E Wrote:
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> If the claims about steam, vs. diesel costs are
> true, then someone needs to provide some
> fact-based explanations.
>
> 1. Explain how a railroad with 1,500+ steam
> locomotives could dieselize with 600 units while
> ton-miles grew, yet steam was/is cheaper.

Which railroad? Also, take into context the loss of branch lines, the loss of short haul traffic to trucks, the types of locomotives being compared (yard vs road, older steam vs new diesels, etc). I'd be interested in your "fact based" explanation for the 50% drop in ROI following dieselization "while ton-miles grew."
>
> 2. Explain how a railroad with over 25,000 people
> in shops and roundhouses (e.g. boilermakers,
> meachinists, pipefitters, helpers, appretices,
> firebuilders, fire knockers, etc.) to maintain,
> repair, service and overhaul/rebuild 1,500 steam
> locomotives now manages to maintain almost 8,000
> diesels with 2,500 people. And no, contracting
> out is not involved. Explain how that's cheaper.

Bullocks. That's the beauty of standardization - you can send a bad part back to the manufacturer for a new part. Most diesel builders enabled standardization while most steam locos were built in a custom fashion, yet standardization could just as easily been applied to steam locomotives. The fact is most steam loco parts were crafted in railroad-owned shops, while the diesel parts came from the factory. That my friend is, for all intents and purposes, contracting out.
>
> 3. Explain how 10 heavy backshops, 35
> running-repair shops, and dozens of roundhouses
> (not to mention the machinery in them) plus
> hundreds of coal chutes, water tanks, water plugs,
> water treatment plants, pipelines, ash pits, coal
> and ash handling systems, etc. are cheaper than 1
> backshop, 5 running repair shops, and a dozen
> fueling facilities.

Again, you're stuck in a time warp. The fact is that industrial society was changing from labor intensive to automation. Steam just happened to be ensconced in the former, while GM diesels were born in the latter thanks to the auto industry evolving faster than the railroad industry. BTW, did you know that most EPA Superfund sites are due to spillage of diesel fuel? You can spill coal and nothing bad happens to the environment. This is just another case of the railroads "contracting out" an internal problem to the public at large.
>
> 4. Explain how diesels could go 500,000 miles
> between overhauls, while steam engines did very
> well to go 100,000 miles between overhauls and how
> steam is cheaper.

This is just an anecdotal rant unsubstantiated by facts. The numbers I saw showed that Milwaukee road 4-8-4's ran twice as long between shoppings as today's BNSF diesels. Of course, it's a lot easier for diesel believers to compare 40 year old steamers to the new diesels as was done back in the 1950's. The funny thing is, when the more modern steam was used as the comparison, steam won out easily in the run time statistics.
>
> I'm not buying those arguments, most of which have
> been thoroughly discredited time and time again

Try reading the H.F. Brown study before going any further, because I'm not going to waste any more of my time with you.