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Trains Magazine 1961 March They called it the white Train Lucius Beebe
Trains Magazine 1961
March 1961Volume 21 Number 5
NEWS-3
NEWS PHOTOS -8
STEAM NEWS PHOTOS10
78 AT SUNSET --16
HOW TO HANDLE HOT ONES18
"PERPETUALLY YOUNG"25
ROUND THE WORLD - 230
THE WHITE TRAIN37
PHOTO SECTION42
Railway post office 52Second section 54
Running extra57Interchange58
IDEA SHORTAGE
RAILROADING is running out of not only money but also imagination. Diesel locomotive color schemes, for instance. And how about those proposed merger names! Erie-Lackawanna is passable if obvious, but Coast Line-Seaboard is a repetition and Great Northern Pacific & Burlington Lines, Inc., screams for a diet. One wonders if GNP&BL didn't barely squeeze out SP&SGNP&BL ( for Spokane, Portland & Seattle Great Northern Pacific & Burlington Lines). The all-inclusive name writers argue, of course, that fresh titles would wipe out generations of public identification with such respected words as, say, Burlington. But must this be the controlling consideration? Or is it the product of committee thinking?
IMPRESSIVE BUT NOT CONVINCING
IHARRY Farnsworth Brown, a consulting engineer of long and electrification-oriented rail experience, insists that we've been sold a bill of goods on the economics of U. S. dieselization. Or to quote him directly, "The diesel locomotive has not 'revolutionized' American railway economics. In road service, diesel motive power has added to the financial burden of the railways." This is the conclusion reached in a paper} which was presented to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London on November 30, 1960, and Brown has since been receiving quite a press overseas and occasional newspaper mention here. England's distinguished Economist refers to Brown's research as a "timely warning," opines that in the midst of British Railway's modernization "there are relevant lessons from this account of American experience for British railwaymen - and for British politicians." In a more sentimental vein, the Vancouver Sun says, "If Mr. Brown is right, it is sad to think that the haunting music of the steam whistle need not have vanished from the land."
Let us examine some of Mr. Brown's contentions:
discards the theory that multiple-unit diesels made today's long trains possible, submits instead that the postwar reduction in train-miles resulted from branch-line abandonment and loss of short-haul traffic.
now reveal, he says, that the diesel has but one-half the service life of a steam or electric locomotive in equivalent service.
typical train, based on 1957 I.C.C. figures, was hauled by an average of 21A units, and their tractive effort at running speeds is well within the capacity of most modern steam power in service at that time.
costs rise much faster for diesels than for steam engines. Calculated on the index of cents per 1000 rail-horse, steam repair costs at 6.6 years of age are 78 per cent of those of the diesel.
There is no statistical evidence, in earnings or operating ratio or dividends, to support the claim that diesels have produced a 30 per cent return on invest
.Brown, born in New Haven, Conn., in 1886, was graduated from Yale (Ph.D.) and Sheffield Scientific School, entered railroading with the New Haven in 1910, retired as its Electrical Engineer in 1951. He has since done railway electrification consulting work for Westinghouse overseas, is the author of many electrical papers, and is presently a consulting engineer for Gibbs & Hill.
Economic Results of Diesel Electric Motive Power on the Railways of the United States of America," by H. F. Brown, Ph.D., Fellow A.I.E.E.
Such a claim "is to belittle the skill of management" and to unfairly detract from such other postwar advances as new freight terminals and C.T.C.
We of TRAINS know and respect Mr. Brown as both a reader and a provocative correspondent. Moreover, we would instinctively lean toward those who would question the status quo and/or debate The Big Claim. It is perhaps surprising, in this instance, that no one of authority has taken issue with dieselization since Lima gave up the ghost and Roanoke quit building locomotives. Finally, we are not prepared to engage in point-by-point rebuttal to Mr. Brown's paper, being content to leave such statistical cross fire to more qualified pencil pushers than ourselves and to those with more selfish claims (diesel builders and owners).
We regard Mr. Brown's paper as impressive but not convincing. For example, the merits of "modern steam power" are better illustrated in specific applictions than in over-all comparisons. It is true that Missabe Road 2-8-8-4's moved ore trains of almost 18,000 tons gross off the range and that N&W 2-6-6-4's managed 14,500-ton coal drags in flatland running. The equivalent, say, of perhaps three six-motor, 1750 h.p. diesels. Driver axle loadings in this example range from slightly less than 50,000 pounds for the diesel to 70,600 pounds for the 2-8-8-4 and on up to 107,525 pounds for the 2-6-6-4. Clearances favor the diesel, too, as does the fact that the articulateds are indivisible. Put it this way: How many U. S. roads possess N&W's physical plant? Again, even N&W found it necessary to manufacture two basic types of steam locomotives (simple 2-6-6-4 and compound 2-8-8-2) to operate in mountain and flat terrain on the merchandise and coal trains that are now handled by mulof a single type of diesel, a unit of which is also at home on, say, the AbingBranch where formerly a 4-8-0 was the largest type of power assignable.
Mr. Brown's diesel repair costs are derived from a 1955 study of more than 3000 units of all ages up to 12 years on seven different class 1 roads. We would like additional light on this point. All diesels are not alike. There were some abortions abroad in the land in 1955 that perspective tells us should never have been built in the first place; some roads in their haste to dieselize bought four and five different makes, certain of which are no longer produced at all.
As an article elsewhere in this issue makes clear, steam locomotive builders were the first to renounce the 30-year life for motive power. Any engine, diesels included, can be theoretically worked
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