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Trains Magazine 1962 April Should we have switched from steam to electric
Trains Magazine 1962 April
April 1962Volume 22 Number 6
NEWS - -3
RAILROAD NEWS PHOTOS8
STEAM NEWS PHOTOS -10
BIG BOY DIGS IN--16
WE SHOULD HAVE ELECTRIFIED18
DOMINGUEZ. JUNCTION - - 24
LOCOMOTORAS DE VAPOR - 26
LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!34
JAPANESE NATIONAL - 240
SIMPLE TO COMPOUND ...48
Cover: Pennsy K4 4-6-2 and GG1 electric line up at South Amboy, N.J. Photo by Don Wood.
Railway post office 50Second section 52
Stop, look & listen 52Running extra 53
Interchange 58
TIME THEY GAVE A LISTEN
BACK in the 1930's, when General Motors' research staff was absorbed in the development of the 567-series diesel engine, Charles F. Kettering liked to talk about attempting to "understand what a two-cycle engine was trying to tell us." What "Boss Ket" referred to was a two-cylinder 567 test engine which was used to study pistons, rings, liners, pins, bushings, rods, and the like. As various components were installed, tested, and changed out Kettering and his staff listened intently to the engine's "opinion" in terms of vibration, fuel consumption, horsepower, cooling. That is, if the engine liked an injector, all else being equal, fuel consumption went down; if it didn't, vice versa.
Isn't it time that we "listened" to what the railroad is trying to tell us? We're usually so preoccupied with the corporate and political connotations of railroading that we forget to diagnose the industry in the abstract. After all, the only excuse for a railroad is that it can haul more for less: (1) because of the adhesion of steel on steel; and (2) because flanged wheels constitute an automatic guidance system which in turn permits one power unit to pull many trailers behind it. Now, if we place a stethoscope to the heart of railroading, what do we hear? What is this mechanical device trying to tell us?
Example: Last year Norfolk & Western posted a low, low operating ratio of 57.7 per cent, brought 25 cents out of each revenue dollar down to net income after taxes, boasted of being "virtually a brand-new railroad" (e.g., average diesel age: three years). Coal is 70 per cent of N&W's business; in 1961 it moved more than 60 million tons of coal in about equal proportions east and west in a fleet of more than 65,000 coal cars. If we "listen" to N&W, its statistics tell us that a railroad works best as a mass-transportation machine, that given enough of even a low-rated commodity to move, it can do so at a profit.
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