BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVES |
17 |
|
from 1 to 41 years of age. Curve A is merely a placing on the same basis of the Diesel locomotive maintenance cost reported by the A. R. A. Committee on Locomotive Construction. Each of them is the cost of maintenance per hour of a 100-ton locomotive. You notice that a new steam locomotive and a new Diesel locomotive start off at about the same point, a new Diesel a little bit lower. But by the time the Diesel is 7 years old its cost of maintenance is nearly double that of a 7-year-old steam locomotive, and if you projected curve A out to 17 or 19 years, the indicated cost would be far more than double that of steam.
At this point I wish to be particularly plain. I want you to understand that I am not claiming that the maintenance cost of Diesel locomotives will be a constant repetition of the curve A which you saw on that slide. It is easy to believe that in this relatively small experience of Diesel locomotives, there has been a lot of stuff that will not be reproduced in future years. But I also wish to point out with equal clearness that no one can predict with any certainty as to what the maintenance cost of a Diesel locomotive may be over a life of 20 or 25 years. And I do wish to say unequivocally that there is not one scintilla of evidence to justify the claim that a Diesel locomotive of equal weight on drivers can be maintained at a cost as low as that of a steam locomotive of the same age after the first year or so. Everything points to the probability of a substantially higher maintenance cost for Diesel locomotives than for equivalent steam locomotives of the same age. The only thing nobody knows is how much higher. Anybody buying Diesel locomotives today and counting upon a substantial saving in maintenance cost to justify the greater investment had better take a hedge at the earliest possible moment.
It is easy to see how this impression has been brought about, however, and I wish to make |
it plain that I do not believe this misrepresentation is intentional. Manufacturers, eager to sell this new type of locomotive, made studies of existing operations. On many of these operations they found obsolete steam locomotives 25 to 30—and I have even seen them 40— years old. Some of these manufacturers were not aware of the fact that maintenance costs rise rapidly with age. All that they saw was that in the first year of the operation of a new Diesel locomotive they could make a substantial saving over the sums that had been spent in maintaining obsolete steam locomotives. And so they claimed for the Diesel locomotive a saving in operating cost which arose— not out of the Diesel itself—but out of the substitution of a new for an old locomotive. And so I suggest to you that whenever you set out to study the economy of installing Diesels, the greatest safeguard that you can have is to first set up what modern properly designed steam power will do in that operation. If then the Diesel still indicates substantial savings, and those savings would pay a higher return upon the larger investment in the Diesel, then you have a case for Diesel application.
Another claim made for the Diesel locomotive is its presumed high availability. It is claimed that it may be kept available for service 80 or 85 per cent of the working time of the year. This intensity of use is used to reduce the cost per hour by spreading the constant costs over as many hours of work as possible. This is entirely legitimate; and the Diesel locomotive, in the main, has shown a high availability for service. But here again I wish to point out that the chief drawback to a much more intensified use of steam is frequently in the minds of the men who use them and not in the locomotives. Every man in this room can remember the time when division points in the United States were about 100 miles apart, |