Steam & Excursion > Space question..

Wasn't sure how to word the title, but in my TV watching yesterday, I believe the Science channel was discussing solar flares and the impact such a magnetic flare would have upon our infrastructure. I flipped the channel to see something about North Korea and their nuke ambitions. The common denominator being a loss of everything electrically operated. An individual on the program was saying such an attack or incident would send us back to the stone age in an instant, freezing computers airlines, and shipping. The whole time I was thinking to myself, the railroads are impervious to such attacks as steam is an option.

So, say such an event were to occur. How would the railroads react? What would be done? I'm guessing steam would make a dramatic comeback, but how would that happen? Just for important must have trains? How many steam engines could be pressed into service if such an incident would occur and how long would it take to repair the current locomotive fleet?

I image it would take electricity to build, restore, or repair any steam locomotives that aren't already ready to light off. Even if you could cobble together some kind of steam locomotive contraption out of whatever is laying around you'd have to reinvent a lot of metalworking to get a boiler and moving parts to work without modern production machinery. Some tourist lines might be good to go, and maybe 5 mainline engines for all of north America. Plus, youd be limited to whatever fuel was within walking distance.
As for diesels, I dunno.

Posted from Android



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/16 12:41 by A-1.

And as we speak, several superpowers are working real hard on EMP 'bombs'.  Might even have them by now.  Of course the Sun is the biggest, hope it never goes off!

Ed

Only 5? There must be more. Bnsf has the 3751, up has 2 or 3,one of which is a big boy. I think the biggest step back wouldn't be just in the power, but also in the dispatching involved. How would an EMP affect signals or switch machines, defect detectors? And how would the railroads prioritize freight to be moved or passenger trains? How many operational steam engines are available from standard gage railroads such as AS&V which never make mainline runs but could be placed into such service?

A nuclear device going off over any major city would be enough to cause serious problems.  Cities like Jacksonville, Atlanta, Chicago, Cheyenne, Los Angeles, Denver, Fort Worth, New York, or Washington (well, maybe not Washington,) any one of them could cause some real problems, and not just for the railroads.

In the time it would take to get some of the stuffed and mounted locomotives up and running, they could probably get some of the Diesels operating.  A hand full of operating condition locomotives could be pressed into service but there are other problems.  No signals.  Of  course, there probably wouldn't be any conflicting traffic and there would be very little highway traffic at the crossings.  Communications problems; If you send a train out, who you going to tell about it.  Who can communicate their needs and supplies.  Servicing the trains would be a problem.  We don't have any steam pumps to pump water to water the engine or anything other than human power to refuel them.  About the only thing I can think of on a steam locomotive that could be a problem would be the lighting systems.  A pulse could blow the filaments of every bulb on the locomotive.  That wouldn't stop it from running but it would make thing harder at night.

I have to admit, you present an interesting question.

John

Orient Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Only 5? There must be more. Bnsf has the 3751, up
> has 2 or 3,one of which is a big boy. I think the
> biggest step back wouldn't be just in the power,
> but also in the dispatching involved. How would an
> EMP affect signals or switch machines, defect
> detectors? And how would the railroads prioritize
> freight to be moved or passenger trains? How many
> operational steam engines are available from
> standard gage railroads such as AS&V which never
> make mainline runs but could be placed into such
> service?

I just counted the ones that could go fast with a good load...3751, 4449, 261, 765, 611. I don't know much about midize engines like 4-6-2's, QJs, and mikados that are at the ready but I suppose they count as well. Any way, there's not enough operable steam to make much of a difference if the electrical grid was snuffed out. I imagine it would be the meat horses rather than iron horses that would make the dramatic comeback if such an event occurred.

Posted from Android

The Discovery Group (owners of the Science Channel) are long on FUD and short on fact. First what is Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP)? It is an intense pulse of magnetic field.  The effects of the EMP is the generation of electrical current in conductors.  We are all familiar with how a generator moves the coils of the armature though a stationary magnetic field to generate electricity.  The EMP flips the process.  The magnetic field moves in relation to conductors as it propagates away from it's source.  Greater currents are generated in conductors that are at right angles to the EMP field, and much smaller currents are generated in conductors at parallel to the field.  Voltages generated are dependent on the strength of the EMP at the point of measurement.  Voltages are much stronger close to the source, less strong (but still potentially quite significant) further from the source. 

The gloom and doom folks assume that the electrical grid with it's long transmission grids will form significant current's and voltages that will overwhelm the grid and load center circuit breakers and deliver those excessive voltages and currents to the electrical loads.  The potentially huge electrical voltages and currents will be sufficiently large to weld the breaker contacts together so fast as to prevent them from opening and stopping current flow.  Of note, the rails of the railroad will also develop significant voltages and currents if they are at right angles to the EMP. 

But there are significant mitigation factors.  The largest factor is "spherical spreading."  The reduction in the EMP is equal to 1/r where "r" is the distance from the source.  So if we are measuring the EMP from a nuclear detonation, if the EMP is measured at one mile and again at ten miles, the measurement at ten miles is one tenth that of the measurement at one mile.  At 100 miles, the measurement would be 1/100th of of the one mile measurement.  Based on the strength of the original EMP, the induced currents would become manageable by the grid circuit breakers within tens of miles or at worst, hundreds of miles form the source. 

Another factor of mitigation is that anything not attached to the grid will not be exposed to huge voltages/currents depending on strength and distance from the point of origin.  Your land line phone may explode from over current from it's wire grid but your cell phone will be completely unaffected. Not to connected to the grid includes equipment protected by an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), the UPS might get fried, but the protected equipment will be unaffected.  Also, electrical equipment not connected to the grid and contained within a metal cabinet will be protected to a greater or lesser extent from the EMP.  The cabinet will be a primitive form of "Faraday Box" and the EMP will not affect the contents of the box depending on how good of a Faraday Box the cabinet emulates.   

So the EMP from a weapon would probably have great regional effects, but those effect would fall off rapidly the further away from the point of detonation the equipment is located.  A solar flare of huge strength source could be much more damaging because it's effects would uniform across the daylight side of the earth, spherical spreading is almost nil.  But the iron core of the planet would protect the night side of the planet from much of the solar flare's effects.  How likely is a super flare to occur.  Hard to tell, but probably less likely than the super volcano under Yellowstone erupting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/16 04:07 by SR-RL_Nr_10.

SR-RL_Nr_10 ---
Thank you very very much for the calm and very
informative reply.  It is essential to hear the facts
(Note:!! IANAE) from someone who seems to
be a real expert on these things.  Such a relief,
after all the media hype.  And I learned a while ago
that even the best of the shows on cable tV are
usually very short on facts, because facts are rarely
the super-dramatic and super-exciting things that
will drive up ratings to very high levels and thereby
make lots of money for advertisers.

To all ---
Re: using steam locomotives after a giant CME:
This will not be able to work, because the entire
infrastructure that supported them is gone, never
to return.  And that infrastructure, as others have
pointed out, was heavily dependent on electricity.
And, as others have pointed out, there are far too
few steam locomotives left to be of any real help
at all.  And, also, as others have noted, all modern
communicatiion depends on the electric grid.

Soooo -- use steam locomotives?  Not gonna happen.
'



 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/16 23:20 by Margaret_SP_fan.

Modern diesels with microprocessors and especially AC traction might be affected.  Older models with simpler circuitry, especially if it's just relays and contactors, less so.  Steam would not play any significant role in any recovery.

"The reduction in the EMP is equal to 1/r where "r" is the distance from the source.  So if we are measuring the EMP from a nuclear detonation, if the EMP is measured at one mile and again at ten miles, the measurement at ten miles is one tenth that of the measurement at one mile.  At 100 miles, the measurement would be 1/100th of of the one mile measurement."

Are you sure about this? The surface area of a sphere is a function of r squared, so at 10 miles EMP strength would be 1/100th of what it is at 1 mile. The energy spreads out in a spherical pattern from the point of burst.

Paul Guercio
Houston