Steam Never Died: A Timeline of Continued Steam Engine Development

Have the work of Andre Chapelon in France valued and applied universally and have Livio Dante Porta come from Argentina in the late 1940's to work with him, by the mid 1950's French railways are running the most powerful and efficient steam locomotives in the world. Eventually even the Luddites at British Rail pay attention and start to apply some of the modifications and advanced technical innovations to their locomotives. Simply having L.D. Porta's water treatment system taken up and used would have a dramatic effect upon the maintenance costs alone.
The French were pretty damn set of electrification post-war actually so Chapelon needs to go somewhere else. An old TL of mine had Norfolk and Western decide to keep steam upon reading the paper by H. F. Brown that showed diesels of the period were only equal at best to steam in long term maintenance costs and raw pulling power. Some higher ups hear of Chapelon's work so they visit him in France and see exactly what his engines can do and sign him on for the N&W.(imagine a Y-Class rebuilt by him!)


The reason I chose N&W as the spot for surviving steam is because they were the last railroad to give up steam for a reason. A ready cheap supply of coal and they were also an in house builder of the own loco's were the perfect conditions for long term survival. Honestly I really should start that TL up again.
 
The French were pretty damn set of electrification post-war actually so Chapelon needs to go somewhere else. An old TL of mine had Norfolk and Western decide to keep steam upon reading the paper by H. F. Brown that showed diesels of the period were only equal at best to steam in long term maintenance costs and raw pulling power. Some higher ups hear of Chapelon's work so they visit him in France and see exactly what his engines can do and sign him on for the N&W.(imagine a Y-Class rebuilt by him!)


The reason I chose N&W as the spot for surviving steam is because they were the last railroad to give up steam for a reason. A ready cheap supply of coal and they were also an in house builder of the own loco's were the perfect conditions for long term survival. Honestly I really should start that TL up again.

Is that a fact. Well, I was thinking a in the TL this ties into. There would be a change where many railroads would begin to build their own engines. Albeit occasionally with some co-operation from ALCO and Baldwin. Fictional examples include the ATSF shops at Albaqerque, the C&O shops at Huntington, WV, and more.
 
Is that a fact. Well, I was thinking a in the TL this ties into. There would be a change where many railroads would begin to build their own engines. Albeit occasionally with some co-operation from ALCO and Baldwin. Fictional examples include the ATSF shops at Albaqerque, the C&O shops at Huntington, WV, and more.
You're gonna need of PoD sometime in the very early years of American Railroading for in house building to become popular nationwide. Railways like N&W could get away with it because they were smallish regional carriers that didn't have a big roster of loco's. The Roanoke Shops only built 447 loco's in the 71 years they were making them. That's only 25% of the Union Pacific's roster in the year 1915 alone(source here http://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-diesel-roster-loco-chron-01.php) something that isn't possible to economically sustain by in house shops alone. ALCO meanwhile in a little under 70 years made over 75,000 locomotives. The US wasn't Britain where a roster a 500 or so loco's could smoothly run the entire network unless you were a regional carrier like N&W. Unless you make it so no US Company gets bigger then a regional carrier in house building isn't viable beyond a certain point.
 
You're gonna need of PoD sometime in the very early years of American Railroading for in house building to become popular nationwide. Railways like N&W could get away with it because they were smallish regional carriers that didn't have a big roster of loco's. The Roanoke Shops only built 447 loco's in the 71 years they were making them. That's only 25% of the Union Pacific's roster in the year 1915 alone(source here http://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-diesel-roster-loco-chron-01.php) something that isn't possible to economically sustain by in house shops alone. ALCO meanwhile in a little under 70 years made over 75,000 locomotives. The US wasn't Britain where a roster a 500 or so loco's could smoothly run the entire network unless you were a regional carrier like N&W. Unless you make it so no US Company gets bigger then a regional carrier in house building isn't viable beyond a certain point.

OK then. I do suppose that's the case then. In that case, maybe we should stick to just N&W.

What N&W designs did you have in mind?
 
OK then. I do suppose that's the case then. In that case, maybe we should stick to just N&W.

What N&W designs did you have in mind?
I was thinking of him doing a J Class rebuild as a prototype making basically one of the most powerful locomotives in history that wasn't an articulated. Basically I was imagining it'd be like one of the NYC's Niagara's on steroids and then he get's to rebuild a Y-Class as a final test run but I never even got around to thinking of how powerful it'd be beyond just a yes.
 
I was thinking of him doing a J Class rebuild as a prototype making basically one of the most powerful locomotives in history that wasn't an articulated. Basically I was imagining it'd be like one of the NYC's Niagara's on steroids and then he get's to rebuild a Y-Class as a final test run but I never even got around to thinking of how powerful it'd be beyond just a yes.

Everything the Norfolk and Western, high priest and prophets of steam that they are, was sized for a particular use. The J's were fast passenger and express freight locomotives, the A's were the mountain fast passenger, fast freight and on the flatlands really good fast express engines, the Y's were the drag freights, made to run only at about 25 mph but at that speed it could pull anything that was coupled to it over grades and the S class yard loco's were made to be the ideal switch engines. Any of these designs upgraded, or all of them at once, would keep steam alive for quite a while and if it is still working during the early 70's oil crises would be kept in rebuild status to keep them running.
 
Everything the Norfolk and Western, high priest and prophets of steam that they are, was sized for a particular use. The J's were fast passenger and express freight locomotives, the A's were the mountain fast passenger, fast freight and on the flatlands really good fast express engines, the Y's were the drag freights, made to run only at about 25 mph but at that speed it could pull anything that was coupled to it over grades and the S class yard loco's were made to be the ideal switch engines. Any of these designs upgraded, or all of them at once, would keep steam alive for quite a while and if it is still working during the early 70's oil crises would be kept in rebuild status to keep them running.
Yes I know that. The J rebuild would make it so the N&W passenger service stays relatively competitive against the airlines while the Y-rebuild would the most powerful drag freight engine in history with a single loco able potentially being able to pull a 200 car coal drag over the Blue Ridge mountains itself.


British Rail when formed in 1947 inherited around 30,000 locomotives from the four regional railway companies. 500 locos wouldnt keep the present day heritage railway lines going.
Admittedly I was being a bit hyperbolic when I was saying a roster of 500 but 30,000 seems to be really high amount for the size of the British railways. Do you have a source for those numbers?
 
Admittedly I was being a bit hyperbolic when I was saying a roster of 500 but 30,000 seems to be really high amount for the size of the British railways. Do you have a source for those numbers?

Its a figure I read some time ago and I cant find it again, I do know that BR inherited over 8,000 steam locos from the LMS but havent got numbers for the total. BR gave numbers to 30,600 locos but the actual numbers of locos in service was never that high as thousands of old worn out locos were scrapped almost as soon as they became BR stock. Its just a guess of mine I have nothing to go on but I think the 30,000 number probably included steam, diesel and electric multiple units in the total.

At Nationalisation there were over 19,000 route miles of track over 8,000 stations and 1.4 billion annual passenger journeys, freight had taken a big hit from road haulage competition since the end of WWI but still freight made up over 60% of trains.
 
Its a figure I read some time ago and I cant find it again, I do know that BR inherited over 8,000 steam locos from the LMS but havent got numbers for the total. BR gave numbers to 30,600 locos but the actual numbers of locos in service was never that high as thousands of old worn out locos were scrapped almost as soon as they became BR stock. Its just a guess of mine I have nothing to go on but I think the 30,000 number probably included steam, diesel and electric multiple units in the total.

At Nationalisation there were over 19,000 route miles of track over 8,000 stations and 1.4 billion annual passenger journeys, freight had taken a big hit from road haulage competition since the end of WWI but still freight made up over 60% of trains.
Jesus that's an absurdly high number of locos. No way should LMS had that damn many of them and still stay solvent. Those numbers can't be right.
 
Jesus that's an absurdly high number of locos. No way should LMS had that damn many of them and still stay solvent. Those numbers can't be right.

http://www.brdatabase.info/
http://www.railuk.info/steam/steam_search.php

Nope the LMS was the largest transport company in the world. it was also the largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire and the United Kingdom's second largest employer, after the Post Office. The LMS also claimed to be the largest joint stock organisation in the world. In 1938, the LMS operated 6,870 miles (11,056 km) of railway (excluding its lines in Northern Ireland), but its profitability was generally disappointing, with a rate of return of only 2.7%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London,_Midland_and_Scottish_Railway

The LMS during the 25 years of its existence issued 12,624 locomotive stock numbers. At the end of 1967 the last full year of Steam on BR rails there were still 356 ex LMS locos (some were ordered by the LMS but built by BR) in use mostly operating Coal trains in the Lancashire Coalfield and mixed freight on branch lines.
 
Yes I know that. The J rebuild would make it so the N&W passenger service stays relatively competitive against the airlines while the Y-rebuild would the most powerful drag freight engine in history with a single loco able potentially being able to pull a 200 car coal drag over the Blue Ridge mountains itself.

There are a lot of people who do not know about the Norfolk and Western Steam engines. They only read the hype about the Big Boy, Niagara"s, Daylights and such.
 
http://www.brdatabase.info/
http://www.railuk.info/steam/steam_search.php

Nope the LMS was the largest transport company in the world. it was also the largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire and the United Kingdom's second largest employer, after the Post Office. The LMS also claimed to be the largest joint stock organisation in the world. In 1938, the LMS operated 6,870 miles (11,056 km) of railway (excluding its lines in Northern Ireland), but its profitability was generally disappointing, with a rate of return of only 2.7%.

The Rock Island operated 7183 miles of road on 10669 miles of track in 1970
Here's their diesel roster
http://www.thedieselshop.us/CRIP.HTML

That's the kind of engine density US railfans are acquainted with
 
The Rock Island operated 7183 miles of road on 10669 miles of track in 1970
Here's their diesel roster
http://www.thedieselshop.us/CRIP.HTML

That's the kind of engine density US railfans are acquainted with

British railways were different to US railways. The Locos were small in comparison and the trains were also small but a very intensive service was operated. A t busy junctions that had suburban and inter city passenger traffic plus freight it would not be uncommon for a train to pass every 90 seconds.
 
The N&W Y7 type 2-8-8-2

The Final chapter in the Norfolk and Western's development of articulated steamers, the Y7 2-8-8-2 was rather different from other Y series engines. For one thing, unlike other N&W engines in general, the Y7 was built as a simple engine rather than compound. Complete with feedwater pumps mounted on the front. Second, unlike other Y class 2-8-8-2s, this class was built as an engine for fast freight and passengers, much like the A class 2-6-6-4. The first engine to roll out, number 2201, was finished in 1954. Over the next couple of years, about 25 engines were built. They served their purpose well, and as such one engine, 2213, is preserved as part of the vast PRR/N&W collection at Roanoke, VA.
 
There are a lot of people who do not know about the Norfolk and Western Steam engines. They only read the hype about the Big Boy, Niagara"s, Daylights and such.
I always wanted to see the Americans do a heavy weight Beyer Garratt. By the time the time the tech was right they were moving onto diesels.
 
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