THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE STILL PROVES RELIABLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE STILL PROVES RELIABLE

Remarkable Daily Speeds Attained

By Streamliners.

EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA AND EUROPE.

FASHING orange and silver from ita long, sleek length, a train rolls out from the Union station in Chicago on the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific line. Six hours and a half (just 390 minutes) later it appears in St. Paul, Minn. It has eaten up 410 miles in that brief space of time. Out from the North-Western station slowly moves another magnificent train. It gains momentum as the seconds pass. In six hours and a half it, too, is in St. Paul, 408.6 miles away by the route trough Milwaukee of the Chicago and North-Western line. From the La Salle Street station goes still another luxurious train. This is on a track of the New York Central. Fifteen and a half hours after leaving the Chicago terminal it reaches Harmon, N.Y., 925.3 miles away. And among the many trains that constantly are departing from the Union station moves one on the Pennsylvania line that reaches Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a bare two hours and eight minutes (128 minutes). The distance is 148 miles.

Not only the Hiawatha, the Four Hundred, the Century, and the Detroit Arrow, but countless other splendid trains drawn by steam locomotives are making amazing speeds in this age of marvellous transportation facilities. Coupled with this rapidity of travel is a guarantee of comfort and safety never previously attained by American railroad lines, says a writer in the Chicago "Tribune."

Holding Its Own. The public has come to think that the speed, luxury and safety of the modern trains have been brought about by some revolutionary practices, failing to keep in mind all the while that a large proportion of all of the fastest and finest trains are not powered with electricity or Diesel engines, but by locomotives depending upon steam for motion—just plain steam, produced by heating water to a temperature above the boiling point.

It ia true that marvellous accomplishments have been placed to the credit of Diesel and electric locomotives, but it also is true that the steam locomotive still holds its own very well among high-speed engines. As for great power, nothing has been produced among mobile engines to' equal the steam locomotive.

The modern steam locomotive ia not the result of a revolution in construction. It is rather the outcome of a series of improvements and careful adjustments determined by many methodical experiments.

Great Accomplishments. Not many years ago there were railroad experts who believed that the steam, locomotive was incapable of progress, that its greatest perfection apparently had been reached, and hence that the railroads would have to turn to other forms of motive power. But in the last three or four years the steam locomotive has given great proof of its splendid vitality. From France, for example, comes the story of steam's great accomplishments on railroads. Pierre Lavarde, writing in "La Jour nee Industrielle" of Paris last March, briefly sketched the subject of the modern steam engine in Europe. "Baldwin Locomotives," the quarterly of the Baldwin Locomotive works of Philadelphia, has published a translation of M. Lavarde's article, which bears the title, "The Logical Development of Steam Locomotives."

"A few years ago," writes M. Lavarde, "comparisons were made between the efficiency of steam and electric locomotives. The ratio between consumption of coal in the tender (expressed in kilograms) and that of electricity at the switchboards of the sub-stations varied from 25 for the former to 1.0 for the latter,. This comparison was all the more difficult to make because it almost always compared a more or less old and heterogeneous group of steam locomotives with electric locomotives that were modern and hence efficiently designed.

"All the basic facts concerning the steam engine, its production, consumption, and horsepower, must henceforth be corrected in order to take into account new and very interesting results." Cheaper than Electric Power. He goes on with a comparison of the latest type electric locomotive and the latest type steam locomotive, both in fast express service, to show that they are about equal in consumption of energy. This, in other words, means that they are about equally efficient in that type of work. His conclusion in the comparison is that steam power is cheaper than electric power.

Touching on the subject of the speed of _ the steam locomotives, M. Lavarde writes: M . . . the possibilities of greater speeds have considerably increased . . . Railroad practice previously based on the operation of steam locomotives at speed# limited to 120 kilometres (74.5 miles) an hour has been changed to conform to a practical limit for fast trains well beyond that figure. We know that streamlined steam locomotives have made 192 kilometres (119.2 miles) an hour with a train of 200 tons, and that in practice it is possible to maintain commercial speeds of 115 kilometres (71.4 miles) an hour oa runs of nearly 400 kilometres (248.4 miles), which means 150 kilometres (93.2 miles) an hour at some moments." Only a Question of Brake*. Compare these speeds of European trains with those of the four American trains mentioned in the introductory paragraphs of this article. It will be noted from the comparison that the American trains, which do more than a mile a minute over long runs, are the equal of the European trains in speed, inasmuch as the times given for the American trains are from terminal to terminal and do not take into consideration any possible stops that' may be made or any slowing up necessary for running through highly congested areas.

Recent word from England announces a record made by a test train on the London, Midland and Scottish railway. Drawing seven standard coaches of a total weight of 225 tons, the steam locomotive of this. test train ran nonstop from London to Glasgow, a distance of 401.5 miles, in 5h 53m (353 minutes). Regularly scheduled everyday trains in America, as pointed out before, run from Chicago to St. Paul, a distance of

410 miles, in 390 minutes. The fastest regularly scheduled time from London to Glasgow is 7h 35m. The test train which reduced the scheduled running time by nearly two hours attained an average speed of 68.2 miles an hour for the full run and a top speed of 95.75 miles an hour over & portion of the run. "Speaking only for France," M. Lavarde's article continues, "we can claim that the railroads have at their disposal types of engines (steam) which will permit them to increase the speed of travel to 130-150 kilometres (80.7 to 93.2 miles) an hour, according to what is best for each type of service, as soon aa the question of brakes is definitely settled." Modernised Equipments. Summing up, the Frenchman writes: "The steam locomotive for passenger or freight service is equal to the task. Moreover, it has to its credit the great advantage of being self-contained and inexpensive; that is to say, it constitutes in itself an economical motive power system which can be subsequently modernised according to developments, at relatively small cost. No other motive power system offers these advantages. So we see countries like England and Germany overhauling and modernising their train equipment. In 1935 and 1936 the great English companies ordered not less than 800 new steam locomotives.

The programme of the Reichsbahn in Germany calls for the construction of 147 engines, following a similar programme for 1934 and 1935. In the United States, as in Germany, although a country of daring progress, almost all of the traffic continues to be handled by steam locomotives.

All three have a long distance to go, and steam, with the turbine on the horizon, is still in the running, and running fast, despite the superb Dieselpowered American trains that have been introduced to the public in the last few years.

'Unfortunately, in the face of all this rejuvenation France cut a poor figure. We have perfected and invented better steam engines than our neighbours, but the railroads of our country scarcely profit by it, for it is only by a few individual units that we count the addition of new locomotives on our lines. "It is not only for heavy passenger and freight trains that the need of modern engines with great reserve power i* felt. Future Competition. _ "Whether one is considering the trunk lines or the subsidiary lines, the idea of the light train with high commercial speed and sufficient capacity is indeed more and more a question of the moment, and all the great railway systems of the world are attacking it. There again steam is the simple and complete solution. England has its trains of the Silver Jubilee type, and America its Hiawathas. In France we shall shortly have similar trains." Readers will accept the foregoing as steam's side of a three-cornered dispute with Diesel power and "electricity. It leaves much to be said relative to the subsidiary advantages of electricity and the internal combustion engine. For electricity it may be stated that the motivating force of the Pennsylvania's electrification between New York and Washington was track conservation rather than power efficiency. More . terminal space was necessary and the cost of property prohibitive. Central station power was the only answer, because it will win in space conservation and acceleration or pickup. On the other hand, the Diesel has shown the lowest train mile operating costs. First costs, however, are very high, although they will doubtless decline when manufacturers reach a production basis.