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Steam News

   updated September 1, 2009

Current Headlines:

Brief Steam Return to the Grand Canyon Railway

British Steam Car Challenge Sets New Land Speed Record

Steam 2008 update

See the Steam News Archive for older news stories.
 

Brief Steam Return to the Grand Canyon Railway

After the new owners stopped all steam operations last year, they have announced a special commemorative steam trip to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the railway's rebirth on 19 September 2009.  2-8-2 no. 4960, previously modernized extensively under Nigel Day's direction will be returning to steam.  Fuel for this run will be recycled vegetable oil. 

More information at the railway's website at:  http://www.thetrain.com/Steam-Event-7275.html

British Steam Car Challenge Sets New Land Speed Record

While not locomotive-related, I'm sure this story is of interest to most steam enthusiasts.  From a team press release:

Edward’s Air Force Base, California: Wednesday August 26th 2009:

Yesterday at 8.22am (California time) Don Wales successfully set another land speed record for a steam powered car.  The car set the record for a measured kilometre – achieving an average speed of 148.308mph on two runs. 

After Charles Burnett III’s heroics on Tuesday in breaking the record for a measured mile, test driver Don Wales piloted the car for the attempt at the kilometre record and reached a peak speed over 155mph. Both new international records are subject to official confirmation by the FIA.

Don Wales said: "What a great feeling, the car felt better than ever today. We peaked over 150mph and the car was handling beautifully. The team has worked so hard over the last 10 years, especially over the last few weeks! Having set two FIA world records is an amazing achievement and no-more than the team deserve after their perseverance”

Project Manager Matt Candy said: "It’s fantastic to set another record for the team and all that hard work has been worth it. After Charles broke the record for the measured mile on Tuesday, we decided to have one more run with the car and attempt the kilometre record. We took some of the inhibitors from the boilers for this run and it helped get a bit more speed out of the car. The weather was perfect today and the air temperature was just 62 degrees Fahrenheit, the team turned around the car in an amazing 30minutes which is their quickest ever! Don has worked so hard with the team, it’s fantastic that he should go home with a record too.”

More info on the project's website here:  http://www.steamcar.co.uk/

Steam 2008 Update

I'm afraid I was pretty lax in updating this page in 2008; hopefully I'll do better this year.  2008 was a year of a few ups and mostly downs for steam power world-wide. 

Probably the most positive news of the year was the successful completion of "Tornado" in the UK, a new, full-size, mainline 4-6-2 of the A1 class.  Tornado has made several successful trips across England and was recently officially named by Prince Charles.

Most U.S. steam news has not been very good.  The Mt. Washington Cog Railway placed a new diesel-hydraulic locomotive into service and evidently has several others under construction. It seems steam will soon be relegated to only occasional operation for special occasions.  As detailed elsewhere in these pages, Nigel Day had done significant modernization of one of their locomotives, and successfully converted it to oil firing. 

Again in the U.S., the Grand Canyon Railway was taken over by new management (Xanterra Corporation) who soon decided that steam locomotives were incompatible with their desire to maintain a corporate "green" image.  Locomotives 4960 and 29, both of which had been extensively modernized, have been parked.  These locomotives had been fitted with Lempor exhausts and new oil-firing systems designed by Nigel Day.  More recently, Chinese copies of Worthington "SA" type feedwater heaters had been fitted.   Further improvements were planned.  It's a shame that one of the biggest steam modernization success stories has been side-lined.

The world-wide spike in oil prices in 2008 had one positive effet.  Rumor had it that at least a couple of groups were again looking at new coal-fired locomotives.  I'd imagine interest has once again waned with current prices less than half of what they were in October 2008.

Steam seems to be still holding on in Zimbabwe.  A report on a steam tour trip here: http://www.farrail.net/, states operations were extremely marginal in 2008, with coal shortages, water shortages, sporadic electrical power, among other problems.  However, working steam still continues in Bulawayo and elsewhere.  Steam operations continue to wind down in China, but from all indications there are still a few places where real working steam can be found.

The world-wide financial crisis probably spells hard times for steam tourist operations, but it has had the favorable impact of reducing steel scrap prices which hopefully slow efforts to scrap out-of-service steam in China, South Africa, and elsewhere.

I'm hoping for some positive steam developments to report in 2009.  Stay tuned for more regular updates.

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