Re: NNG "new steam" since about 1980

For anyone interested in the whole ACE project, I'd definitely recommend picking up a copy of the book "The Red Devil - and Other Tales from the Age of Steam" by David Wardale. He was somewhat involved in the ACE project and was a personal friend of Mr. Porta, arguably the last of the visionary and innovative steam locomotive designers. Wardale shares some interesting thoughts on the whole ACE exercise, which admittedly lean more toward the negative than the positive. Though a noble effort the project seemed to suffer from several things such as lack of consistent direction of the concept, focusing on jumping directly to very complex designs using unproven technology, and several other issues. One of Wardale's more interesting points was his advocacy for a Garratt type design which he felt would have had a high chance of success for a variety of reasons.

The book is really an interesting read for anyone interested in advanced steam locomotive engineering, and for the potential performance that could have been realized from steam had development continued before diesels took over - all from the perspective of someone who actually got his hands dirty implementing and demonstrating those advanced concepts on the Red Devil in South Africa.