Good point.........

Two factors have affected the take-up of Diesel locomotives over steam;

- availability of fuel.

- availability of trained staff to maintain the more complex Diesels. and affecting those two factors is the specific nation's ability to provide the foreign funds to purchase the oil and maintainance components.

I know that even a 2005 design steam locomotive couldn't match a modern Diesel, but given (say) an extended World War many countries would have very limited access to oil but ready access to coal and other fuels.

100% spot-on Bruce. I only play with electric locomotives. Itty-bitty ones with 16.5mm gauge or 9mm gauge.

Don't you have the ability to generate vast amounts of hydro-electric power on the South Island? I mean, the place looks like the German Alps to me. Or maybe the Himalayas, take your pick. Big mountains. If you can get electricity without having to burn some kind of fuel, that would seem to be the best of all possible ways to go. It may be more expensive to initially augment, but it won't leech the bottom line forever the way buying fuel will. I would guess that once it is in place it is cheaper to take care of than it is to buy fuel.

CH

Yes.... small electric ones are much more safe to play with. Bruce

Yes much easier to handle as well............was at a live steamer outing once we derailed a MO-PAC 2200 class 4-8-4 in 1 1/2 inch scale.........not fun to put that baby back on the rails! DID you see that add some years back in MR mag? There was an 1 1/2 scale USRA 2-8-2 that could pull 5000 pounds on straight level track. Not bad for a big toy........Hmmmmmmmmm so now how do they scale down a GM 645 series diesel to fit in an 1 1/2 inch scale SD-40?

etc., etc., -

"F> Yes much easier to handle as well............was at a live steamer outing "F> once we derailed a MO-PAC 2200 class 4-8-4 in 1 1/2 inch scale.........not "F> fun to put that baby back on the rails! DID you see that add some years back "F> in MR mag? There was an 1 1/2 scale USRA 2-8-2 that could pull 5000 pounds "F> on straight level track. Not bad for a big toy........Hmmmmmmmmm so now how "F> do they scale down a GM 645 series diesel to fit in an 1 1/2 inch scale "F> SD-40?

They cheat. Because diesels have all of their 'works' inside a shell, you can put any old thing inside. So a 1 1/2 inch scale SD-40 would contain either a Briggs & Stratton gasoline engine (running hydraulic motors) or a big lead-acid battery (running electric motors).

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

|| snipped-for-privacy@deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

In 1965 I built a park railroad in 1/3 scale (478mm gauge) The locomotive was a

1/3 scale GE U25B powered by an International Harvester 4 cylinder diesel engine that drove a torque converter/cardan shaft transmission system. Much the same, I imagine, as the one in the contemporary, ill-fated Krauss-Maffei units. It was a beautiful thing to see, and was large enough for the engine driver to get completely inside and sit in the cab. In a photograph it looked like a U25B with a giant sitting inside. Alas, the thing only lasted a few years, and all traces of it are now gone. I do not know what happened to the locomotive or any of the cars. One day they were simply gone. Maybe someone, somewhere has some photos. USS Alabama BB-60 Memorial Park, Mobile, Alabama. C.1965 - 1969.

The German Alps are a bit whimpy in comparison. The problem that is arrising there comes from the fact that our mountains rise straight out of the sea so the sites suitable for building hydro stations are also sites suitable for other purposes, farming, fruit growing, tourist fishing etc.

We're at the turning point - electricity generation has been privatized and it takes much less capital and it's simpler for a power company to throw up an oil fired power plant that to go tho the extent of building a vast hydro electric scheme. The end result is of course power at twice the cost but right wing politics lead the way at present.

Anything that gets hot costs far more in maintainance than an equivalent that stays cold! Boilers are expensive, maintainance intensive and have relatively short life spans.

Just up the road from me is NZs first major hydro scheme. It's probably like Adam's axe but it's been there for just over 100 years.

Greg.P.

First you say it's a matter of economics: "it takes much less capital and it's simpler for a power company to throw up an oil fired power plant", then you try to cloud the issue by saying that it's right wing politics.

Which is it Greg? Politics or economics?

Simple economics in today's political climate. Power prices will climb rapidly here in the near future because politically correct small companies control our power production rather than the government taking control and planning the bigger hydro plants which would continue to provide cheap electricity.

Regards, Greg.P.

On Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:08:24 UTC, "Geezer" wrote: 2000

Many of these comments go to the availability of a steamer, not necessarily a trip into the shop. Typically a diesel lashup was refueled sanded, etc and was ready to go again. For a coal burner the ashes had to be dumped, the firebox cleaned and the engine turned.

How often was a diesel out of service to have the staybolts checked or the boiler washed out? How often did it have its front end opened to clean out the ashes, etc. so it had a good draft? How often did it have to have its feedwater heater acid washed because of scale? These are maintenance items and not reliability items as such but they sure would be if not attended to. What this means is that a diesel had higher availability than steamers. Availability means money.

Many of the dual engined diesels you mention came from companies whose single engined units were not outstanding and disappeared from the scene. GE remains because the railroads need someone to compete with EMD and some of their stuff is decent. Everybody else is gone, ergo not all diesels were reliable. It is interesting to note just how much the railroads reduced their shop forces after diesels were introduced. It is also interesting to see just how little maintenance they tried to get by with on the diesels. That is one reason that German prime movers have failed in this country. American railroads were unwilling to give them the care and maintenance they needed.

Reliability may be the incorrect term. Steamers did their assignments as well as diesels. They had a higher availability, required smaller shop forces and much smaller servicing facilities. They were a lot cheaper to run.

Well that's not right, if the live steamers use real boilers and cylinders, the live dieselers need to use a scaled down 645 series V-16 for an SD-40!!! Fair is fair, I know there are small diesels for model airplanes.......... Geeez we can't have the RC guys outdo us can we?

"First you say it's a matter of economics: "it takes much less capital and it's simpler for a power company to throw up an oil fired power plant", then you try to cloud the issue by saying that it's right wing politics.

Which is it Greg? Politics or economics?"

Obviously it's both.

It costs less to put oil fueled generation online. But you have a constant fuel cost. With the hydro powered it costs more to get online but once it's running you only have mantainence costs. However, the political climate rewards the fuel based generation even though long term it's more expensive to gernrate power. Duh Brian.

Eric

Generally true, but perhaps overstated. Lots of things can go wrong with the Diesel that will disable the set, at least temporarily. Likewise, lots of non-fatal things can go wrong with a steamer. With a little luck, they can even run with one cylinder or rod set out of service (with correspondingly reduced performance). Still, they were certainly LESS reliable than Diesels.

And Diesels could hardly totally and spectacularly self destructed as could a steamer. That was rare, especially in later and better regulated days, but it did occasionally happen to even the best of steamers. It still happens today, rarely, when stupid things are done. Steamers are NOT very forgiving of 'operator error'.

Dan Mitchell ============

Glad to hear it! Me too! ... as a VOLUNTEER. I can do it when I WANT to, not because I HAVE to. As a full time job it's less attractive. Still a few choose that life today (thankfully). Some of the volunteers may resent the fact that the 'professionals' often give them the dirty jobs, but those jobs still have to be done, and it's NOT all 'fun'! You have to 'pay your dues' as a volunteer, to EARN the right to have fun!

In the old days, for 90 plus percent of the employees, it was just a JOB. Many professional railroaders (including locomotive crews and shop forces) HATED the steamers, and welcomed the Diesels (ultimately, however, it did cost many their jobs). Steamers were indeed a PITA, from a business standpoint.

Dan Mitchell ============

EXACTLY the point. The contest took place, all over the world, in every operating environment, under both controlled and free-for-all conditions, and the Diesel has WON in every case! Mostly it won quickly, and overwhelmingly, in just a few years. There were some steam hold-outs, for various reasons and time frames, but essentially ALL are now gone ... with the exception of museum, historical, or tourist railroads.

Dan Mitchell ============

And God help you if you didn't have a BIG drop pit!

Dan Mitchell ============

Why not just make a rectangular sheet metal box and put it over two self propelled lawn mowers. It would look just like a diesel locomotive. Bruce