My wife forwarded me a very interesting article earlier this week about a brand new steam engine entering service in England. All Class A1 Peppercorn locomotives were scrapped last century, but steam enthusiasts funded and built a new one.YahooUK reports:
Passengers cheered and waved as the steam filled the roof of the station…
John Warren, one of the first people to step off the train, said the engine was “absolutely phenomenal” and that more steam trains should be running on our tracks…
The train, which is expected to become “as legendary as the Flying Scotsman and Mallard”, can reach a top speed of 100mph and will enter traffic on the nation’s main line network on April 18.
The Low-Tech Times fully agrees that more steam trains should be running. Unfortunately in the U.S., the volume of steam excursions has decreased in recent years. The litigious American society and court system have driven up insurance costs to the point where many excursion operators cannot afford to continue. It is a very sad state of affairs. Perhaps one day, the pendulum will swing the other way and some sort of sensible tort reform measures will pass.
See Also: The Return of Steam?
2 Comments
Having a few steam trains is fine but a return to more general use of them raises serious questions about pollution in the short term and fossil fuel use (and related issues of global warming) in the longer term.
Neither the article nor the website of the group that built the engine say a single word about either topic even though the boiler is coal-fired.
As a general rule, lo-tech is good. But lo-tech that simply substitutes one set (of potentially more serious) problems for another is not.
LarryE, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I know others are thinking about the environment as well. The Mount Washington Cog Railway recently converted one of their steam engines (#9) to burn bio-diesel instead of coal.
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