> I rode the TGV Sud-Est to Geneva back in 2000 when it was still in the
> original silver and orange livery. I had wanted to ride it since it was
> first placed in service, and I was not disappointed. Even so, I won't
> hesitate to ride behind steam.
There is a railroad here in Iowa that has a couple of relatively new
steam engines. They were imported in from China (QJ 2-10-2, numbers
6988 and 7081) and reconfigured for mainline use. Other than
experimentation and setting records, they are pretty much kept for
running specials with a nice long string of passenger cars. I think
they did set a modern day North-American record of a standard 100 or
200 car string in a scheduled run. In a pinch, they could be slipped
into production use, but that would be highly unlikely.
Remarkably powerful (around 3000 hp each) and efficient, but the
maintenance costs on them proved prohibitive. They are kept indoors
and are well maintained and they let them out to play once in a while.
But if I recall correctly, for every hour of operation requires ten
hours of maintenance. It's almost the same as a helicopter in this
regard. After the initial bit of experimentation and base-line
testing, the railroad went out and bought some new ES44AC locomotives.
I work in the town where they are kept, but live in a town along the
BNSF. The QJ 2-10-2 wouldn't even be able hit the minimum speed. BNSF
runs the southern Iowa mainline at a pretty quick pace with two pull,
one push ES44AC engines. As Amtrack also runs on this line, it's a
pretty smooth and fast route.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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