[Steam-engine] Re: How many remain?

[Eric Applegate]

James,
Does you list not include stationary engines?

Eric Applegate

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "James Hefner" <james1 at pernet.net>
Reply-To: Steam-engine mailing list <steam-engine at lists.stationary-engine.com>
Date:  Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:45:13 -0500

>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 
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