BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVES |
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operation and the water supply for at least an eight-hour trick. And, of course, where saddle tanks would not be sufficient for oil and water, recourse would be had to a tender; and if you agree with us we might put the tender in front of the locomotive instead of behind it.
In short, with no ashes to dump, no coal chute to go under, no driving boxes to adjust, we figure that this steam locomotive has just as high availability as any internal combustion locomotive; is just as readily operated by one man; and has at least double the thermal efficiency of the conventional coal-fired steam switcher.
Slide No. 5 shows the tractive force curve of this little switcher compared with a 300-horse-power, a 480-horsepower, and a 600-horse-power Diesel locomotive. You will note that it crosses a 480-horsepower Diesel locomotive at about 5 miles an hour, and at 10 miles an hour it can do about 15 per cent more work. We are laying this out in other locomotive sizes up to
 for a Small Steam Switching Locomotive and Three Sizes of Diesel-Electrics |
51,000 Ibs. of tractive force. If you will line up on the right after the meeting is over I will be glad to take your orders at 50 cents on the dollar for the equivalent, at 5 miles an hour, of any of your Diesel requirements.
Now, lastly, a word on how to judge the best investment in a locomotive. Is it by the largest indicated gross savings? I have in front of me a report on a certain terminal operation indicating that a fleet of automatic oil-fired switchers such as I have shown you would save, in a period of 20 years, about $4,400,000. A fleet of Diesels in the same operation would indicate a saving of about $5,200,000 during the same period. But the investment required to achieve $4,400,000 worth of savings is only about half that to achieve the indicated $5,-200,000 worth of savings. For every dollar invested in automatic oil-fired steam locomotives of the type I just showed you on the screen, the return on the investment would be approximately 25 per cent, whereas the larger gross savings on the larger investment in the Diesels would return only about 14.5 per cent on their cost. Bearing in mind the uncertainty with regard to Diesel fuel and maintenance costs in the future, which is the better investment? So now let me summarize what I have been trying to say to you. It is in effect that there is danger in the ideas which are being put into the public mind today, because they are tending to establish a false scale of values. This is dangerous to the railroads because the false impressions of today will become the demands of tomorrow, coupled with arequire-ment .of capital investment on which our railroads will not earn a return. Diesel motive power and high speeds in passenger service are not synonymous. On the contrary, Diesel power can attain high speeds only by imposing rigid mechanical limitations on |