Interesting news coming from The Netherlands this morning (22nd April 2024) is that the steam locomotives based at Efteling will be converted to battery power.
Efteling is the largest theme park in the Netherlands and has a 1ft 11in narrow gauge railway that runs for around 1.9 miles in total.
The locomotives based at the railway are 1911 built O&K ‘Aagje’, 1908-built ‘Moortje’, 1914-built fireless steam locomotive ‘Neefje’ and ‘Trijntje’, which was built by Alan Keef Ltd here in the UK in 1992.
Efteling says that they want to become climate neutral by 2030 and climate positive by 2032.
The theme park has explained that the nostalgic appearance will remain with ‘special effects’ for the authentic ride.
Here is the full statement from Efteling:
Responses
The Dutch Mobile Heritage Association (Mobiele Collectie Nederland, MCN) has issued a press release on this subject, which reads as follows:
The Efteling has announced it will electrify the Efteling steam train. Valuable cultural heritage, three historic steam locomotives, each more than 100 years old, will be affected to the extent that they can no longer be considered mobile heritage. A steam locomotive can only be powered by steam and not by an electric motor; the heart of the locomotive is gone, the smells and sounds associated with a steam locomotive have disappeared and the skills of the driver and fireman are no longer visible. The authenticity of the locomotives is lost with these interventions.
From a heritage protection perspective, it is incomprehensible that the Efteling has made this choice. The Mobile Heritage Association have suggested abandoning the conversion and opting to have new electric locomotives with a nostalgic look built so that the steam locomotives can be preserved, but unfortunately the Efteling has taken a different route. MCN, incidentally, is in favour of making mobile heritage more sustainable but not in favour of electrifying historic vehicles that affect authenticity. The Mobile Heritage Association Foundation hereby calls on the Efteling to reconsider the choice it has made and put the historic steam locomotives on display on its own premises or place them with one of the Dutch museums in this field.
The Efteling has also decided to keep the name Efteling Steamtrain Company (Efteling Stoomtrein Maatschappij); the Mobile Heritage Association advises the Efteling to use the name Efteling Electrical Railway (Efteling Elektrische Spoorweg Maatschappij from now on; there will soon be no steam train anymore.
The solution is simple, plant some fast growing Eucalyptus trees along the track and burn the wood . This was done on the Benguela Railway in Angola. Third class passengers were invited to help stack the wood on the tender during refueling stops.
Recently some quite successful trials were conducted on a small branch line locomotive in Germany that had been modified to burn wood pellets
Klaus Eidelpes
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It appears to be another example of act before thinking of the concequences people will lose interest in the train and vote with their feet children love the smells sound and arora round a real steam loco how can you realy make an electric train real sound the same I can tell even on small locos that they are not steam I think the owners are looking at ballence sheets as boiler repairs and maintainance and insurance are expensive te consuming and dare I say it accountants cannot justify the costs as they cannot value them Notts in seats will prove it I agree with not destroying the true ambiance of these historical items sell them and buy new that will satisfy the office wallers
All
One of the actual use cases for (electrolytic) Hydrogen as a direct fuel.
The energetics is unfavourable though.
Why don’t they just sell them off to a actual heritage railway and replace them with Net Zero battery fake steam locomotives. Rather than ruining historic locomotives in the name of net zero. Please someone make them a offer to buy them off this theme park before they are ruined.
Is it 1st April??
Truly pathetic. Even if China wasn’t increasing coal burning every week by more than these burn in a decade it would still be pathetic.
A bit like various other forms of wokeness, the appeal of STEAM, the engineering that made them unique & smell, people will go to where there is ste. This is infuriatingly idiotic & a politically correct attempt especially when you think how many other forms of pollution there are.
Hilarious, lefty, virtue signalling BS.
Until China and America stop burning coal and oil, all the virtue signalling in the world will make absolutely NO DIFFERENCE…….
I’m absolutely horrified that such historic machines should be destroyed in this way. For goodness sake sell them to an organisation that appreciates them and this theme park could have some ‘battery boxes’ on wheels to pull the trains (with a ‘steam’ outline if necessary). Surely they could remain in use burning some sort of bio fuel? For me (even as a young boy) it’s always been a massive disappointment when a loco which is supposed to be ‘steam’ actually isn’t, and on many occasions I’ve made my disappointment known to the driver/organisation. When people get a ‘bee in their bonnet’ about something, they become totally blinkered and this seems to happen more and more frequently on the ‘eco’ front.
Why not burn hydrogen to heat the water on a steam engine, the only waste is water by.
Uneconomical and unsafe.
One of the sad things is that it is infact possible to convert a steam locomotive to electric power (although it may need some form of catenary or 3rd rail power) by fitting an electrical heating element in the smokebox – thereby heating the water more like an electric kettle. Similar systems were installed in Swiss steam shunting locos due to a lack of coal during WWII and more recently some historical locomotives in Japan have been fitted to run in such systems possibly due to environmental regulations. With such a system, all that comes out the train is water vapour…
Absolute nonsense, steam trains are an experience that cannot be replicated and any environmental damage is miniscule. Where has common sense gone.
If they want to go over to battery power then they should build new battery locos (cosmetically to steam outline if they wish) and then sell the steam engines off to other railways that would properly appreciate them.
Madness! They are fireless locomotives and, effectively, battery powered already. The battery is charged with steam which could be generated by an electrically fired boiler.
Utterly potty.
They won’t be steam locos anymore so the just as well scrap them completely.
Pure vandalism!
One steam train will not save the planet.
A bit of a shame getting rid of steam power, especially since it cannot possibly make any difference at all to the World’s climate.
As for the “special effects” to maintain the nostalgic appearance, presumably these will be some sort of smoke generation – though this surely can’t be by burning anything otherwise you defeat the object of getting rid of steam.
Have they considered the environmental impact of the battery manufacture ? I suspect it will take them many years to cover that relative to their current emissions and by which time the batteries will require replacement. If they were considering an electrical feed (third rail) and using this to heat the boiler might be reasonable.