The Golden Age of Steam Trains Part: 01

This is one of the best train videos I have ever seen. They have a lot of footage of the history of steam trains from popular freight locomotives to streamlined steam locomotives. The narration is neat, and it is rather poetic throughout most of the video. The music composition is wonderful. The video quality may not be very good, because this was originally an old VHS with older video quality.
This part of the video talks about how a steam engine works and about the early age of railroads.

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Science & Technology

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[KH990j]

@GoneWithTheTobacco moonshine a term for bootleg alcohol (making booze in the light of the moon). Ethanol and biodiesel are refined for the use in engines rather than for beverage. They can put out more power than petrol fuel (hence why alcohol is used in Nascar) but you can expect fuel economy to go down and prices up along with food and anything that goes with that food and feed to go up.

[KH990j]

@GoneWithTheTobacco I'm not too concerned about woodgas, I'm refering to biodiesel which is something a bit different. It is possible to operate an engine off of 100% bd. Animal fats, vegetable oils, used cooking oil can be used to operate diesel engines and bd does have its own lubrication. I just don't like bd mainly because of food prices would go up and there is still plenty of untapped petroleum because of "enviornmental reasons" by activists.

[GoneWithTheTobacco]

@KH990j Unfortunatley with Diesel, woodgas requires a small constant supply of diesel fuel to keep it burning that gas, and with coal gas, well thats a huge undertaking, so yeah either steam fed by coal or electric fed by distributed solar or wind generating plants would probably be best i reckon.

[GoneWithTheTobacco]

@KH990j I would guess also that you could also power a diesel locomotive from woodgas, would probably require a woodgas oven though about as big as texas, but might be possible to run those diesel locomotives off coal gas.

[GoneWithTheTobacco]

@KH990j true enough, electric is pretty good when compared to the infrastructure required to run a steam engine but then again you also need electricity and the associated infrastructure to supply electricity too. maybe moonshine stills can produce a fuel that burns in diesel locomotives? dunno i'm not an expert :P

[KH990j]

@GoneWithTheTobacco truthfully, I prefer full out electric locomotives when it comes to economy. You have a couple really powerful generators that power a vast array of locomotives, except the whole idea is expensive in initial costs. If only they didn't get rid of the vast pantograph systems throughout the northeast and Milwaukee rail network.

[KH990j]

@GoneWithTheTobacco Distilled water is not free though and all the testing equipment that comes with it so you're paying for two fuels. Wood is obsolete, it doesn't burn hot enough to make a very powerful steam engine and it's dangerous with its spark problem. Diesels can operate off of biodiesel (which I'm not a fan of) which is renewable because of corn and soy. You still need oil to lubricate the bearings which tends to come out of the system many times.

[GoneWithTheTobacco]

@KH990j How about this reason, they run on a renewable resource (water + wood) and a resource thats pretty much finite, coal.

You never know we might need steam trains again to rebuild america after this coming collapse.

[PREZILLA2009]

These Steamn engines are my FAVORITE!!!!!!

[KH990j]

@Justin5637

1. They do look awesome

2: Yeah, right, since when has a steam locomotive ever produced less pollution. That stuff that comes out of the smoke stack, I'm not sure if you know this, but it's a bit more plentiful on a steam engine, just saying.

3. In the 1950s steam locos were more powerful, now we have diesels that put out 4,400+hp with AC traction motors that can craw up a mountain at full power and not lose traction, try that on a steam engine.