this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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I wonder how fast we could get a steam train to go if we stuck a suitably shaped non-critical amount of plutonium in the firebox.
And replace the pistons with a turbine...
And replace the locomotive with a Delorean.
Then it'll only get up to 88 mph.
What does a mile per hour really even mean when you can turn back time? 🤔️
As fast as it will roll down a hill. A non-critical mass of plutonium isn't going to produce any significant heat for the boiler.
Non-critical? There isn't much energy released from natural decay compared to criticality. We created things like this to power space probes like the Voyager I and II craft. 4.5kg of this Plutonium created about 2500w of thermal energy the the beginning of its life and the power declines from there.
source
So I need 80 tons of it in my firebox?
You can boost it by hollowing out the middle and filling it with tritium, but plutonium is dense, so 80 tons will probably fit in the firebox just fine.
Well, you'd then have another problem. Unlike coal/wood/oil fuel, you can't turn off radioactive decay.
You'd have megawatts (gigawatts?) of thermal energy boiling off all your water pretty quickly, and likely eventually melting down your steam engine firebox, and it would be that hot for decades!
Nuclear Powered Steam Locomotives
Pros:
Cons:
Pros clearly outweigh the cons. What are we waiting for?
Hilariously this was a plot point in a book I read recently. Isambard Kingdom Brunel replaced the firebox with some poorly shielded uranium, but the initial locomotive that was to demonstrate the technology was sabotaged and exploded, killing his parents.
This same book also had a fictional mad inventor who created a part newt-human hybrid named Victoria with womanly assets if you catch my drift, who upon failing to educate it he sent to a brothel because he couldn't stand to "dispose of it" but when the princess and heir to the throne Elizabeth went missing, the newt-human hybrid Victoria was installed on the throne to prevent a constitutional crisis. And this is all events that occurred in the first 2 pages, so I'm not even spoiling anything!
spoilers for ending of the story Victoria in A Steampunk Trilogy
To spoil where the Queen to be Victoria was so well hidden that she couldn't be found, she was in fact working in the newt-human hybrid Victoria's room at the brothel! Seriously bonkers stories in that book!aaaaand saved
I'll be real, I absolutely loved the first story, it took a little bit to get into the second one (but thoroughly enjoyed it after all) and I gave up partway through the third one because I was struggling to get pulled in and my library book was due soon anyways. So absolutely worth it for the first two stories at least, and hopefully you enjoy the third one more than I did!