Steam regulation

We made fun last issue of a USDOT press release on new safety rules issued for steam locomotives. This was a mistake. Steam is clearly the way of the future for US passenger railroads. The charm of steam attracts paying riders – a real nostalgia market out there that diesel can’t cater to. But steam needs to be safe. A subscriber tells us some “bumpkins on a tourist-hauling road in Gettysburg PA, managed to blow one loco up (a year or so back). The engine had a modern progressive-failure design that avoided the usual steaming-crater result of a steam boiler explosion, and all that happened was the guilty owner-operator got parboiled.”

My correspondent, a keen tollroadsman too, is also a volunteer director of a steam locomotive museum. He says steam rail afficionados feared a draconian federal crackdown, but the result was a sensible negotiated overhaul of rules untouched since 1930. He comments: “The lesson in all this: USDOT press agents don’t miss a chance to issue a glowing press release announcing that safety (and not transportation) is their first concern.”