The Pennsylvania Railroad experimented with a few of these in the years around World War II, but by then it was too late: diesels had already gotten a toehold and were gaining rapidly. Now, steam turbines had been used for propulsion for ships for nearly 35 years previously.
Given that, suppose an engineering wizard had been able to show the Baldwin Locomotive Works and/or the PRR that a turbine-driven locomotive would have been more efficient and would have reduced maintenance costs, both on the locomotives themselves (fewer moving parts, given the removal of the drive rods) and the right-of-way (no pounding of the track due to the motion of the drive rods and the driver counterweights, for example) some time in the early 1920s? Would steam had held off diesels until the 1950s or 1960s--or even later? And suppose there had been a corresponding conversion from coal to #6 fuel oil, similar to ships? Could that have diverted more coal into stationary power plants, making electrification more widespread especially in the northeastern US (say, 11,000 volt catenary from Washington, DC to Boston)?
Given that, suppose an engineering wizard had been able to show the Baldwin Locomotive Works and/or the PRR that a turbine-driven locomotive would have been more efficient and would have reduced maintenance costs, both on the locomotives themselves (fewer moving parts, given the removal of the drive rods) and the right-of-way (no pounding of the track due to the motion of the drive rods and the driver counterweights, for example) some time in the early 1920s? Would steam had held off diesels until the 1950s or 1960s--or even later? And suppose there had been a corresponding conversion from coal to #6 fuel oil, similar to ships? Could that have diverted more coal into stationary power plants, making electrification more widespread especially in the northeastern US (say, 11,000 volt catenary from Washington, DC to Boston)?