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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Sat. Apr. 11, 2009 11:12 pm

The drives take a pounding and require frequent rebuilds, kind of expensive to maintain.


 
mikeandgerry
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Post by mikeandgerry » Sun. Apr. 12, 2009 3:40 am

coaledsweat wrote:The drives take a pounding and require frequent rebuilds, kind of expensive to maintain.
The original author, wsherrick, said the opposite:
They also cost less to run and maintain and produced more productivity per train mile than the diesels they were compared against.
I think you two had better hash it out.
Last edited by mikeandgerry on Sun. Apr. 12, 2009 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

 
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Post by mikeandgerry » Sun. Apr. 12, 2009 3:40 am

]

 
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spc
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Post by spc » Mon. Apr. 27, 2009 3:07 pm


 
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mr1precision
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Post by mr1precision » Mon. Apr. 27, 2009 8:03 pm

WOW! Hope he wears a cup. :shock:

 
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AdkCoal
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Post by AdkCoal » Mon. Apr. 27, 2009 9:40 pm

Still working on my release but it is better than this one.

http://www.maniacworld.com/worst-bowling-ball-rel ... -ever.html

 
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New Hope Engineer
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Post by New Hope Engineer » Tue. Apr. 28, 2009 5:50 am

mikeandgerry wrote:
coaledsweat wrote:The drives take a pounding and require frequent rebuilds, kind of expensive to maintain.
The original author, wsherrick, said the opposite:
They also cost less to run and maintain and produced more productivity per train mile than the diesels they were compared against.
I think you two had better hash it out.
Steam locomotives are more labor intensive then the diesels,thats just one of the reasons they faded into our history books. :(


 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Tue. Apr. 28, 2009 8:56 am

mikeandgerry wrote:
coaledsweat wrote:The drives take a pounding and require frequent rebuilds, kind of expensive to maintain.
The original author, wsherrick, said the opposite:
They also cost less to run and maintain and produced more productivity per train mile than the diesels they were compared against.
I think you two had better hash it out.
Maybe the author doesn't know there is difference between operating expenses (cost of operating) and maintenance expenses (cost of maintaining). Steam Locomotives require continuous maintenance and still beat themselves to death in short order requiring rebuilds that take them out of service. They don't make money when they are out of service. If they were cheaper to run, why did they disappear in a decade when the diesel electric was perfected?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive
Diesel locomotives require considerably less maintenance than steam, with a corresponding reduction in the number of personnel needed to keep the fleet in service. The best steam locomotives spent an average of three to five days per month in the shop for routine maintenance and running repairs.[citation needed] Heavy overhauls were frequent, often involving removal of the boiler from the frame for major repairs. In contrast, a typical diesel locomotive requires no more than eight to ten hours of maintenance per month.[citation needed] and may run for many years between heavy overhauls.

 
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Post by Richard S. » Tue. Apr. 28, 2009 10:47 am

Some of my favorite feture the swiss army knife of airplanes in the starring role:

C130 landing AND taking off from the USS Forrestall:


http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/c130_forrestal.asp
The initial sea-born landings on 30 October 1963 were made into a 40-knot wind. Altogether, the crew successfully negotiated 29 touch-and-go landings, 21 unarrested full-stop landings, and 21 unassisted takeoffs at gross weights of 85,000 pounds up to 121,000 pounds. At 85,000 pounds, the KC-130F came to a complete stop within 267 feet, about twice the aircraft's wing span! The Navy was delighted to discover that even with a maximum payload, the plane used only 745 feet for takeoff and 460 feet for landing roll.
"Credible Sport" Tests, including a crash.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Credible_Sport
The Credible Sport concept called for modified C-130 Hercules cargo planes to land in the Amjadien (soccer) Stadium across the street from the American Embassy in Tehran and airlift out the rescued hostages. The aircraft would then be flown to and landed on an aircraft carrier for immediate medical treatment of injured hostages. Three MC-130 Combat Talon crews (all Eagle Claw veterans) were assigned to fly the three aircraft drawn from the 463rd Military Airlift Wing, with the concept plan calling for the mission to originate in the United States, reaching Iran by five in flight refuelings.
Now could you imagine being some Iranian sitting in the Soccer stadium and here comes this plane... :lol:

Edit: about midway through second video there is dead stop take-off. Looks like they go about 100 feet at the most.

 
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Post by 009to090 » Tue. Apr. 28, 2009 11:51 am

Richard S. wrote:Some of my favorite feture the swiss army knife of airplanes in the starring role:
C130 landing AND taking off from the USS Forrestall:
The C-130 and its many variations , was and still is an extremely versitile aircraft. I always liked the fact that the pitch on the props could be changed , in FLIGHT and in landing, to act as air brakes, slowing the plane down dramatically, similiar to today's aircraft's Thrust-Reversers (TRs). On the ground while taxiing, this feature allowed you to back the plane up. The Jato did not work too well for this. :shock:

 
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Post by mikeandgerry » Wed. Apr. 29, 2009 3:08 pm

coaledsweat wrote: If they were cheaper to run, why did they disappear in a decade when the diesel electric was perfected?
So why are we burning coal, again?
:?

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Wed. Apr. 29, 2009 10:44 pm

mikeandgerry wrote:
coaledsweat wrote: If they were cheaper to run, why did they disappear in a decade when the diesel electric was perfected?
So why are we burning coal, again?
:?
Coal is still cheaper to run a locomotive than diesel. The problem is the power of steam beats the mechanical parts to a pulp in short order and it needs to be rebuilt frequently. This costs a lot more than a bunch hopper cars full of coal. The diesel/electrics are much longer lived than the steam and it offsets the fuel cost significantly, they are cheaper to own and operate. They don't have the brute power however.

 
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Post by spc » Thu. Apr. 30, 2009 9:25 pm


 
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Post by wsherrick » Thu. Apr. 30, 2009 10:09 pm

coaledsweat wrote:
mikeandgerry wrote: The original author, wsherrick, said the opposite:
I think you two had better hash it out.
Maybe the author doesn't know there is difference between operating expenses (cost of operating) and maintenance expenses (cost of maintaining). Steam Locomotives require continuous maintenance and still beat themselves to death in short order requiring rebuilds that take them out of service. They don't make money when they are out of service. If they were cheaper to run, why did they disappear in a decade when the diesel electric was perfected?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotive
Diesel locomotives require considerably less maintenance than steam, with a corresponding reduction in the number of personnel needed to keep the fleet in service. The best steam locomotives spent an average of three to five days per month in the shop for routine maintenance and running repairs.[citation needed] Heavy overhauls were frequent, often involving removal of the boiler from the frame for major repairs. In contrast, a typical diesel locomotive requires no more than eight to ten hours of maintenance per month.[citation needed] and may run for many years between heavy overhauls.
The author is quite experienced with both diesel and steam locomotives. At the risk of starting a heated debate which has raged for 60 plus years. These are the facts,(with all due respect)and I can back them up. What the other posters have stated here is what has been circulated over and over for decades. In reality, diesels have an economic service life of about 15 years, whereas a steam locomotive has a service life of about 40 years. Steam engines do not cost more to maintain than diesels, this was proven by the only TWO independent studies of the matter ever done. The only form of service where a diesel has a cost advantage is in slow speed switching service. In long distance or high speed service, steam wins every time. The maintenance curve on a diesel rises at an exponential rate after it is about 5 years old or so, a steam locomotive is also (like any machine) more expensive to maintain as it ages, however; after about 5 to 7 years its maintenance cost curve flattens out. The true measure of any cost efficiency is the bottom line. In 1944 when most railroads were still all steam the rate of return on investment was about 4%. In 1960 that had fallen to about 1.5 to 2%. It is also a fact that the railroads who dieselized first also had their rates of return fall first. The actual statistics don't support any of the commonly stated claims that diesels saved on labor costs, repair costs or operating costs. In fact, many railroads borrowed themselves into bankruptcy buying diesels on credit that wore out and had to be replaced with new diesels way before the first batch of diesels had been paid off. The financing and interest that had to be paid on the diesels was an unsupportable cost that was added to the normal costs of operation. Dieselization was a huge blunder. The railroads that wanted to retain steam (like the Norfolk and Western) couldn't in the long run because after the the majority of railroads dieselized the support industry for steam disappeared and replacement parts were no longer available. The N&W built their own locomotives, one of the few railroads that did so and by the mid 1950's couldn't do that any more. The N&W had to borrow 86 MILLION dollars to dieselize and had to pay interest of 7 Million plus per year in interest on that debt. The advertised cost savings of the diesel obviously didn't cover that huge cost. The best study to read is H.F. Brown's, "Economic Results of Diesel Electric Power on the Railroads of the United States. This report was prepared in 1960 because the Internal Revenue Service was reacting to the fact that all of the sudden the Railroad Industry needed to be able to write off depreciation on diesels after about 12 to 15 years rather than the 30 to 40 years formally allowed for steam power. This report is about 80 pages long and it lays out all of the real costs of what happened during dieselization. This report was circulated around the World and caused quite a stir when it came out.

 
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Post by mikeandgerry » Fri. May. 01, 2009 12:18 am

VERY informative post. Makes complete sense to me, especially the concern by the IRS triggering an investigation into the depreciable cost changes. The IRS DEFINITELY notices things like that.

Sometimes modernization is done for the sake of modernization. Oil was considered cleaner than coal (less smoke than a bit burning lokey and thus better for passenger trains), there was no steam effluent, and it was more convenient to fuel.

I noticed that the 1950's pamphlet for my Axeman Anderson Anthratube, it claimed a nearly 50% savings over oil even back then. Obviously, they had to use the savings as a selling point. As for its moving parts, yes, there are more on an AA than an oil burner but I don't think it will be more expensive to maintain than an oil boiler in the long run. As for its life, I know it will out last an oil boiler on the same order as the comparison between diesel and steam locomotives.

I know that my AAA is not a fair comparison to a steam locomotive and I see coaledsweat's point about the reciprocating parts. But I do also think that if those reciprocating parts were a huge problem, they could have been redesigned had the market for steam remained intact. Why not steam turbines and rotary drives with differentials?

Coal was, and is still, considered dirty and old fashioned. I think that's one reason for such changes. While the airlines presented sleek and modern looking planes humming along at wild speeds, the passenger train business was still smokey, slow and in the old fashioned steam era. I suspect that marketing motivated their switch also.

But, what goes around, comes around. Obama wants to reinvest in high speed rail. Gee, I wonder what will power it? Certainly not wind nor solar nor gas, If it's electric (third rail)...we all know that's just inefficient coal burning. If it's oil....that's more of the same. How 'bout fusion-electric. Now that would be modern, safe, clean, high tech and efficient. The only drawback with fusion is those pesky little neutrons. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

Thanks for the great posts-- both of you.


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