Re: Life Expectancy of Steam Locomotive?

The Knott's Berry Farm Locomotives were built in 1887 and have been in continuous service since then. The boilers were replaced in 1916. They were moved to California in 1951/52 where they are maintained and operated daily in revenue service for approximately 5 months and on weekends and holidays during the remaining months of each year.
Yes, there is a substantial amount of maintenance involved on ALL the historic equipment, but it pays its way. The technology is very crude, so any part because of its size, can be repaired or replaced at reasonable cost. This is not so in the case of very large locomotives (ie: Hudsons, Northerns, Challengers to name a few) Because of their great size, the components, while crude by todays standards, are much to expensive to reproduce or repair if they become worn or damaged. So, we have what we have as far as the big guys are concerned. Lets try to preserve and conserve those big locomotives so that our grandchildren and their grandchildren can enjoy these wondrous machines.