Off on the Right Track...

Over the course of the next few weeks, this blog will attempt to evaluate steam and Diesel locomotive power on American railroads, with the aim to determine that Diesel power has distinct economic advantages. This blog will be the site of the development of an excel computer model to calculate operating costs of Diesel and steam locomotives. If all goes at planned, the model will be used to empirically demonstrate the superiority of Diesel locomotion.

The first construction work on the model can be seen at the link:
http://www.4shared.com/dir/5878411/bcf7dabd/sharing.html
A version in both word 2003 and word 2007 formats has been uploaded.

The "model"....although it is just lists of data right now.... contains two sets of data. The first set of data shows the numbers of steam and diesel locomotives held in total by American railroads every year during the transition from steam to diesel power. All data was drawn from a paper by HF Brown written in 1961.

The second set displays the average operating ratio of locomotives during the same transition period. Operating ratio for a certain expense of a locomotive is defined as [cost of a certain expense generated by the engine]/[total revenue generated by engine].

Between the two sets of data, the correlation is striking, between the appearance of diesels, and the decrease in operating ratio for the average locomotive. These two data sets alone may prove Diesel locomotives to be more efficient than steam. This efficiency was a major reason why the Diesel locomotive was chosen to replace steam on American railroads.

One last thing about the model, above each set of data, there exists an input. A year may be entered into the box that appears appropriate, and the corresponding values for that year will appear in the same row.

If you view the spreadsheet model as it is now, please comment and give some feedback! Let me know if I'm on the right track! ...pun totally intended.

Thanks!
PF