My point regarding super power was that it is impractical, not impossible. If people can’t get organized enough to scrape together the $$$ for a #375 replica, how could any organization underwrite a 4-8-4? Then where would they run it? I stand by my feeling that the future of steam is in the small to medium size range.
Going high tech, and roller bearing will greatly increase costs of construction. And cost of construction, not maintenance, is the subject that started this thread. Sure, friction bearings are more maintenance, but it is maintenance that is easy to do, and they are more forgiving. Roller bearings don’t fail very often, but when they do fail, there is no retrieving them. The PRR had two electric locomotives suffer bearing failures east of Lancaster, PA. In both cases they hired the Strasburg Rail Road to tow the engines to the SRR’s nearby drop pit to replace the wheel sets, rather that even try to move the engines 50 miles to their own shops. On the other hand, I was on a steamer that smoked a driving box out on a mainline road, 35 miles from home, while shooting a movie a couple of years back. We stopped, repacked the bearing, and proceeded home at reduced speed, without holding up any trains. Movie shooting continued for three more days on home rails, and by the third day, the bearing was running cool as a cucumber again.
I was speaking with Bob Yuill of the NS steam program a couple of years before the front office shut them down. He said, and I quote, “If there is ever a mechanical reason that the #611 gets permanently retired, it will be because of the roller bearings”. They were worn out, and Bob had searched high and low for replacements that would fit and had come up empty. No one would even talk about trying to custom make a set. That is the trouble you run into with high tech, it relies on facilities beyond your control to maintain. I would hope that any reproduction locomotive would be long lived, say 100 years, and if you go with roller bearings, and they need to be replaced in 50 years, and that size is no longer available, you’re SOL. Bearing bronze will be available in 100 years, and if it isn’t, all the formulas are written down, so you get some copper, lead, and tin, and melt your own.
Besides, if we didn't want to swear at them, we would just run diesels instead. The swearing is part of the fun.
