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Railroads of this era (of any gauge), worked because at the time labor was so cheap, every 50-100 miles you could have people unload the cars and put them in an

Railroads of this era (of any gauge), worked because at the time labor was so cheap, every 50-100 miles you could have people unload the cars and put them in another freight car, even a different gauge. Then people around the 1860's had the great idea that you could leave the items inside the freight car, and just hook it onto the other train if the gauge, couplers, and brakes all followed the same rules. Steam Locomotives have an odd attraction in that they were near the start of the industrial revolution, and have a visceral external motion that can be followed. How many keep operating on tourist lines as the number of people remember them remains to be seen. Even in the United States, while ridership remains high of tourist lines, fewer and fewer people have the skills to maintain a steam engine. Engines were once ordered out of a catalog, and parts were only a telegraph order away, but today it takes peculiar machinist skill to forge what were once mass produced castings.

NeutronBoy 11y ago
> How many keep operating on tourist lines as the number of people remember them remains to be seen. Even in the United States, while ridership remains high of tourist lines, fewer and fewer people have the skills to maintain a steam engine Puffing Billy [1] in Victoria, Australia, gets parts custom machined from a number of machine shops around the country, and even gets time 'donated' from Navy personnel who are trained and licensed to operate and maintain steam engines to supplement the full-time and volunteer staff it has. The entire line is now purely a tourist attraction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffing_Billy_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffing_Billy_Railway
pjc50 11y ago
Narrow gauge wasn't just gratuitous incompatibility, it was for areas where there wasn't room for the normal gauge, like mines and mountains. Steam trains have a visceral appeal which has worked well as a tourist attraction for years. The number of people who remember them in operation has to be small; the last UK scheduled steam service was 47 years ago. So they've found a new audience. I'm optimistic about the maintenance given the emergence of "maker" culture. While it's a very different prospect to desktop CNC and does require more skill, it's not a magic lost art. There has even been a crowdfunded new locomotive built, "Tornado": http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=54 http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=art... Edit: this has led me to finding that a large fraction of the UK's preserved steam locomotives were kept more or less by accident, as they were less profitable to scrap than wagons and were therefore put at the back of the yard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers

NeutronBoy 11y ago

> How many keep operating on tourist lines as the number of people remember them remains to be seen. Even in the United States, while ridership remains high of tourist lines, fewer and fewer people have the skills to maintain a steam engine Puffing Billy [1] in Victoria, Australia, gets parts custom machined from a number of machine shops around the country, and even gets time 'donated' from Navy personnel who are trained and licensed to operate and maintain steam engines to supplement the full-time and volunteer staff it has. The entire line is now purely a tourist attraction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffing_Billy_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffing_Billy_Railway

pjc50 11y ago

Narrow gauge wasn't just gratuitous incompatibility, it was for areas where there wasn't room for the normal gauge, like mines and mountains. Steam trains have a visceral appeal which has worked well as a tourist attraction for years. The number of people who remember them in operation has to be small; the last UK scheduled steam service was 47 years ago. So they've found a new audience. I'm optimistic about the maintenance given the emergence of "maker" culture. While it's a very different prospect to desktop CNC and does require more skill, it's not a magic lost art. There has even been a crowdfunded new locomotive built, "Tornado": http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=54 http://www.a1steam.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=art... Edit: this has led me to finding that a large fraction of the UK's preserved steam locomotives were kept more or less by accident, as they were less profitable to scrap than wagons and were therefore put at the back of the yard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers