You are right about the points you make, but I'm suggesting that steam could have survived at least a decade longer than it did. There is no way to deny that diesel is better in so many points, and truly safer than a steam engine.

I just finished reading a book on paddlewheelers in the Kootenays. There were so many boiler explosions that many people that rode them acted like it was their last hours. There is no way that boats like those would ever be produced in any quantity today, and fully sure that the same goes for a steam locomotive (for the sheer safety values).

We are more environmentally conscience today, and even more compared to sixty years ago when the transition was well underway. We have turned the corner in the last decade when it comes to being "green", and I know for a fact that steam will never make a comeback. It's also true that diesel would have eventually replaced steam, but I'm not sure if the transtion was a little hasty or earlier than neccissary.......

Other advancements in diesel technology would be the final blow to steam, but these things didn't yet have a stranglehold on the industry at that time.

"Super" environmental and safety req's, like what we see today have no relevance to diesel transition of the 1950's. if they even tried to makea fuel-cell, hybrid, tier III thing-a-ma-jig, they would be sent to the looney bin before a prototype could be made. And heaven forbid that it didn't smoke........

almo