dallashistory

Never proven, nor fully disproven to many folks, is the story of steam locomotives being stored in a secret station inside of Box Tunnel, in western England, between Bath and Chippenham, supposively as late as 1982. (Steam disappeared from the remainder of British Railways in the early 1960s.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Tunnel

Known as a "strategic reserve", this collection of steam locomtives were retained in the event of nuclear attack, which rendered more modern diesel and electric locomotives inoperable. Since steam locomotives do not depend on electrical equipment that could be disabled by the electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) from a nuclear explosion, they could still be operable.

Part of the evidence for such a reserve is the fact that several steam locomotives listed on the roster of British Railways as scrapped do not list the place where scrapping took place. Some have taken this as poor book keeping, but others believe these locomotives were the ones sent to the strategic reserve at Box Tunnel. There have also been lingering stories of railway men sent home early, to find the steam locomotive they left gone the next morning.

This webpage has some photos and other details on the Box Tunnel strategic reserve:

http://www.willys-mb.co.uk/strategic-reserve.htm

While others are quite certain it has been nothing but an urban legend, at least at Box Tunnel:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread217309/pg1

http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/forum/ ... 95333/s-0/ (page 2 has pictures supposively taken inside of Box Tunnel)

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/87923.aspx

The concept of a "strategic reserve" of steam locomotives is not too farfetched. Sweden maintained a fleet of wood burning steam locomotives, wrapped in plastic, for several years. Both the Soviet Union and South Africa also had a fleet of steam locomotives in storage; though not as well maintained as Sweden's. A few can still be found at Millsite, South Africa; and in scattered locations across the former Soviet Union; although they are too derelict to operate without a major amount of work. Most of the strategic reserve steam locomotives went to museums, were put on display, or scrapped.

(The Soviet Railway guage is wider (at 5' 0") than the rest of Europe, so some of the strategic reserves were captured German "Kreigslok" (50-52 class) 2-10-0 steam locomotives. They were kept in store in Belarus in the event of a war or Warsaw Pact uprising in Poland and points west, the locomotives were to be used to rush in troops and equipment on the European standard gauge tracks.)

The United States did not maintain a strategic reserve of steam locomotives. But we have maintained a fleet of ships, including steamships dating back as far as World War II. They are kept in the Neches River south of Beaumont, the James River in Newport News, VA; Suisun Bay in Benecia, CA, and other locations. You would need a boat to see the ships in the Neches River clearly, but I gotten glimpses of them when driving from Beaumont to Port Neches, and from a plane taking off from the nearby airport.

Some of these were held awaiting donation to a museum; but I remember during Operation Desert Storm when one of the ships was re-activiated, loaded up, and sent to the Persian Gulf. It got as far as the mouth of the Neches River before it broke down....

Their condition have become increasingly frail, and the US Maritime Administration is trying to get rid of as many as possible, either through scrapping, sinking as targets, or artifical reefs. It is a program that has had it's share of controversy, such as the sinking of the decorated aircraft carrier USS Oriskany (CV/CVA-34), and sending ships laden with toxic materials to Europe for scrapping. At the time I put my Surviving World Steamship CD-ROM together, there were 182 steam powered ships in the "Ghost Fleet"; many have since been scrapped, sunk as targets or artifical reefs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_fleet

Interesting. Have a contact in Great Britain and shall ask him what, if anything, he knows or has heard.

I have often wished that our country had strategic reserves of transportation equipment and stationary powerplants and utilities along the line mentioned, but if we do I am not aware of them.

Reading this article, and thinking again of my own feelings as mentioned above about the need for a strategic reserve of motive power and power plants and several other technologies we are now discarding reminded me of a 1951 short (science fiction) story by William Tenn named 'Betelgeuse Bridge". IIRC the premise was that Earth was visited by a very advanced and seemingly altruistic alien race who gave humankind, no apparent strings attached, technologies that were magical in the ways they quickly changed human society. Energy, for example, was so cheap and so lacking in environmental consequences, that it was free for all practical purposes.

The aliens departed after promising to return and see what humans had done with the gift. But someone or some group on Earth saw though the alien story and demonstrated that all the gifts would fail about the time of the promised alien return and suggested that the gift givers might exact a very high price to restore the things that were breaking down. As a result the humans made only limited use of the advanced technology and in fact continued development of their own inventions and even researched and taught previous ways of doing things in case the aliens were able to shut down the Terran technologies that their "gifts" were intended to replace.

In short, humankind did not have to give away the planet when the aliens returned.

Does anyone else remember that story? Am I remembering it right, more or less?

I recall a story with that theme. Whether that was the title, I'm not sure. Nor can i recall the author - but it does sound like something Tenn (actually Philip Klass) might have written. He definitely wrote BETELGEUSE BRIDGE, which was originally published in Galaxy in 1951, and has been reprinted a number of times since.

Bill Crane wrote:I have often wished that our country had strategic reserves of transportation equipment and stationary powerplants and utilities along the line mentioned, but if we do I am not aware of them.

Bill;

As I mentioned once before, we did have, and to a much limited extent; still have a strategic reserve in the form of cargo ships stored by the U.S. Maritime Administration; known as the "Ghost Fleet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_fleet

There are two problems with the concept of a strategic reserve. First is the fact that machinery does not sit up very well. Parts rust, bearings seize, lubricants break down or solidify. The only way to slow down this process is to place them in climate controlled dry storage; not an easy task for a cargo ship, locomotive, or power plant.

The second problem is the fact that progress marches on; and machinery becomes obsolete. Much of the "Ghost Fleet" was mothballed after WII, the Korean, and Vietnam wars; and much of it had steam instead of diesel machinery. With the exception of nuclear power, most ships nowdays are propelled by diesels; finding mates still qualified to run steam plants is getting harder to do. But most important of all; they are an order of magnitude less efficient than today's modern diesel plants.

The same would be true of powerplants. Many utilities kept their older plants dating from the 1950s and before in the event of an emergency; even after the nuclear units came online. But most utilities have an anbundance of capacity now, with many private cogen units now available as well. And those old generating units were terribly inefficient compared to a cogen unit; so they are disappearing fast; Dallas Power Plant, the TXU plant in Fort Worth, and Neches Power Station in Beaumont are just three that come to mind.

James, I wrote the post wishing for a reserve of simpler technologies with most of your points in mind and maybe some you did not mention. Part of the work I did involved corrosion maintenance on airliners and and there were similar problems. I still wish we had the reserves, or that some country did, preferably Western and English speaking. I grew up reading science fiction including tales with post disaster and post appocalypse and survival themes. Much that we have earned could so easily be lost and hard to recover.

Bill Crane wrote:James, I wrote the post wishing for a reserve of simpler technologies with most of your points in mind and maybe some you did not mention. Part of the work I did involved corrosion maintenance on airliners and and there were similar problems. I still wish we had the reserves, or that some country did, preferably Western and English speaking. I grew up reading science fiction including tales with post disaster and post appocalypse and survival themes. Much that we have earned could so easily be lost and hard to recover.

Regarding airliners, we do have a strategic reserve of sorts -- the various aircraft boneyards of civil and military aircraft in the desert southwest.

I read recently that a lot of older, less fuel efficient airliners have been sent to those boneyards following the downturn in the airline industry in the past two years. There, they will either be stored, or dismantled and recycled. My guess is that in better times, so could come out of storage for sale to airlines desperate for power, or who can't afford new planes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_boneyard

Most road vehicles are privately owned; and history has shown that individuals and companies will take it upon themselves to resurrect old vehicles, or do whatever it takes to keep existing cars running. During the war, Volkswagons in Germany were modified to run on wood; there were similiar examples elsewhere.

http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/HOLZBRENNER%20VOLKSWAGENS.htm

Exploration of the Ghost Fleet in Suisun Bay; CA:

http://picasaweb.google.com/martinihenr ... opVictory#