Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "1948: New LOCOMOTIVE TESTING Facility | Newsreel | Retro Transport | BBC Archive" video.

  1. "our international reputation will grow ....." Not with the obsolete technology of steam, hopelessly fuel inefficient and maintenance intensive compared to diesel it won't.
    4
  2. The steam part is not so bad, just very inefficient, but burning coal is the worst thing environmentally there is. More importantly from a railroad point of view is that steam locos are very labour intensive - burning coal is very dirty and steam locos needed more hours having their internals cleaned by teams of men than they spend hauling passengers or freight. Until the development of diesel electric locos, most railway companies, especially government owned ones, designed their locos in-house and either built them in-house or contracted the construction out. They could do that because steam technology is simple to engineer. Diesel engine design is highly specialised, and only major manufacturers could handle it. This led railways to hang on to steam because their in-house engineers could handle it. And if those engineers were honest, and told management to buy diesel, they would loose their jobs.
    2
  3. What exactly does this expensive-looking setup do that a conventional dyno and instrument car won't do?
    2