water canals between the tracks to take on water while on the move but it didn't work out.
seems a lot like Aircraft that have have annuals and then every so many years even deeper inspections. And yeah for every flight hour you have 2 to 3 hours in the maintenance hanger
i wonder if Mackwell Locomotive Company will be the same as old steam, or if components will be easily replaced. you probably don't know who i'm talking about, Mackwell are making new designed woodburning steam generators, steam tractors, and even plans for actual steam locomotives for industries that produce their own fuel.
Even today it takes 3 to 4 modern diesels to pull the equivalent of what one large late era steam locomotive can pull. It was and continues to be the maintenance. That is the reason for steam’s downfall. Every single time a “modern steam locomotive” study has come up in the diesel age, the conclusion is always the same. That the maintenance needs of the steam engine are not going to outweigh any potential fuel savings from switching off of now very expensive diesel.
I know how much more cost effective it is in the long run to flat out replace parts but I do enjoy things that aren’t made for planned obsolescence, it just seems incredibly wasteful in recent years. I work on my weed whackers and mowers and I went to buy a new gear box for one that’s 10-12 years old, they told me it would be cheaper for me to just buy a new one of the exact same model than to order the 1 part I needed, which would mean if the new one did the same thing down the road with nothing else wearing out, I would have wasted an entire weed whacker. I wish things would go back to being more affordable to work on something than to just replace it and trash it.
I feel like if someone was to design a NEW steam locomotive, from the ground up, using modern machining techniques and common parts, as there are tons of steam use parts made and used today with a lot of industrial applications, and made it nuclear powered rather than fossil fuel it would quickly become the locomotive of choice across the continent. And when i say nuclear, i dont mean like nuclear power, but like a large Radio Thermal Generator, dont need to have as much of a risk during a crash.
Remember these are 100 year old machines, made of iron and bronze, with 1900s technology. Cars were a lot of work back then too, but at least they had a chance to be developed further with the help of modern precision engineering and materials (For example the antique Ford model-T vs the modern Honda Accord). I agree with the other commenter, if steam engines never went away, if they were redeveloped with high-durability materials, standard interchangeable parts, computer controlled firing, etc, I bet they’d be amazing.
The hospital I used to work at had Three O type boilers which supplied hot water for heating and hot water for everything else. Each one of them would be down for one month for maintenance every year. I still hate the thought of having had to crawl into the fireboxes of those damn things to patch the masonry, and inspect the pipes.
Helo i thinck that the reason for steam having such high maintenance time is becuse of the time the steam train was made from what i understand from this video in that time making new parts were a beter choice econimicle than buying a whole new standersize module my thoery is that if steam trains were made today with todays metaling technology and economy the maintenance would be much esier becuse isntead of fixing the broken valve they would just buy a whole new turet
I disagree. I have lapped valves on a ship many a times. It takes me on average an hour to grind in a new seat. The diesels also have the same problems as steam, you still have to lap in valves and cylinders. I will agree that diesels are easier to take care of though.
Steam was practical when fuel and labor were cheap, and you had no other options. As cool and charming as they are in operation, they still cost a fortune in maintenance and the work isn’t really any easier now than it was then. You may have access to better tooling and equipment to make the job easier, but the important stuff still requires a degree of skill and experience which takes a lot of time and initiative to develop. On top of that, those same individuals slave over menial tasks for days or weeks just to get the thing out the door. Is it worth it? Hard to put a price on experiencing history, until you ask your org’s treasurer….
But if you are working on old diesels it is closer to the same. No off the shelf parts. Lots of machining of new. Service intervals are longer but the components take a lot of precision parts. The machines capable of turning out those parts are big and expensive. It's a trade off. As you said, people were cheap, materials expensive.
I have to agree with ya on the design principle changing over the years. Nothing is designed to last like it used to. Great for less down time but I feel like a lot of this modern equipment will be lost to time just because after it’s obsolete it will become impossible to repair.
i remember when i was very young hearing a locomotive in middle of the night. I saw one in action in Chicago. All of a sudden! Diesels took over. Shame that don't use steam anymore.
Really cool insight. Usually people point to water stops and efficiency, but the difference in maintenance on its own is reason enough to switch. Still never matches the cool factor that steam has though!
this does help underscore why some railroads every very big on standardizing parts IO suspect had steam not going awya we would see standar sizes for things like cylinders used by many railroads perhaps they would ahve moved to the so called "steam motors" that were more self contained steam engine that would drive the main wheels via jackshaft or even turbine hydropic eclectic locos
Mark, I always look so forward to your tutorials. This episode helps me continue to appreciate the massive amount of work it takes to care for these steam locos. You did such a beautiful job on machining the new seat and parts! All this reminds me of antique home plumbing fixtures and their similar maintenance requirements. Though maintenance intensive, I really like the mentality of repair over replacing. Custom on the choo choo for sure, but oh such superb quality. I loved seeing 20’s bronze stem assembly, so ultra fab! I can understand why railroads went diesel. Like you so aptly mentioned Mark, planned obsolescence. Regardless, so wonderful to see all this hand work still being done in a preservation context. Oh I so enjoyed seeing this (and the magnificent shop at the CRRM); wish I was there to help and learn from such experts! Thank you Professor for another wonderful class. Double cheers to you!
@@Hyce777The last UK steam locomotive passenger journey was the 17:00 evening service to Carrickfergus on the 30th of March 1970 hauled by WT class number four (preserved) and only withdrawn in July 1971 after working the M1 motorway spoil trains and as a station pilot.
Maintenance certainly, though some of the research since the 70s threatens to bring maintenance time down some 80%, and emissions of the more harmful gases per unit of fuel burned are significantly lower, so for a new railway with a CEO that actually cares about the environment, I could see a steam-electric combo fleet being useful, mainly electric with steam for lines that haven't been electrified yet and publicity specials.
The most efficiënt stean locomotive (that completely modernized German thing) achieved an efficiency of 11 or 12%. No way anything is gonna be more polluting than that. Diesels are much cleaner these days than the 1960s two stroke stuff too. Electric is best of course, especially on wind/nuclear/solar energy.
@@mfbfreak Glad you asked. First, 52 8055 wasn't even the theoretical best when it was new in 1998, it was a conversion and didn't get the chance to have every little piece designed from scratch. For instance, it doesn't use Lempor or Lemprex ejectors (I think is uses either Kylchap or Kylpor). Estimates put the best theoretical thermal efficiency of steam at about 18% with what technologies we currently have. As fot the comparison, these numbers come from Roger Waller's work around 1998 comparing a diesel and a steam locomotive, both built in 1992, operating on a Swiss rack railway likely without many modern steam features in the latter case. In terms of g/kWh of nitrous oxides, the diesel locomotive emitted 18g, while the steam locomotive put out 2.5; the numbers for carbon monoxide (0.8/0.4) and sulphur dioxide (0.6/1.8) are less impressive but still total far less than the diesel locomotive. This is also only speaking of trains with only one locomotive; for heavy duty Class II freight operations, you'd be comparing two or three diesels for a single steam locomotive (see Challenger pulling a 143-car pig train) and maybe an electric yard pilot to help it push off. There's also the potential of torrefied biomass, which burns cleaner than ground coal in tests conducted, and while it's also true that R80-B20 diesel fuel burns very clean too, it's also true that it's really not made in enough quantities to fuel long-distance locomotives on, at least not yet. But yes, electric is best. I'm not really sure there exist many routes where electrification is a no-go, honestly, but there are situations, and power outages do happen.
Theres a railway here Wont mention name (i wasn't there to see it happen but i heard stories) Now on the steam chest theres the inspection plugs This engine Aparrtly doesn't have a hidrostatic nor mechanical lubricantor So they would take off the inspection plugs Pump oil and put the plugs back on But thr threads where a bit warn So when they where running Aparrtly that plug shot off Eish moment
I think that, more than just the maintenance, the time it takes to cool down and re-heat the steam locomotive probably played a big part as well whereas with a diesel, it's a 'turn-key' restart. It's like my own industry (steelmaking) - there's been a massive switch from the big integrated plants with blast furnaces at their core, to the 'mini-mill' with the electric furnace because once the blast furnace was 'blown in' (started), it had to run 24/7 for the next fifteen to twenty years. And if there was a major breakdown downstream of the blast furnace, the BF couldn't be shut off - it had to keep making metal and if the steelmaking and caster plants couldn't take the metal, it was just dumped on the ground. Whereas modern electric furnaces can have their hearths full of frozen solid steel and, with some time and effort, remelt the steel without too much damage to the refractory linings - and that's just the worst-situation outcome; in normal operations, the electric furnace can be shut off, drained of metal and left to cool down if not required, and then easily charged up and restarted when the orders came in again. This is despite the fact that an integrated steel mill is a very efficient plant when running properly.
I watch some videos of people who restore old diesel earth moving equipment, and despite these machines being 60 years plus, most often it's still a case of ordering replacements, which arrive still in their original box from that time, which blows my mind. I imagine diesel loco engines are the same.
My dad was a marine steam engineer. I picked up a lot from him. I own, run, and work on marine diesels. What most people don't realize about the steam era, it was a lot of maintenance, more work and discomfort for the crew. Diesels made life easier. Steam engines need consistent maintenance. But a diesel will go decades with oil changes and occasional maintenance. I grew up in the 1950s, in a town with a major locomotive maintenance and rebuild facility. When steam was phased out, hundreds of local jobs went away over the transition. Diesels didn't need that kind of maintenance. And no more double or triple headers. You just connect diesels together and run several engines with one crew. But I do miss steam engines. As a kid, I remember the steam whistles on summer nights when the windows were open. Signaling each crossing, to and from town. Each engineer had their own sound. You may not know the engineer, but you knew his whistle. Like most boys, I wanted to be an engineer... until diesels came.
I mean you make a great argument for the steam locomotive over the diesal...I mean as a old man and diesels have moved on to electric and or hydrogen so you can't just replace units as no one makes then any more like an car after 20 years would you rather do... Remake Steam parts by hand or remake Diesel parts by hand? Like it's the difference between a Ford Model A and a Ford Fusion one will have parts in 20 years the other won't. Not only because one has an after market were you can just make a new Model a if you wanted to. But all the parts are easy to hand make and fit in not much time. But yes diesels are better because gas is light and energy dense so that is why no one makes a steam locomotive with modern replaceable units.
It all amounts to economics. The same reason why airlines switched to jet engines vs piston-driven engines. Just like diesel engines the maintenance interval of jet engines is much longer than on piston engines. So, you're vehicles spend more time on the rails or the air making money.
Hyce I got a good question for you after watching this video, do you think there might be a day when steam locomotives will replace diesel electrics? And if so how do you think it could be done.
@@andrewreynolds4949 long answer - the most likely thing to replace diesel electrics would be fully electrified trains. This has already happened in some places in Europe. The longer distances in North America make it impractical with current tech in remote regions, but I fully expect some of the higher traffic corridors - especially in areas with pollution concerns - will get electrified freight lines.
@@ReggieArford And for good reasons, it never amounted to more than speculation. As much as I like steam, it's not coming back to the commercial market in any noticeable way
But if steam locomotives made it long enough, they would have mass manufactured replaceable parts too. Just look at modern coal electricity plants, almost everything can be replaced.
Up here in Minnesota, I got to tour a steam shop and for real, the amount of labor required to run a steam engine is insane. They are incredibly complex pieces of equipment to run.
Could part of this differential in steam vs diesel also be related to the improvement in material quality (metallurgical advancements), in both the parts, and the tooling to make the parts?
Yes he's comparing a technology (steam locomotives) which was dead by the`1960's verse a more modern (diesel/electric) which has continued to evolve. Water really killed steam locomotives is that they had to make frequent stops to take on water to make the steam. Time is money.
Because steam trains, though lovely to look at, are a HUGE pain in the butt to drive, requiring a lot of planning to deal with hills, etc. Diesels? Push go.
I would think the same can be said about piston engined airliners being succeeded by jets. Much like diesel locomotives, jetliners didn’t need quite as much downtime for maintenance as their piston-powered predecessors as their engines didn’t to be overhauled as often as piston engines. Today’s jet engines can have a TBOH (Time Before OverHaul) in excess of 20,000 running hours, whereas the big piston engines typically had a TBOH of less than 1000 hours. There’s also the fact that jetliners cut travel times in half over prop-liners, and the jet fuel they used is also cheaper than aviation gasoline, or avgas.
In shorts: 1. Steam engines are more costly than diesels 2. Diesels are cleaner and easier to maintain 3. You need a specific steam engine for specific jobs 4. Diesels can pull any train and you can get mass quantities of them in any paint scheme 5. You need an entire crew for if operating more than one steam locomotive 6. Diesels can link up and operate as one unit 7. Steam locomotives can cause a hazard if steaming through a tunnel 8. Diesels only do the previous one if on fire 9. Diesels are more fuel efficient than steam locomotives since they use one fuel 10. Diesels have more torque when starting up but can't go faster once maximum speed unlike steam engines 11. No boiler explosions 12. Less time in the shops 13. Less chance of bouncing about unlike steam locomotives with their side rods 14. Shielded from weather. Yes some steam engines have enclosed cabs but not all of them unlike diesels 15. More advanced technology can be placed in. Toilets included in the cab or nose of the diesel 16. Quieter than the chuff chuff clank clank of steam locomotives 17. Diesels can operate forwards or backwards and nothing changes 18. Diesels have less chance of pounding the life out of rails 19. Less lubrication is needed everwhere meaning getting to the destination sooner with a diesel 20. Diesels can go anywhere. I think that's a good list
It's absolutely true that a diesels maintenance requirement is a tiny fraction of a steam locomotives. However, another major factor is wear on track infrastructure. In the steam era, a track gang was typically stationed every 10 miles of track. Improvements in crew mobility and the quality of the rail certainly were factors but the replacement of the reciprocating pounding of the steam locomotive with the diesel was, by far, the greatest factor in the disappearance of the track gangs. Also, I'm a fan of the Buffalo, Rochester, & Pittsburgh Ry, later B&O. The Mosgrove bridge over the Allegheny River was a severe operational bottleneck due to weight restrictions. The railroad used 2-6-6-2 extensively and also had 2-8-8-2 for pusher service. However, 2-8-0's in multiple unit freight consists and light Pacifics in passenger service were the norm on the south end of the railroad because of this one bridge. After dieselization, any and all diesels could cross the bridge. The bridge is still in use today by the Buffalo & Pittsburg. This 120 year old bridge, that was too light for for all but the railroads smallest steam locomotives only 20 years after it was built, is in use daily with multiple unit lash-ups of SD40-2's, SD45's, SD40T-2's, SD45-2's SD60M's, and whatever else they may currently have on the roster or are leasing. JM2C :-)
