Retirement Of Steam Locomotives By Country
Beginning in 1917, steam locomotives, which consume large amounts of fuel (wood, coal, and later oil) and even more water, were gradually retired and replaced by diesel locomotive, diesel from the 1920s. Railway electrification started in the 1880s onwards, which required much more infrastructure (for power generation, grid, and Overhead lines) before electric locomotives could come in use. The timeframe of these processes varied by country. Leading electrification was Switzerland, having 50% of the grid electrified by 1928, with long Trans-Alpine tunnels, steep inclines, small radius turns, and the availability of hydro electric power but lack of domestic coal mines. ''Railfan & Railroad'' stated in 2022 that "the only places on earth to see steam locomotives in revenue freight service are small switching operations in China, North Korea and Bosnia," but that these were "sporadic at best." While the use of steam locomotives in mainline service has largely come to an end, Heritage ...
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Plandampf
Plandampf (German for ''schedule steam'') means the hauling of regular trains by steam locomotives, often in conjunction with rolling stock of the same era. The idea came into being in (West) Germany in the late 1980s, after the Deutsche Bundesbahn had abandoned the use of steam engines in 1977, and effectively had them banned from their rails with the :de:Dampflokverbot, applied also for ''Sonderzug'' chartered trains. The intention was to portray DB as a modern, fast and clean enterprise aiming for electrification, rather than the slow and dirty choo-choo-train of old. Thus, privately operated small lines were not affected. With the 150th anniversary of German Railways coming up in 1985, the steam engines were partially readmitted. In the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), which had to rely more on coal and lignite, steam was phased out by Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1988, shortly before unification in 1990. At the beginning, only the additional costs for the steam service ...
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