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Reply to "NYC Niagara equal to a diesel?"

@Hot Water posted:

specially treated boiler water (with the VERY extensive Water Service Dept. employees), and massive quantities of fuel.

Numbers for the Milwaukee Road

"....a Diesel-electric uses considerably more lubricant that a steam locomotive, generally equivalent to about 10% of the cost of diesel fuel itself. By 1950, the cost of lubricants for road motive power had risen to $625,090. In figures I've compared over the period of dieselization, it was generally a wash; whatever was saved in "water" costs was lost to the higher cost of lubricants used.

Did the cost of water include the cost of water treatments and the tanks?

"Water" included the costs of treatment. The maintenance of "water stations" was a separate operating expense not attributable entirely, however, to Steam engines. In 1950, maintenance cost of such facilities was approximately $24,000 annually; by 1961 -- five years after the end of steam operations -- maintenance of such facilities was still costing nearly $11,000 annually.

The cost of water in 1961 for road locomotives was still $71,000 compared to the cost of lubricants used in 1961 which was nearly $700,000 even though traffic was down considerably compared to 1950 levels, that cost exceeding the 1950 cost of water at $647,000." -Operating Costs Comparison: Steam, Diesel and Electric Michael Sol

Last edited by P&Sfan

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