Trains and steam in twilight

[LT. Ox]

The start of this thread is about Rail traffic.
During the self-imposed oil shortage (my belief) of the early ’70s some serious research was given to reintroducing steam power using coal fuels. Both the Southern Pacific and the (then) Denver and Rio Grande had serious need of heavy hauling power due to the mountain grades.
Both also had a very few old steam engines available, the engines had mostly been converted to oil burners but the change back to coal did not present a problem either mechanically or financially.

The best fuel source, using coal) had been injected coal slurry. Once a hot enough fire had been achieved in the firebox by solid coal then a mix of powdered coal and water was injected over the fire.

My understanding is that the project had not met any obstacles that would have derailed it (pun intended) until the fact that sufficient mechanics to maintain the equipment were going to have to be trained and there were no longer any engineers to run the things.

In our game however petro fuels and the ability to resume production of them in sufficient quantities is trump. Another way to get bulk and quantity transport of goods is steam power.
Starting with the rail fan stuff and the railroad museum restorable engines and some bright boys with machine shops, well a game idea or at least a thought.
I have lived in both California and have seen the Sacramento Rail museum and the SP engines that still run for excursion as well as Colorado and the many restored and operable engines here. I presume that the east and south have much the same or even more.
Have fun telling me your thoughts

[Adm.Lee]

As a railfan, I applaud any such topic. I think we've dealt with this before? EDIT: now I see the early thread on this very page!

Something to keep in mind is that steam power requires a lot of maintenance-- locomotives incur significant downtime between runs. You will need a skilled staff of "rounders" (roundhouse/engeinhouse workers) at each end of the line.

Clean water, coal (wood), and a clear track are also important. Clean sand, if the line is hilly.

Bulk cargoes are rail's most efficient, so a coal mine is probably the first thing that would want to open a line, in T2k's setting, a track to a city's power station is probably the first thing to open.

[LT. Ox]

Woot!!! Thanks for doing my research! Great info and thank you one more time.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Something else to consider is that steam engines can run on liquid biofuels (e.g. ethanol) with far fewer problems than internal combustion engines running on the same fuel.
Now this won't help you much when you're trying to keep your truck or MICV running but for something like a large boat, stationary engines, bulldozers, farm tractors and the like, installing a steam engine and running it on ethanol may be a viable solution for the long term. The principles for this have been known and in use for some time with such things as miniature & model steam engines that burn white spirit/turpentine, kerosene and such like to heat their boilers.

There are also steam locomotives that use liquid fuels but they typically used heavy oils to fire the boiler, as I understand it (and my understanding is pretty limited), these steam locos could run on ethanol but it would require a complete remodelling of the combustion chamber. In the original design, the oil fuel was atomized and the resultant mist was then ignited to heat the boiler. Conversion to a liquid fuel like ethanol would require the oil pan be replaced with burners or such like.
As mentioned, I actually know very little about this in regards to steam locos so any of the steam enthusiast here, please feel free to jump in and fix up anything I got wrong!

[Raellus]

Looks like an M18 Hellcat turret on this one (from the Yugoslav Wars). Edit: Actually, it looks like the whole Hellcat (or hull too, at least).

[Raellus]

Looks like a 40mm Bofors clone on this one (?) and what appear to be two AT-3 Sagger launchers on the roof of the car furthest from the cameraperson.

[Raellus]

A little more research led me to the name of the armored train featured in the last couple of photos I posted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krajina_Express

And another pic for good measure.

From the various photos I've found- all of which appear to be of the same armored train- it looks like this bad-boy was armed with at least:

A 76mm AT gun (in an M-18 Hellcat turret)
Dual aerial rocket launchers
A Bofors-type 40mm AA gun
An Browning M2HB HMG
A quad-mounted HMG of some sort (possibly a ZPU-4)
Two AT-3 Sagger ATGMs