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Farewell to Steam by David Plowden Dust Jacket 1966 Steam Boards Locomotives
Farewell to Steam by David Plowden
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Copyright 1966
154 pages indexed
PROLOGUE vi
STEAMBOATS
INTRODUCTION 1
PASSENGER STEAMERS 2
OVERNIGHT LUXURY STEAMER 4
DAY EXCURSION STEAMER 30
FERRY STEAMER 42
GREAT LAKES 44
CARGO BOAT 46
RAILROAD-CAR FERRY 49
RIVER RAILROAD-CAR FERRY 58
WORKBOATS 64
TUG 65
LIGHTER 75
TOW BOAT 78
DREDGER AND SNAGBOAT 83
PASSENGER FERRIES 86
HUDSON RIVER 89
N.Y.C. HARBOR 92
ST. LAWRENCE RIVER 106
MISSISSIPPI RIVER 109
LOCOMOTIVES
INTRODUCTION 114
HAIL AND FAREWELL 115
NOTES 152
INDEX 154
One of the most important events in the development of modern western civilization was the invention of the reciprocating steam engine, and indeed its impact on the course of North American history alone was as direct and powerful as its own mechanical action.
This creation is perhaps the simplest and most beautiful power mechanism that man has ever devised; to me all other machines pale by comparison. In elementary terms, it is an engine with cylinders (or one cylinder, in its most modest form) in each of which a piston travels straight back and forth-hence "reciprocating." Steam, admitted and exhausted alternately at both ends of the stroke, pushes the piston both forward and back, and makes each stroke a power stroke-a unique feature of the reciprocating engine. The force is transmitted directly from the piston to either a wheel or a crankshaft by a system of rods and cranks, creating a sublime precision of movement. The fact that there are no gears or transmission makes this the only engine with equal power both in forward and in reverse, and enables it to move anything so long as there is enough steam to push the piston.
Although this engine performed countless different jobs in industry and agriculture between the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the threshold of the Atomic Age, it was in transportation that reciprocating steam made its most outstanding contribution. Without it there would have been no steamboats to exploit the magnificent natural waterways of our continent, and there would have been no railroads to bind isolated communities of North America together into great national entities. Without it we would have had no Age of Steam.
Now this era is over, a scant century and a half after it began; and the symbol of the age-reciprocating steam-has been superseded in intracontinental water and land transport almost entirely by the internal combustion engine. Since World War II the survival of any machine depends increasingly on compact, push-button automation and by cost-accounting operation: it is one of the splendors of the reciprocating steam engine that it was, in comparison, both ravenous and extravagant. Generating steam in a boiler larger than the engine itself required mountains of fuel-and, in the case of locomotives, also vast stores of fresh water; then, all those beautiful moving parts absorbed most of the steam's power with each direct thrust; and finally, it demanded a host of men to perform the attendant rituals of service to maintain it and to run it.
Certainly these were drawbacks, but they were minor compared to the staggering economic handicap imposed on rail and domestic steamboat operations by the emergence of the private automobile as the foremost means of travel. Today in North America less than ten percent of the people journey by public transport at all, and then by airplane, bus, or, in ever decreasing numbers, by train; steamboats are not even cited in the comparative statistics. In addition, the business of carrying freight, while it does not reflect the passenger ratio, each year sees more trailer trucks moving goods on more interstate speedways.
It remains to be seen if the internal combustion engine can restore at least a part of steam's competitive position before the motorcar took over. Meanwhile our railroads and steamboat lines have rushed to embrace the Diesel in an effort to lure travelers and cargoes away from the superhighways and airlanes, and back to the continent's rails and waters.
Although some are earlier, most of the pictures that follow were taken around five years ago, when there remained enough old-time reciprocating steam to let me choose examples that could evoke the feeling of an all but vanished way of life. I was intent on offering a memoir of impressions, rather than trying to compile an illustrated encyclopedia of all reciprocating machinery extant, complete with details for the expert. And, while I was always aware that the individuals before my camera were living on borrowed time, I (lid not go deliberately to home ports or railroad yards with the purpose of recording a last season, a last run; yet this is exactly what a saddening number of my self-imposed assignments have, in retrospect, turned out to be.
This is a collection of photographs of steamboats-so often neglected in this context-and steam locomotives while they were still doing the work that created an era. It began as a personal salute, and has ended as a farewell to the Age of Steam.
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