Thoughts On The End Of Steam In America(probably very long)

[wsherrick]

I will attempt to answer this question in a few paragraphs where others have written, ponderous tomes to explain why the diesel replaced steam power in America. Dieselization did not occur in a vacuum and to understand it you have to look at the historic events that led up to it, the situation at the time and what other factors contributed to the end of Steam. It was not a simple thing. Hopefully, everyone will find this discussion rational and thoughtful. I do this with some reservation because I am opening myself up for public attack. We are friends here at Hawk's place and I trust you all. Well here goes, go get some coffee or other beverage and have a seat.
First of all, the many, many arguments about which kind of engine is the most efficient from an engineering point of view takes us from the historic reality we want to examine and moves us to the realm of the academic. Every type of engine has certain advantages to the other types and anyone can arbitrarily pick data or create a catagory to prove their side of the argument. One of my professors in college said, "always beware of the writer's intention," My intention is to examine history and draw a conclusion. Honest enough.
The bottom line is: How much does it cost to move a train from point A to point B in a timely and reliable fashion? How can we make more profit with less overhead? That is the oldest and most persistant question in Capitalism.

In 1945 the question of which type of motive power was the best was yet left open because it was not clear by any means, however; forces outside and within the railroad industry compelled the answer by 1955.

We'll start with the year 1933, the year of the great, "Century Of Progress,"exhibition in Chicago which was an extravaganza to celebrate how the railroad industry had changed the World in a hundred years. In that year the number of car loadings were down to less than 53% of 1929 levels. There were only 10 new locomotives ordered that year. These were class A2 4-8-4's for the Northern Pacific. All railroads had entire yards stuffed with surplus power. Passenger traffic had fallen to a trickle. In that dark year the most common locomotive by far was the 2-8-0 Consolidation of which the average age was 25 years plus. The railroads had to use what they had. There was no money for any new anything.

Steam locomotive design had made huge strides during the 20's and these quantam leaps continued up to the end of steam. The locomotive that was built in 1920 was positively obsolete by 1930, even if it was of the same size and wheel arrangement. The average steam locomotive of mid 30's technology did as much work as 3 engines from 1910 of the same weight and did it with far less cost and upkeep. But the railroads for the most part had to keep the 1910 engines because they couldn't afford to replace them during the depression. There was a definite attitude problem with the railroad industry at the time as well, from the lowliest ash sweeper to the CEO's. They were comfortable with their arrogance and set in their 19th century ways. The steam railroad created the world and the world depended on them and thus the world had to cow tow to their way of doing things. A few bright people saw the handwriting on the wall, but they were laughed at. No one in the railroad world took Henry Ford's bouncing gas buggy as a serious threat to their all mighty power, even in the 30's

Then the war came along and money, materials etc. had to go for the war effort. Steam locomotive advance came to a halt. Again, those old engines still had to do for the time being. A lot of people make the argument that the war forstalled dieselization and it would have happened a lot sooner. That is simply not the case.

Every railroad of significance kept highly detailed records of expenses, down to how much water, coal and oil was used on each individual locomotive. I mean down to the pound, down to the pint. According to the records of the Santa Fe, Union Pacific, New York Central and other railroads, it was substancially cheaper to run their modern steam engines per mile than the diesels they were compared against, even with all the labor required for their maint. and upkeep. This was true up until the mid 50's when the cost ratios reversed.
The key point:modern steam was cheaper and it has been pointed out that the percentage of modern steam in the national roster was very low. That is why those modern engines were run to the end. This fact was also borne out by an extensive marketing analysis commissioned jointly by Baldwin and Alco in 1945. They wern't stupid; they wanted to find out if they needed to do a huge re-tooling of their plants to start making diesels. The marketing report showed clearly that there was no evidence that diesels were economically advantageous. The costs to operate them and modern steam were about the same and if the railroads pursued a policy of replacing the legions of aged engines with modern steam, then the costs would be in the railroads favor because the support structure for steam was already existant and to dieselize would require an uneeded huge capital investment in new infrastructure. So Baldwin and Alco invested in a future where modern steam had a place. What the marketing report didn't cite(they didn't have a crystal ball) was the unexpected change in the world, society and economics after the war.

After the War, the world changed almost overnight. The Federal Government which had been hostile to the railroad industry since the 1880's was still so; and they had new powerful pressure lobbies pushing for highway improvement and expansion, airport building, and open subsidizing of the trucking and airline industry. The railroad industry was hamstrung by ancient labor agreements and their own managerial inertia. They had to pay huge taxes to support the new competition and had to submit to outdated ICC regulations which hurt badly. Branch line traffic dried up, once busy freight houses closed. Passengers abandoned their once beloved trains for the automobile. GM and others within the oil industry colluded to destroy electric street car companies and the railroad industry as a whole. They were out for the kill with the blessing and aid of the government. It is a matter of historic record.
At first the railroad executives thought that all this was temporary and all they had was an image problem. So they spent millions on shiny new streamlined diesel passenger trains in an attempt to draw people back and to display a new "up to date," attitiude to potiential customers. It was all to no avail. In this new age of jet planes, atomic bombs, and concrete superhighways, the railroad industry was beset on all sides as their market share plummeted. Also, the technological change from coal to oil began in earnest at this time and the coal industry fought back by raising prices and the miner's union with crippling strikes. Domestic oil was a guaranteed source of cheap fuel. The age of coal was coming to an end.

Internal forces were also at work to undermine the profitabiltiy of the railroad industry a whole. As the post war economy boomed there was a 35% decrease in the available entry level workforce as compared to before the war. Birth rates had dropped greatly during the 20's and even more so during the depression. By the fifties the work force had shrunk to an alarming degree. The traditional hard work for marginal pay of most entry level railroad jobs didn't appeal and other markets soaked up the workforce. The steam era railroad unions had huge political power since the early 1900's had even more leverage as there was a shortage of employees. In order to move the trains the railroads had to submit to the union's demands, over and over. Wages began to spiral upward as market share dropped and profits went out the window. Many railroads saw the diesel as a method to do two things at once.
One was to replace all the old engines that needed to be replaced anyway and two; begin a concerted effort (never publicly mentioned but real none the less) to erode union power. If there was a strike in the steam era, middle management couldn't run out of the office and get behind the throttle of a steam engine, but you can with a diesel. Incapable of adapting to these hostile times, the railroad companies saw a way to deal with these pressing issues. Simply get rid of the entire structure of steam, period.

Service continued to deteriorate even after dieselization. The industry was shrinking as a whole and the execs took to opportunity to abandon as much track as they could. Get rid of signal operators, tower operators, track maintenance people and so on. Now back to operations. A traditional steam era freight crew is made up of five people. An engineer, fireman, conductor and two brakemen accordeing to the unions who had the power to set crew size. The crew got paid a whole day's pay for every hundred miles travelled. This policy dated from the mid 19th century when that's how long it took for a freight train to travel in the time of an average work shift. If the crew didn't go for a hundred miles they got paid for it anyway, also according to the unions.
With the new geep (general purpose diesel) you could hook as many of them together as you wanted and run them with one crew. You could allow cars to stack up in any given yard until you could make up a super long train, THUS; you could run a lot fewer trains and hence a lot fewer crews, undercutting costs and the union. Management could then shrug their shoulders at the union bosses and say, "Oh well, progress you know." This strategy worked to greatly reduce labor costs and you could claim that your productivity per train hour was a lot better than with those old steam engines(which made the stockholders happy.) This method of train dispatching also delayed delivery times of freight up to sometimes weeks(which made shippers very unhappy and they switched to trucks in droves.) This inflexibility of service still exists in the railroad industry to this day, much to its hurt. Meanwhile Americans are sitting on the largest untapped coal reserves on Earth and at the time of this writing are reeling from the high cost of imported oil. So much for the once cheap endless supply of domestic oil which was one of the diesel's selling points in the 50's.

Some railroads such as the Southern Railway the choice to buy diesels over modern steam was quickly made. The Southern's physical plant was obsolete across the board. Light rail, tight curves, and many, many tunnels built for 4-4-0s and litle Ten Wheelers precluded the use of modern steam power altogether, modern power simply wouldn't fit. The Southern had 12 classes of locomotives and a huge, confusing set of sub classes all of which pre dated World War One. By dieselizing they would be spared the great cost of eliminating curves, heavier bridges, removing or enlarging tunnels and relaying hundred of miles of track with better rail, plus they could get those out of control labor costs down.

The Norfolk & Western on the other hand, had the most modern, well maintained railroad in the country and it was all steam. The N&W built their own locomotives and aggressively developed them to a high degree of efficiency from performance to servicing and maintenance. They did extensive research into improving locomotive servicing techniques and increasing locomotive availability. The result was that the N&W had the highest locomotive productivity at the lowest cost of any other railroad. Including the all diesel roads. They had rejected and improved upon the age old ways of running steam engines and they were proud of it. An example of this was displayed in 1952 in which they invited EMD to test their F units against an A class 2-8-8-4 and a Y6b 2-8-8-2 compund. EMD secretly souped up the F set to a temporary 6800 horse power, yet during the tests couldn't beat the steam engines performance. After the test, the N&W said,"Thanks anyway. Have a nice day." And when questioned about it afterward EMD confessed they had stacked their deck. The N&W stated that they had no intention of dieselizing. But by 1960 they did it anyway. Why? The reason for their change of heart was that the forces that had effected everyone else caught up to them too. They fought against it as long as possible, but the increase in labor and material costs compounded with a shrinking market share caused them to toss in the towel. There was no longer a commercial support system to supply the spare parts they needed for repair. They had to start making a lot of parts themselves and things such as stokers, injectors, feed water heaters, etc were no longer manufactured. This coupled with labor costs, caused the price of overhauling an engine to become prohibitive and also they couldn't construct new locomotives as the existing ones grew old. They dieselized not because the diesel was this vastly superior machine, but doing business with steam was no longer possible.

The post war attempts to marry the electric traction motor with a steam boiler and other brief, poorly thought out concepts to burn coal were all abysmal failures. The pressing economic and political questions facing the railroad industry at that time could not be answered in a futile attempt to reinvent the wheel. They wern't answered by the diesel either.
Railroad share of the market has continued to drop and slowly more and more jobs are lost. Perhaps now that the world's supply of oil is slowly running out. The railroad can once again take its rightful place in moving people and freight. We can only hope so.

Well, this post somehow got a lot longer than I wanted it to. I hope you enjoyed it and it has been informative, provides food for thought and discussion. I hope also, that it is clearly written and easily read.

[Hawk]

I'm sure everyone here will be civil, right folks?

Carry on William. I'm interested

[wsherrick]

Thanks Hawk.

[Wolverine@MSU]

A well reasoned, objective, and insightful look at a critical period in railroad history. I can imagine others may have a different opinion as to the driving forces behind dieselization, but I can't imagine anyone becoming nasty in explaining their point of view. After all, we're all adults aren't we?

Thanks William for a nice post. I certainly learned something.

[Hawk]

Excellent reading William.
The points you made seem pretty undeniable. Kinda' adds a whole new light on the subject.

[EPH]

I find nothing to disagree with in what you said. I do want to mention a few other points. You folks feel free to correct my facts and comment on my opinions.

If I remember correctly one of the factors that crippled the railroads' ability to cope with the Depression and WW2 was high debt load, some of it having been rolled over and never paid off from the founding of the railroad. After WW2 a new economic model took over and the RR companies made a concerted effort to pay down the debt. That freed up the funds they needed to modernize.

Starting in the 1880's Progressives swept into power in governments across the country, in reaction to the excesses of the Gilded Age. One of these new forces was the Grange movement, concerned mainly with railroad rates for farmers. Without much warning the old political system changed: rates were controlled, safety standards upgraded (a lot of new equipment had to be purchased), wages increased and so on. This upheaval led to trust-busting, stock market regulation and gave the public a say in how the big companies did business. In general the public did not like how the railroads did business - especially the special low rates for important customers and higher rates on low traffic lines. The railroads did not understand how important it was to convince the public that they were doing a good job. You could say they lost the public relations war before they ever knew it had begun.

Around the same time the frontier ended. No longer could you issue bonds and attract investors with a promise of expanded track and increased haulage. Free public land grants were no longer available and the country was hugely over-built with track mileage. The inevitable shake-outs cost a lot of investors their money and secured the idea that railroads were a 'mature' industry: no serious expansion was possible as there just wasn't anywhere left to go. It is hard to attract serious large-scale investment for incremental improvements in service and minimal increasess in profitability.

The railroads were treated badly in WW 1 and WW 2, being nationalized in the first and denied public funds and priority for resources in the second. This happened because the railroads had that self-inflicted image problem: nobody cared if the big companies got stepped on. Franklin Roosevelt didn't much care if the big railroads fell to pieces as long as they ran well enough to keep wartime production up. As William says, the combination of the Depression and resource-starvation in WW 2 laid a double-whammy on the railroads that they still felt forty years later.

From what I remember, roads like the B&O and C&O that had easy access to cheap coal (because they hauled it) made desperate attempts to develop a modern coal-powered locomotive, and couldn't solve the technological problems. You know the old saying: you can have it done right, done fast or done cheap... pick any two. Signigficant leaps in tech can't be done fast, cheap and right all at the same time. other roads (like the UP) didn't have local suppliers of cheap coal and were already running steam engines on oil. Moving to diesel was not as big a deal for them.

Just speculating, but successful mergers like the ones that put the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio together probably helped dieselization along. Joining some marginal railroads into one large company made it more profitable than its several parts. But the new company had to modernize also - it didn't have any choice. And it needed to make a splash, so it bought some fancy new diesels and got some great publicity. GM&O went from a collection of junker lines to one of the top ten railroads, and you can bet other railroad execs thought they could do the same. Not all the mergers turned out well (Penn Central ) and a lot of the new passenger cars went to waste while passenger diesels hauled freight.

Now the picture is a little brighter, at least in the major metro areas. The remaining mainline tracks are maxed out with container shipments and intermodal traffic. Development of GPS and computer technology have allowed the roads to pack lots of cargo into a track-mile, and these days there is a waiting list for shipping space. For the first time in a generation the railroads would like to expand, but really can't - nobody wants a new railroad line in their back yard and land prices are too high to be affordable. Still, the companies are turning a profit and probably will for the forseeable future.

As far as a return to coal power... I can't see it. Coal has less energy per unit of weight than diesel and it does not burn clean. Trying to get a steam locomotive to meet pollution standards is probably not cost-effective. Also, as William points out a steam locomotive has a larger crew and you can't couple them together for large trains as easily as you can diesel or electric units.

[Gwizz]

THis thread is a good read. Thanks

[besterik]

I think this is a interesting subject, and railway history in general is fun. One thing wsherrick, is that you seems to think that the US regulations made diesels a more attractive choice than it was, but that doesn't explain why steam engines were phased out around the world (or at least the rich parts)???

[AZ Rail Rat]

Just touched on was the point of trucking and airlines did not have to fund the infrastructure (roads, airports) the way a railroad has to build and maintain every inch of track and I guess still, most stations, even if land was given to them. Though not so much directly affecting death of steam, it did and still does have a huge impact on railroad profits.

Here's a question: Steam started with wood, then converted (or evolved) to coal. Where and when was the conversion to oil and to what degree (% of total steam locos)? At first, one would think oilcompanies did their part to want to see steam "go", but not if they were selling oil to make them "go". Just wondering.

Finally, it was good to read a story of how unions were told to go pound sound. Don't get me wrong, unions "HAD" their place, but from WWII until even today, they continue to cuase problems with the economy by driving prices up and production down.

That should get some of you "easterners'" feathers ruffled!

[wsherrick]

First of all, thanks for the compliments. The reason I had reservations about bringing this subject up for discussion is that many people in the railfan community (foamers to us railroaders-some of us are closet railfan's too-don't ask don't tell) get personal and vicious when people talk about steam vs. diesel and what happened. The conversation quickly breaks down into a shouting match and the original point of the discussion is lost.
I guess everybody here knows by now that I am an engineer in real life and that I run steam locomotives-diesels too. I run a GP9 that I would like to run off into a quarry. It takes off like a herd of turtles. I am a railroader who has had the extreme good fortune to have been exposed to steam men who were there when the railroad's forsook their noble beasts for growlers. I would question them at length about what really went on and I as a fellow steam crew member got the truth. Yes, I am biased-I like steam engines best by far, but when it comes to a serious talk about any event in history or whatever, personal feelings must be put aside and the facts looked at squarely. I do my best to think critically about everything. And so I am glad that our forum is of a higher standard than many out there in cyber land. That being said, I feel a lot better now than I did last night when I sat up all night writing the above post. I have lots more to share on the subject if people are interested and as time goes by. I would like everyone to comment on this subject who wishes to and I thank everyone that has taken the time to contribute thus far.

[EPH]

For me it breaks down this way:

Many (not all) railroads received land grants, cash and other incentives. A lot of that was used to build the road and give the stockholders big dividends. Much of the valuable land - that with resources, or inside the new towns that sprang up - was given to subsidiary (later independent) companies, Many of the big forestry, mineral and coal firms began as a division of a railroad.
Highways are typically built with public funds, and public money maintains them. Railroads must maintain their own right-of-way. Some shipping lines receive subsidies (especially so in other countries; in the US this has always been controversial) but not the railroads. (One unexpected benefit of the railroad right-of-way 'strip' is its suitability to carry telephone, telegraph and fiber-optic lines.)


There are two major reasons for the explosion of four-lane, autobahn-style highways in the US, and they are both named Dwight Eisenhower.

Firstly, Eisenhower led a 'cross-country' US Army motorized convoy during the Depression. They almost didn't make it; there were no major highways as we know them today. There were few if any roads connecting major cities (not even dirt and gravel), few gas stations, no maps, no road signs, no route numbers or mile markers. Many major rivers had no bridges and/or ferries. The expedition was widely covered by the press at the time. Many states then designed their state highway systems and began appropriating money to 'fill in' roads between the major cities. At or around the same time the federal government began planning a US highway system, co-ordinating construction with the states. But it is interesting to note that even in the early 1900's there were no roads. You traveled by ship (or steamboat), by railroad, or not at all. Highways were promoted as public works projects and as defense projects. People who wanted cars needed roads, and in this country automobile sales came first and forced the creation of good roads.

Secondly, American officers who crossed the Rhine in the last days of WW2 saw the German highway net. Remember that the interstate highway was touted as a defense program as well as a commercial improvement. Plus, Americans like freedom and that implies personal transportation. Anyway, proponents of a German-style multi-lane limited-access road net found an enthusiastic supporter in Eisenhower.

There are basically four ways to travel any distance in the US:
1) By car. Not as fast as air travel over long distances, but you have a way to get around when you get to your destination.
2) By rail. Fairly slow except over certain limited routes. When you arrive you are limited to taxi, public transit (if any) or renting a car.
3) By air. Fast over long distances, not so fast for short trips. Inconvenient: getting to and from the airport, and on and off the plane, and worrying about your baggage. And when you get there you will likely have to rent a car.
4) By bus. All the disadvantages of each of the above, but cheap.

So rail travel could only survive if cities had good mass transit (witness the number of railroads that operated bus lines and trolleys). Mass transit typically breaks even or depends on a public subsidy to operate. Killing mass transit allowed 'friends' to profit from street-paving contracts and took the money-losing mass transit off the public books. So rail passenger service fell between two stools: for speed you went by air, for pleasure and convenience you went by car.

[EPH]

I'd say that unions have their place. Unchecked managers create awful, dangerous, exploitive workplaces; unchecked unions create bloat, inefficiency, corruption and graft. A balance between the two is usually best for the long-term interests of everyone.

Just my 2 cents.

[wsherrick]

Labor Unions were one of the principal causes of the end of Steam and the loss of heavy industry across the board. I have seen first hand how unions are more than counter productive, they are destructive. Of course if the big companies were more fair to their employees throughout history, then the struggle between labor and capital would not have been so hurtful to both parties. Each job adds a certain amount of value to the final product of whatever any business produces. Someone sweeping the floor adds less value than someone doing research in a lab for example. Union wages and work rules throw that natural ratio out the window. What must happen is that management and must realize that they are labor are part of the same organization, each must do their part or the business dies and no one benefits.
I work for a short line railroad which is non union. We operate bits and pieces of what were once great railroad empires. We can do it with a profit because there is no real division of labor. Every person wears many hats in the course of a day sometimes. These branch lines can not make money under the code of the unions and thus the railroads gave them up as losses.
The short line side of railroading is a growth industry these days. We are the branches that feed the big trunks the traffic they need to live on to a large degree, especially up here in the northeast.

I agree with EPH about the influence of Dwight E. on the rapid expansion of the interstate highway system. He didn't like railroads at all which is yet more evidence to prove the point about government's collusion if not in fact-in spirit with the oil and auto interests. He also mentioned that at the turn of the century there were no roads to speak of. The nation didn't need roads. They already had a highly evolved transportation system. There were few places that were not connected by a railroad or an electric interurban service. If you came up here for a visit I could show you all the abandoned roadbeds of steam railroads, trolly lines and interurban systems which criss cross everywhere. It was not as convenient as hopping in the car, but how much does this convenience cost our society in the long run?

Now to answer the question about buring oil in steam engines. The first successful use of oil as fuel was in 1900 on the Missouri Pacific, I believe.
Steam engines used a non refined oil which was like tar. It has to be heated and liquified before it can be burned. It was quite cheap since the added cost of refinement wasn't added to it. The biggest users of oil fuel were the Southern Pacific, Texas Pacific, Western Pacific and of course the Union Pacific. One of the great virtues of steam power is that it can burn anything you put in the firebox. Coffee beans were used with great success in Brazil when the price for coffee was too low for export on a few occasions. In the U. S. many railroads would convert their locomotives back and forth from coal to oil when price and availability warranted it.
Of course today with the railroads that yet operate steam both fuels are still used depending on where you are. Of course the coal burning ones are much much cheaper to run for obvious reasons, but oil is easier to use if the railroad does not have the facilities for storing coal and removing the cinders.

[Hawk]

Here’s my two bits on unions.
Back in the late 70’s I worked at a chemical manufacturing company in the shipping/receiving dept. I was constantly barraged to join the teamsters union, which I never did.
Why, you may ask?
We had a few employees that were less than adequate at their job, but these same employees received monetary compensation on the same level as those that performed exemplarily. Adding to that, these same employees, due to the fact that they believed they didn’t have to improve, were actually detrimental to the company. These employees should have been given the opportunity to seek other employment but the union wouldn’t allow that.
To that end, I feel the unions have gone unchecked far too long and have become detrimental to a capitalist society as a whole.

[Gwizz]

A comment on oil.

Oil was used to help finance the civil war for the North. It was sold to England. I believe England experimented with oil as a locomotive fuel in the 1860s and 70s. Although coal remained their main stay.

Oil experiments in the US started I believe around 1900. I don't remember much of the details. I believe I read about it in a 1910 history book. (The book was older than I am)

As a side note: I friend converted two UP diesels to burn Natural gas some years ago when natural gas was plentiful. He placed a natural gas tank car between the two units and only fueled up in Texas making 6000 to 9000 mile round trips since he only had one natural gas station. The UP finally dropped the plan to continue with only diesel fuel except for the few steamers they still have which burn a heavy fuel oil. My friend still has pictures of the experiement hanging in his office.