El Coke,
I think that by 30 years they ment regular service life without the need of major repairs or replacement parts.
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Keep in mind that many of these engines that are over 100 years old are not a powerful as they were when built, mainly due to running with reduced boiler pressure.
As these boilers age, aside from all the heatings and coolings, they will become more & more brittle. It is the nature of all grades of irons and steels (including stainless) to revert to it's natural soft iron state. Despite their best efforts even the Smithsonians' "preserved" engines one day (a few more centruies) will fall apart.
Of course it's also only a matter of time before all the 1800's original negatives become too deicate to reproduce. The silver nitride film stock from all the 1910s and 1920s is already falling apart while sitting in archives. Another 40 years and all those family films made in the 50s and 60s will be ready to cumble at the slighest touch. In a 150 years all the pictures we're taking now will be ready to die as well.
Even digital images are only good so long as you have the equipment to read the correct file formats. A CD can hold informaton for thousands of years, but who's still going to have a CD player in a 100 years?
What are the chances of any of the currently operting pieces of equipment to still be operable in a century? The Eureka's last day under steam will probably be to haul Dan's funeral train (in the distant future). How many miles will the K36's have on them by that time? Roaring Camps Heistler will be over 202 years old (and the one still a the Westside site a couple years older). Even with new boilers all the other parts will be getting fragile as well.
If anyone has memories on a video tape, and you want to keep them, I suggest you find a way to convert the tapes to digital because magnetic tapes have a life span of only about 7 to 15 years and then they begin to "forget".
Now how I went from enegine service life to a rant on our decaying history I'll never know. :-/
Andrew, Taylor, it's going to be a heavy burden for us young guys to keep the history alive in our twlight years.
Curtis F.
