H LV <hveeder...@gmail.com> wrote: We don't really know how steam engines would have evolved because they were > out-competed by diesel engines. >
As I recall, the last attempts to compete with Diesel engines was with steam turbines. This source says the Union Pacific actually made two steam turbine locomotives, and tested them, in 1939 and 1962. They were not successful. It says a number of gas turbine locomotives were actually made and used commercially: https://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/gas-turbine/index.htm A steam turbine would be the expected evolution, because that is what was used in the last generation of marine steam engines, and what is still used today in steam powered electric generators. An interesting "what if" history question is: What would have happened if the Seebeck thermoelectric effect had been developed? Seebeck discovered it in 1822. It was only a fraction of a percent efficient, but steam engines were not much better at that point in history. Suppose more research had been done, or someone had gotten lucky, and 5% or 10% efficient Seeback devices had been developed. In that scenario we might have had coal fired thermoelectric locomotives by the mid-19th century, and maybe a lot else. Electric motors were not developed intensively until 1879, when Edison first invented a practical incandescent light, and then went on to invent a whole plethora of other electric gadgets such as improved generators, meters, distribution networks, and in May 1880, the first small electric powered railroad, that carried about a dozen people: https://www.edn.com/edisons-1st-test-of-electric-railway-may-13-1880/ The speed of Edison's R&D was astounding.
