What if Steam had lasted until the 1980s

[m79900]

Steam in the 90s. Regional Railways 4mt anyone?

 

[thaitransit]

If steam had lasted to the 1980s I suspect mass electrification of most lines would have been the result as in the 1980s 25kv AC overhead electrification was the norm for newly electrified systems. As it would have been far more economical to go with 25kv AC electrification and electric locomotives and EMUs. Than to convert to higher maintenance diesel locomotives. The electrification straight from steam traction would have felt like its free to run from the railways perspective as the operating costs diference would have been so vast.

As to weather this would have resulted in more preservation its unknown. However I suspect it would have been less than today as the railways would have at best only kept a couple of each steam class. Then preserved them for mainline tours and charters. The heritage railways may have struggled to find steam locomotives and may have had to look overseas for locomotives to restore instead.

 

[uglymonkey]

Ok, but does Beeching report still happen in this reality? If it doesn't how does that fit in? Fully manned "Victorian " branch and mainlines continue to the 1980's ? Would Marples and the motorways still occur? What about new technology for Steam, such as Leander?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Ok, but does Beeching report still happen in this reality? If it doesn't how does that fit in? Fully manned "Victorian " branch and mainlines continue to the 1980's ? Would Marples and the motorways still occur? What about new technology for Steam, such as Leander?

Good points. Given the post-war condition of Britain's railways, I think motorways and large-scale rationalisation of the railways, would have occurred anyway.

So Stanier had an ace up his sleeve, when he designed the Jubilee class! I suspect your post refers to Bulleid's over-designed Leader.

 

[uglymonkey]

Yes! My dyslexia kicking, sorry about that!

 

[matacaster]

Good points. Given the post-war condition of Britain's railways, I think motorways and large-scale rationalisation of the railways, would have occurred anyway.

So Stanier had an ace up his sleeve, when he designed the Jubilee class! I suspect your post refers to Bulleid's over-designed Leader.

I'd be interested to know if an oil-burning steam turbine loco would have resulted in steam lasting longer. The aircraft industry produced jet engines with very fine tolerances which I don't think the stanier turbomotive would have approached.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I'd be interested to know if an oil-burning steam turbine loco would have resulted in steam lasting longer. The aircraft industry produced jet engines with very fine tolerances which I don't think the stanier turbomotive would have approached.

I wonder how steam traction would have evolved if this had been a success:

LNER Encyclopedia: The Reid-MacLeod Steam Turbine Locomotive

Describes the Reid-MacLeod Steam Turbine Locomotive

www.lner.info

 

[70014IronDuke]

So from what I've heard, British Railways was planning to keep steam and slowly electrify until as late as the early 90s as the Standards were designed to work till then.

Lets say that actually happened, the A4s were withdrawn in the late 70s, The coronations in the mid 80s, the 9fs lasted till the end. Would more steam locos be preserved as they would be retired over a much longer period time? would they have been sent to barry?

Let's rather be realistic. Even with a more orderly transition away from steam, there is no way that A4s and Coronations would have continued on express passenger duties into the late 70s or beyond. With the exception of the Southern (using 3-cylinder pacifics up to electrification in 67) and a handful of ex-LMS Jubilees kept for summer extra passenger workings up to late 67, BR waged war on 3- and 4-cylinder locos with the delivery of the very first diesels, because of their high costs. The Kings, for example, which were all busy on January 1, 1962, were wiped out by the end of that year.

Had steam lasted longer, it would have been for goods and perhaps some summer extras, using simpler
2-cylinder locos like Black 5s and, just possibly, Britannias.

Engineers preferred steam though,

Maybe a few, until they got used to the warm, comfortable seat in a diesel cab.

there were literally crewmen that raced diesels in Royal Scots pushing them up to 100 mph.

I didn't know Mills and Bood did steam romance novels.

As far as I can find, there has only been one reliably recorded incident of a Royal Scot reaching 100 mph, and that was on the Midland, one Sunday, in 1959 (I think) with no other train in sight.

It is possible that on occasion at somewhere like Crewe a Royal Scot and a diesel could have started trains on parallel tracks and 'raced' for a mile or two, perhaps up to about 50 mph, but I don't think there was anywhere on BR suitable for racing on parallel tracks at speeds anywhere near 100 mph.

 

[ac6000cw]

Let's rather be realistic. Even with a more orderly transition away from steam, there is no way that A4s and Coronations would have continued on express passenger duties into the late 70s or beyond. With the exception of the Southern (using 3-cylinder pacifics up to electrification in 67) and a handful of ex-LMS Jubilees kept for summer extra passenger workings up to late 67, BR waged war on 3- and 4-cylinder locos with the delivery of the very first diesels, because of their high costs. The Kings, for example, which were all busy on January 1, 1962, were wiped out by the end of that year.

Had steam lasted longer, it would have been for goods and perhaps some summer extras, using simpler
2-cylinder locos like Black 5s and, just possibly, Britannias.

I agree.

As well as requiring a lot of labour-intensive servicing, even the best of British steam passenger power just wasn't powerful enough to provide car-competitive door-to-door journey timings once the motorway age arrived - more powerful electric or diesel trains were needed to provide high acceleration and sustained 100mph running. On secondary routes EMUs and DMUs eliminated the cost of the fireman and the loco run-arounds.

 

[6Gman]

Engineers preferred steam though, there were literally crewmen that raced diesels in Royal Scots pushing them up to 100 mph
And wouldn't importing oil to the UK be more expensive since they already had a surplus of coal

My father was a footplateman (we don't use the term engineer for locomotive drivers in the UK). Few drivers and even fewer firemen preferred steam. The minority who did attracted attention because they spoke to enthusiasts and were featured in the railway magazines. The vast majority of staff (and their wives!) couldn't wait to switch to cleaner diesel and electric locos.

 

[Spamcan81]

The economics of steam operation, even in the 1960s, were so bad, that the failed diesel locomotive programmes were almost certainly still cheaper than continuing with steam.

If any steam locomotives make it to 1975 the railway will almost certainly be dead as a result.

German steam made it to the mid 1970s and that most certainly didn’t kill of DB.

 

[InkyScrolls]

My father was a footplateman (we don't use the term engineer for locomotive drivers in the UK). Few drivers and even fewer firemen preferred steam. The minority who did attracted attention because they spoke to enthusiasts and were featured in the railway magazines. The vast majority of staff (and their wives!) couldn't wait to switch to cleaner diesel and electric locos.

While I'm not disagreeing with you (I'm quite sure you're correct!) I do know of one very loud exception - though in industry.

Wheldale Colliery, Yorks., continued using steam until 1982, when its final steam loco, Wheldale, was withdrawn. It lasted so long due to the refusal of one member of staff to drive the diesels - and as he was the manager's son he got his way! He retired in 1982 and Wheldale was given to him as a retirement gift; he took it to the fledgling Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway where it has resided ever since, and is currently in the process of overhaul. The driver in question is now in his nineties and still visits from time to time, having given up driving in 1998.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Sep 2023 ==

German steam made it to the mid 1970s and that most certainly didn’t kill off DB.

Indeed! There's some hyperbole going on in this thread.

 

[ac6000cw]

Britain had better steam for their loading gauge than America

So the American Norfolk & Western J-class 4-8-4 passenger locos, capable of over 5000hp at the drawbar and 110mph running, and their even more powerful Y6b heavy freight 2-8-8-2 Mallets capable of hauling 12,000+ tonne trains at 25mph on the level, were not great steam locos?

America had MUCH better diesels than Britain for their loading gauge

English Electric built the prototype 'Deltic' diesel in 1955, providing 3300hp in a 106 ton locomotive - in terms of power-to-weight ratio this was way ahead of anything from US builders at the time e.g. an EMD E9A unit provided 2400hp in a 143 tonne loco. If you compare say US EMD locos with British locos of similar production dates, the power outputs are similar e.g. a GP35 is around the same power and weight as a class 47.

 

[eldomtom2]

Let's rather be realistic. Even with a more orderly transition away from steam, there is no way that A4s and Coronations would have continued on express passenger duties into the late 70s or beyond. With the exception of the Southern (using 3-cylinder pacifics up to electrification in 67) and a handful of ex-LMS Jubilees kept for summer extra passenger workings up to late 67, BR waged war on 3- and 4-cylinder locos with the delivery of the very first diesels, because of their high costs. The Kings, for example, which were all busy on January 1, 1962, were wiped out by the end of that year.

Had steam lasted longer, it would have been for goods and perhaps some summer extras, using simpler
2-cylinder locos like Black 5s and, just possibly, Britannias.

That depends on why in this alternate reality steam continued. Your scenario assumes that dieselisation occurs on the same principles as it did in our reality, just somewhat slower. There are questions of electrification and route closures to consider.

 

[coppercapped]

German steam made it to the mid 1970s and that most certainly didn’t kill of DB.

I moved to Ulm in southern Germany in mid-1974. There was a handful, a half dozen or so, oil-fired 2-10-0s to be seen on freight haulage mainly working on the Schwäbische Eisenbahn's main line to Fredrichshafen as well as the line via Memmingen to Kempten.

They had all gone within a year.

By the way - DB couldn't have been killed off by poor economics - it was a fixed part of the German Federal State it's tasks fixed in the then valid version of the Grundgesetz - the Basic Law, i.e., the Constitution. Many of it's employees - such a footplate crew - were Civil Servants and were employed under all the laws relating to this status. (This was later changed during, IIRC, Helmut Schmidt's government).

 

[eldomtom2]

I moved to Ulm in southern Germany in mid-1974. There was a handful, a half dozen or so, of oil-fired 2-10-0s to be seen on freight haulage mainly working on the Schwäbische Eisenbahn's main line to Fredrichshafen as well as the line via Memmingen to Kempten.

They had all gone within a year.

Hardly different from Britain in 1968, then.

 

[HSTEd]

Hardly different from Britain in 1968, then.

Oil fired steamers are going to have a lot lower labour requirements than coal fired ones though.

(No messing around with ash and far reduced cleaning requirements etc)

 

[devon_belle]

When did the environmental lobby come in? Would there have been anti-steam protests in the 80s, or was that too early for such considerations?

 

[eldomtom2]

Oil fired steamers are going to have a lot lower labour requirements than coal fired ones though.

(No messing around with ash and far reduced cleaning requirements etc)

On the other hand using coal instead of oil was obviously a reason why steam locomotives stuck around in some situations. But looking at things in more detail, it turns out that both coal-fired and oil-fired steam lasted in West Germany until 1977, so the longer survival of steam there compared to Britain can't be placed on the use of oil-fired locomotives.

The vast majority of staff (and their wives!) couldn't wait to switch to cleaner diesel and electric locos.

They might have preferred diesel over steam in a vacuum, but in practice the transition was marked by controversies over such things like training and crew sizes.

 

[Helvellyn]

The recession of the very early.1980s would have killed off steam if it had lasted that long, and if not that sectorisation/withdrawal of steam heat a couple of years later.

The only way I would have seen steam going longer would have been if the Modernisation Plan committed to a rolling electricification plan, allowing diesels to be cascaded (assuming Class 1/2 services went over to diesel first).

 

[ac6000cw]

The thing is, Britain didn't test or experiment with their Diesels, they just ordered a crap ton and most were dogturd. They should have taken much more time to develop diesels.

Britain had companies in the 1950s with experience of designing and building decent diesel locos (mostly for export) - English Electric is the prime example, but there were a few others. Problem was that for political reasons builders with little or no experience were also given orders, and not surprisingly some of those didn't work out well...

The US builders had issues too - Baldwin (one-time biggest steam builder) never managed to produce a decent mainline diesel and consequently went out of the loco business, as did Lima. ALCo, after inventing the road-switcher concept (later copied by the others) then shot themselves in the foot by rushing the 244 series engine development post-WW2 and had major problems with it, badly tarnishing their reputation - the later 251 engine was good but by then it was too late really to save ALCo. Even the otherwise very successful EMD had issues with the earlier 567 series prime movers, then pushed the 645 too far in the SD50 and had reliability issues (as well as build quality issues with that loco) - and as for the BL2, the less said the better...

 

[uglymonkey]

If it lasted until the 80's, surely the miners strike would have finished it all off anyway.

 

[GatwickDepress]

Steam in the 90s. Regional Railways 4mt anyone?

Hitched up to Pacer carriages! A very lively journey, methinks.

 

[mike57]

I think the miners strikes in the 1970s would have killed steam off in this country, but I do think that a more measured approach to replacing steam would have resulted in less money being spent on diesel classes which turned out to be 'lemons'. Steam classes like 9Fs hanging on for a few more years. Just about everything that didnt need to go over 70mph hauled by class 20s in multiple if more power is needed. Mainline electrification more advanced. HSTs would have come in Diesel and electric flavours, same basic design. APT would still have been a dead end I think.

The trouble is that hindsight is 20/20 vision, I do think some of the decisions taken in the late 50s and 60s were questionable even at the time, but times were different.

 

[Threepea51]

When did the environmental lobby come in? Would there have been anti-steam protests in the 80s, or was that too early for such considerations?

Diesels pollute more lmao

 

[devon_belle]

Diesels pollute more lmao

I don't think it is that simple. The thermal efficiency of even modern steam traction is much lower than diesel. Coal also has a higher carbon content than diesel (a hydrocarbon). Diesel does, however, emit more NOx, a major player in smog. Photochemical reactions of NOx in the atmosphere eventually give rise to OH molecules that actually reduce the lifetime of potent greenhouse gases like methane. Burning coal produces less NOx, but more SO2, which as well as NOx produces acid rain and has negative impacts on immune and respiratory health (ask footplate crew which mode of traction they preferred). SO2 is not a greenhouse gas, as it produces atmosphere-cooling aerosols, but it is still a major pollutant.

However, is it not just a 1:1 exchange of steam for diesel. You replace multiple steam engines with one diesel, which can be turned off rather than needing to be fired constantly until being fully shut down. Plus, because the fuel efficiency is higher you require fewer support trains transporting fuel to depots. I'm not sure what the wider impact of coal mining vs diesel production are, but it would be worth consideration.

How many of these factors had been researched / were cared about in the past is an entire other question, though! Rail transport (in the UK) is a small part of the overall effect on the environment, although things are more complicated than just measuring carbon footprint.

 

[ac6000cw]

However, is it not just a 1:1 exchange of steam for diesel. You replace multiple steam engines with one diesel, which can be turned off rather than needing to be fired constantly until being fully shut down. Plus, because the fuel efficiency is higher you require fewer support trains transporting fuel to depots. I'm not sure what the wider impact of coal mining vs diesel production are, but it would be worth consideration.

How many of these factors had been researched / were cared about in the past is an entire other question, though!

Smog (mostly caused by the combustion products from burning coal combined with foggy weather) was an issue in e.g. London for centuries, culminating in the the 'Great Smog' in 1952 which lasted 4 days. Most of the coal was burnt for domestic heating and power generation in those days, but the railways were a contributor to the pollution (especially in the areas around major steam depots like Stratford).

From the Wikipedia article linked above (my bold):

According to the UK's Met Office, the following pollutants were emitted each day during the smoggy period: 1,000 tonnes of smoke particles, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid, 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds and 370 tonnes of sulphur dioxide which may have been converted to 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid.[3] The relatively large size of the water droplets in the London fog allowed for the production of sulphates without the acidity of the liquid rising high enough to stop the reaction, and for the resultant dilute acid to become concentrated when the fog was burned away by the sun.

The Great Smog resulted in UK legislation like the Clean Air Acts of 1954 and 1968 and encouraging/incentivising people to move away from burning coal for domestic heating.

Diesels pollute more lmao

I have to ask if you've ever been to a heritage railway steam gala or similar, and then had to wash the soot and cinders out of your hair and clothes afterwards?

It's good fun for a day out, but it's easy to understand why sitting in the warm, clean, cab of a diesel loco was rather more attractive to drivers than a draughty steam cab with coal dust blowing around.

 

[HSTEd]

Diesels pollute more lmao

They really really really don't.

Diesels look dirty today because they are not sitting next to a coal-fired steamer belching smoke into the sky.

 

[ac6000cw]

They really really really don't.

Diesels look dirty today because they are not sitting next to a coal-fired steamer belching smoke into the sky.

Modern diesels with particulate filters and computer controlled fuel injection systems often don't even produce much visible exhaust (other than heat haze).

When I first saw some GE 'Evolution' series diesels in the US I was surprised at how clean the exhaust looked - much cleaner than their 7FDL-engined predecessors.

Of course decades back diesels weren't quite so clean... ALCo 'clag' (or a Deltic) anyone?

 

[eldomtom2]

It's good fun for a day out, but it's easy to understand why sitting in the warm, clean, cab of a diesel loco was rather more attractive to drivers than a draughty steam cab with coal dust blowing around.

Maybe, but dieselisation came with a host of other issues and strings attached that meant that loco crews weren't unanimously eager to make the switch...