[ElevenLathe]

How viable is it to build (or retrofit) "heritage" steam locomotives with electric boilers? I assume it would be very difficult to run off battery, but maybe draw from the catenary on electrified lines? I know it's not /quite/ the same but I'm curious if this is a road things might go down.

[mocko]

Given the amounts of energy involved and (terrible) thermal efficiency of steam traction it would be impractical. You could short the 25kV overhead wires on an electrified route straight to the boiler and I doubt even that would make sufficient steam to get an express up to speed.

A more practical option would be oil firing, which was tried in the days of steam and found to work, but didn't save enough money to be worth the effort in a country that still had an efficient supply chain for coal. It could be done again now and would doubtless work, but wouldn't smell or look quite the same. Better than nothing I suppose and if coal really does become unavailable, that's what heritage operations will have to do.

[hakfoo]

There were some small steam locomotives switched to electric firing, as a way to use existing infrastructure during wartime coal shortages. It's questionable if it would scale to the levels you'd want to allow a large main-line engine to run at peak performance.

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisse...

[camtarn]

Ha, wow. That is incredibly odd, but makes sense given the constraints they were under. Thanks for the link!

[ElevenLathe]

This is amazing. Thank you.