[Steam-engine] Re: How many remain?

[James Hefner]

Andy glines writes: 

> A question I often get asked is how many traction
> engines remain today?  I don't reqally have a guess. 
> It seems like there a lot of them but that may be
> because they get a lot of attention wherever they go. 
> 
> Andy Glines
> Evansville, IN

That's a good question, one that I am not sure anyone can answer with any 
accuracy. 

I have 4400 steam vehicles in my "Surviving World Steam Vehicle" database 
for North America; that includes not just traction engines, but steam cars, 
shovels, cranes, basically steam engines that were not on rails or on the 
water, but could be moved from location to another. 

Blake Malkamaki, who is also a member of this forum, was kind enough to 
share his list with me awhile back.  I have since added on quite a few 
others from other sources and direct observation. 

To the best of my knowledge; no-one else has attempted such a list until 
recently for North America.  There is a website on the web that lifted most 
of my list for North America, and added his own information to it.  The 
British have "The Traction Engine Register", Europe has "The European 
Traction Engine Register", and while back, someone put together a 
comprehensive steam engine registery for the state of Victoria in Australia. 

Looking at the numbers for my project; the ratio of steam vehicles to steam 
locomotives and steam engines in total are pretty close between the U.S.A. 
and the UK and Australia.  But, my best guess is that I have only 50% of the 
engines still remaining in the North America; Blake's list seems to fall 
short when it comes to engines preserved in Canada, in museums, and stuffed 
and mounted in parks and whatnot. 

Worldwide, I have 11,307 listed.  But, outside of the above countries; few 
lists can be found; only individual observations and a few works lists of 
preserved engines.  My "finger in the wind" estimation is between 25,000 and 
40,000 worldwide remain. 

Steam vehicles and traction engines will always be more difficult to list 
accurately because most are in private hands, they change hands surprisingly 
often, and sometimes the serial numbers are not known.  That is along with 
the usual problems of trying to match lists from two sources and timeframes 
and account for engines lost in the woods, sunk, buried, or abandoned in far 
corners of the world.  What has been found so far (like the two ploughing 
engines now abandoned in the midst of the Sudan Desert) still continue to 
amaze me. 

 -James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a 

Surviving World Steam Project
http://www.survivingworldsteam.com