felinefan wrote:The only other disadvantage to steam trains is the fact they have to be refilled with water every 25 miles or so--Zazu can confirm or correct.
Depends on the capacity of the tender. Large one have been designed to go 100 miles or more. It's also possible to pick up water without stopping if the speed is high enough.
I remember watching them refill the boiler on the train at Knott's, it takes a few minutes to fill that puppy. The locos originally burned coal, but are now fitted to run on #2 diesel. The engineers told me they could run on anything--cooking oil, kerosene, etc.--except gasoline (too volatile).
I've seen locos burning propane, alcohol, LNG, butane, kerosene, #2, #3, "bunker C", fuel oil, coal (from anthracite to lignite, from powder to mine-run), wood, sawdust, bark chips, bamboo, crushed sugar cane, fryer oil, dried kudzu, used motor oil, grapevine trimmings... you could probably make them burn grass clippings if you just dried them first (and had a whole whopping lot of them). Ain't external combustion wonderful?
The interesting thing is, there are literally hundreds of serviceable steam locomotives in the US, and many of them are available for sale or lease. Many museums have late-model locomotives that could haul their entire collection, but never see service for a lack of track. I rather suspect that a few of these could be had fairly cheaply, or on short-term lease to prove the concept.
The hard part is going to be acquiring right-of-way. I suppose it could travel down the median of the Greeneway, but it would take a whole lot of bridges, and the grades may be excessive. Doing it without eminent domain could be tough, and we still don't know if the airport authority will permit a station close enough to walk.
Fun idea, but it would take PRT to deliver guests to their hotels once they arrived at the WDW end of the line. Frankly, it would probably be more efficient to simply extend the PRT system. Smaller footprint, cheaper bridges, and no transfer between the airport terminal and your hotel. It would be a fairly trivial matter to permit guests to check in remotely via communications in the car. Could save hotels some of the costs of operating a front desk in favor of remote operators who might as well be in Kansas ... or Bangalore.