A snippet of relative pricing information

[jamespetts]

Very interesting and useful research - splendid! Thank you very much.

[zook2]

Some more snippets:

"Without Regard for Cost: The Returns on Clipper Ships"
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1828790?uid=3737864&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21103523784093
(Registration required)

"The American Clipper Ship, 1845-1920"
http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-7112-6

And from shipwiki:

"The Young America was a three-masted wooden extreme clipper ship built in 1853 by William H. Webb, New York, for George B. Daniels, New York, at a total cost of $ 140.000. Dimensions 243'×43'2"×26'9" and tonnage: 1961; 1439 tons (old measurement) / 1380 (new measurement).

In 1849, the worldwide rush to California's gold fields and the concurrent opening of free trade with the British Empire created an unprecedented market for American clipper ship builders and owners. In the early years of the gold rush, freight rates were so inflated that it was not unusual for a fast clipper ship to net more than its construction cost (about $75,000) on a single voyage to San Francisco!"

[zook2]

There's a 32-page paper you should probably read:

"American Shipbuilders in the Heyday of Sail"
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/sechrest2.PDF

"Shipbuilding Costs

The rising prices of shipbuilding timber naturally leads one to inquire as to the total cost of building a ship and to the proportion of total cost represented by the various inputs. Addressing the second issue first, one might consider the ship Harvest of 646 tons that was built in Kennebunkport, Maine in the year 1857. She was probably typical of the many vessels of modest size and average quality then being built in Maine.

Costs: Labor $ 9,486 (37.9%)
Timber for hull and spars $ 10,735 (42.9%)
Iron fastenings, nails, and castings $ 1,963 (7.9 %)
Oakum (used for caulking seams between planks) and paint $ 1,652 (6.6%)
Equipment and tools $ 774 (3.1%)
Miscellaneous $ 391 (1.6%)
Total Cost = $ 25,001 or $ 38.70 per ton
(does not include suit of sails or copper sheathing for the hull)

If one looks at the cost per ton of this good little ship Harvest, which, even including sails and copper sheathing, would probably not exceed $ 50, and compare it with the much higher contemporaneous prices of many British-built ships, then one is likely to conclude that American shipyards possessed a large cost advantage. And that presumed low-cost advantage is precisely to what some maritime historians have ascribed much of the market success of American shipyards. There are, however, several problems with that
train of thought. First of all, labor usually represented 30%-50% of the total construction cost (see above example), and wage rates in American shipyards were often almost twice those of British shipyards (Hutchins 1941, 297).7 Thus, at least in terms of labor costs,
American shipbuilders may not have had an advantage.

Second, when converting British prices in pounds-sterling into American dollars, one should use the actual, or market, exchange rate rather than the official rate. Otherwise, cost comparisons will be biased.

Third, most sailing ships (particularly in the United States) were what today would be called "one-off" designs, that is, rarely were any two ships identical. Even consecutive ships from the same builder's yard might vary significantly with regard to their potential
performance under sail, their size, rig, elegance of furnishings, and fitness for a given trade, even though the style and general method of construction would be similar. In modern terminology, sailing ships were relatively heterogeneous capital goods, and any
comparative analysis should, as far as possible, group vessels by the quality of their design and/or construction. Finally, it is imperative that comparisons in prices per ton be made using comparable tonnage measurement rules.
[...]

Comparative Costs Per Ton

The following is a list of 25 American and 27 British ships in chronological order.
The basic criterion for selection was that the vessel should have been reputed to be of the highest quality, either with respect to her design and performance and/or her quality of construction. Indeed, the list below includes a number of the most famous sailing ships ever built by the most renowned shipwrights in these two countries. Exchange rates were taken to be $ 4.566 per pound-sterling up until 1834 and $ 4.8665 per pound-sterling after that date (Hepburn 1968, 42, 280)."

I can't post a readable copy of the list without re-typing it all here, but it gives tonnage and building cost per ton. Later, it also goes into some freight rates and building costs of early steam freighters. It's really worth reading, I think.

[jamespetts]

Thank you - that is extremely helpful.

[jamespetts]

According to an article on the BBC website to-day discussing the possibility of crewless ships in the future, crew costs make up about 44% of the operating costs of large container ships.

[AvG]

James,
I think that you gave sometime ago (max 15 monthes) a link to a book written, if I remember well, in 1906 about BR. It is a downloadable PDF.
Due to a necessary reinstall of my PC I lost all my favorites.
I think I spend already 2 hours to find the link with no success.
Do you know what book I mean, and if yes could you give me the link again.
AvG

[jamespetts]

Was that the one about track? If I recall correctly, it was not a PDF, but in HTML.

[AvG]

I am only sure about the year 1906. The authors name could be Watson. (very unsure)
I also remember that somewhere around page 15 he was talking about an investment of 800 million pounds that needed only 10 million pounds of maintenance.
AvG

[jamespetts]

Hmm - the only one that I can remember is the one to which I referred above, which is in this thread somewhere, I think, but I cannot specifically recall where. Sorry not to be able to give more detailed assistance.

[AvG]

James,
I have found the book I asked for in my entry from 4 april


It is mentioned in the info-part of your pak128-goods.


Titled: [/size]W. M. Ackworth, "The Elements of Railway Economics"
[/size]
[/size]This is IMHO a real info-treasure
[/size]AvG

[jamespetts]

Ahh, that book - that is not available online so far as I know: I had to buy a paper copy of it.

[AvG]

I downloaded it and made an extra backup copy on external HD.
AvG

[jamespetts]

Interesting.

[jamespetts]

Information from Wikipedia on the Chesham branch of the Metropolitan railway reveals that a single track extension of the originally planned line to a station closer to the centre of the town some 1,428m long cost about £2,000 in 1887.

[jamespetts]

This report from the BBC's news website states that the Edinburgh trams, which start running to-day, cost about £2m each.

Edit: According to this old newspaper report, the Blackwall rail tunnel of 1897 cost about £870,000 to build.

Edit 2: According to Wikipedia, the Metropolitan Railway H Class cost £11,575 each to build (although this seems a little out of line with other prices, the later and more sophisticated LNER A4 class being noted earlier in this thread as costing less than £9,000 each; perhaps the differential can be explained by the use of external contractors in the Metropolitan's case, although quite how I might calibrate that in the pakset is another matter).

[jamespetts]

Some useful information from Prissi in another post regarding the cost of tunnels:

Putting high power transmission lines underground is 10-6x times more expensive to built and about 3-5x more expensive to maintain, because you need active oil cooling instead just lines hanging from pylons in fresh air ...

Unfortunately, differential way object costs based on whether the way object is in a tunnel is not currently supported in the code.

Edit: According to this promotional video for Pan Am from 1959, the early 707s required 25 man-hours of maintenance for every hour in flight. I rather suspect that modern aircraft are a little more efficient.

[zook2]

Interesting topic. I  know nothing about it, but I googled this up:
http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/workgroups/Documents/MCTF/AMC_ExecComment_FY09.pdf

Numbers are given in Maintenance $/Flight Hour, by aircraft type. You should be able to translate that data into SimEx values pretty easily.

And this:
"Concorde aircraft operated by British Airways and Air France also required 22 maintenance man hours per flight hour (about the same as an F/A-18), where the Boeing 747 requires eight and the Boeing 777 several times less than a 747"

[jamespetts]

That is very interesting - thank you! Cost per flight hour is difficult to unpick, because it is neither a per unit of distance cost nor a fixed per unit of time cost, but the comparison between different aircraft is at least useful.

[AvG]

Hi guys,


Maybe this was only new to me, but have a look at:


http://litep.epfl.ch/files/content/sites/litep/files/shared/Liens/Downloads/Divers/Baumgartner_Couts_chf_2001_e.pdf


Here you can see that prices for railway (cost and maint.) in Simutrans need a rework!!

[jamespetts]

Thank you very much - that is very helpful.

Meanwhile, here is a useful article on aircraft fuel economy helpfully posted by Dr. Supergood in another thread.

[jamespetts]

According to Wikipedia, the Barmouth Bridge, a long (699m) wooden viaduct in North Wales, cost  £39,405 to maintain in 2013.

[jamespetts]

Here is an excellent old book, published in 1883, "Our Iron Roads" by Frederick Smeeton Williams, which gives a great deal of detail, including in many cases, prices, of the construction of railways.

[jamespetts]

According to an extract from a contemporary newspaper article here, the Reading Panel Signalbox, which opened in 1963, was part of a £2m "signalling system". It is not clear how much of that cost is attributable to that signalbox and how much to the lineside equipment, but, since, in Experimental, signals and signalboxes will be the only costs in a signalling system, this could be extrapolated by estimation.

Reading Panel Signalbox was the "widest ranging" panel box on the BR system, controlling signals from Twyford in the East to Swindon in the West and Oxford in the North.

[jamespetts]

This video suggests that, in the 1930s, express passenger locomotives (in this case, the LMS 5XP class) ran 130,000 miles (that is 208,000 kilometres) between general overhauls, which took 12 days in total.

[jamespetts]

This extract from an old book gives costs for the construction and maintenance of signalboxes in the mechanical era:

"The outlay for providing the box, signals, block instruments, etc., will not be much under £300, whilst the cost of manning the box with two men and the maintenance of the signals, etc., would be about £150 per annum."

The book appears to have been published circa 1909, and, from the context, it is possible to discern that the author is referring to a small "break section" signalbox (the equivalent to the "small mechanical signalbox" currently in the pakset).

Edit: Some more very useful pricing information, from the same book:

Automatic signals are an expensive item, and where mechanically operated signals already exist and in Great Britain they are in use on every line open for traffic their introduction can only be justified when the expense can be recouped by economies effected by signal boxes being closed and signalmen dispensed with. These cases are, however, rarer than is generally imagined. The average cost in England, including fitting the "Track-Circuits" and running line-wires, is about £100 per arm or £200 for a two-arm signal.

The maintenance charge is also high, varying, according to the report presented by Mr. Platt to the International Railway Congress in 1905 at Washington, from £12 to over £20 per arm a year. Then each signal has to bear a charge of about £2 for lighting, and there are also fogging expenses. In the case of new lines, as yet unsignalled, it is no doubt much cheaper to provide automatic signals instead of equipping the road with signal-boxes, signalmen and mechanical signals. But new lines are most uncommon in England, and the question must always be considered in relation to existing equipments. These have been paid for, and naturally there must be some good reasons for installing a new system. Where there are signal-boxes at which there is little shunting, and where the chief duty of the signalman is to work the block instruments and signal trains, these men may, if automatic signals be provided, be taken out of the signal-boxes and need only go in when any shunting has to be performed. Such cases will appeal to railway managers, but it takes a good many such economies to pay for automatic signals in Great Britain.

For example, assume Automatic Signals to be installed on a British railway over a length of 20 miles of double line with signals one mile apart. This would require forty 2-arm signals or 80 arms in all, which would cost, say, £8,000. The annual charges would be approximately £1,980, made up as follows: -

Interest at 4 per cent, on £8,000 ... £320
Sinking fund for renewal in 20 years ... £260
Lighting 80 signals at £2 ... £160
Fogging 40 distant signals at £1 ... £40
Maintenance of 80 signals at £15 ... £1,200


The average pay of a signalman is 22s. per week - £57 a year to which may be added £3 for his uniform, holiday pay, etc., or £60 in all, so that it would require 33 signalmen to be dispensed with to justify this expense.

This estimate and conclusion applies to what may be termed a wholesale adoption of automatic signalling, and even such cases may be modified under certain conditions,
as, for instance, on the L. and South Western R. between VVoking and Basingstokc, where the automatic signals and the "Track-Circuit " are part of the equipment of a power signal and interlocking plant. There, the power for working the automatic signals is generated by the same means as the power for operating the points and signals at stations, and this considerably reduces the cost of maintenance, which is the leading item in the expenditure.

However, the author writes that the maintenance cost on railways worked by the Underground Electric Railway Co. of London were much lower, owing to already having a power supply to hand for the rails, and worked it out as 5s-3.22d per signal per year.

[jamespetts]

According to this website, a 4 wheel passenger rated fish/milk/fruit van ("perishable goods" in Simutrans language) built by the LSWR cost £600. Although the date is not given, I infer that this is pre-1914, when prices were stable and inflation low.

[jamespetts]

Some useful and interesting pricing (and some miscellaneous) information is given in the four volumes of "The London, Tilbury &  Southend Railway - a history of the company and the line" by Peter Kay (the fifth volume of which is apparently due for publication soon). Page numbering is continuous thoroughout all volumes.

Low Street station built circa 1861 with what were described as "parsimonious facilities": 200ft platforms (double track) and a single brick building on one line only was estimated to cost £630 (p. 33).

A total of 70 four wheel carriages were ordered from outside contractors in 1875 at a total cost of £27,850 (on average, £397.86 each (represented as a decimal currency)) (p. 46).

In 1931, Plaistow works were closed, saving £6,000 annually (the works being absorbed by other depots on what was by then the LMS system). This should give a good idea of the maintenance cost of depots as distinct from the running costs of vehicles.

In 1986, the single track Romford to Upminster branch was electrified on the 25kV overhead system at what was in 1984 estimated to cost £303,000 (p. 80).

In 1894/5, Bromley-by-Bow station was replaced after the previous booking office was damaged by fire at a total cost of £18,131, although this seems to have included a new signalbox. This was then a double track station with two booking offices (p. 104).

In 1907, the L&TSR purchased 37 motor cars and 37 trailer cars (electric multiple unit) from the District Railway for working the Whitechapel & Bow line for a total cost of £130,000 (which was described as "cost price") (p. 109).

In 1891, it was estimated that a new (small) station at Westcliff on Sea would cost £4,000 - £5,000. (p. 113).

An interesting table appears at p. 134 showing, amongst other things, the working costs as a percentage of revenue in various years. Between 1856 and 1881, it varies between 50-62%, the higher figures tending to be in the  later years.

P. 141 records what signalmen were paid in 1897: 1st class signalmen were paid 23-26s (presumably per week) with 8 hour shifts (presumably 6 days a week), 2nd class 22-25s with 10 hour shifts, 3rd class 21-24s with 10 hour shifts, and 4th class 20-23s with 12 hour shifts. Presumably, the longer hours and lower pay were associated with quieter boxes.

In 1913, a report was prepared detailing various options for improving the London end of the line. Although they were not carried into effect, it is interesting to note that a proposed tunnel from Cannon Street Road to Bank, including an underground station at Fenchurch Street and an underground terminus at Bank was estimated at £486,000 (p. 150; some other alternative costings are given on that page. It is not quite clear whether this includes the cost of signalling and/or electrification).

In May 1927, it was estimated that lengthening the platforms at Broad Street station to 700ft (their former length is not recorded) would have cost £12,830 (p. 153).

The cost of quadrupling (i.e. adding two extra tracks) and electrifying on the fourth rail the section between Dagenham and Upminster was estimated in 1929 as costing £412,525, with an additional £42,515 for two additional stations at Upney and Dagenham Heathway (p. 181).

Upminster Bridge station, with a 700ft long platform with canopies and central buildings along about 1/3rd of its length as well as an entrance building cost £24,511 in 1934 (p. 192).

A number of improvements were made to the LT&SR line in 1929, and the costings for each of these are set out on p. 199. An "up arrival line" and new bay platform at Upminster cost £8,000. An up bay platform at Pitsea and "layout alterations" at that station cost £2,270. Reconditioning an existing siding at Benfleet cost £740. A new passenger and goods station at Leigh-on-Sea (completely replacing the existing station) cost £87,250. An additional passenger station at Chalkwell cost £28,080. Thirteen additional carriage sidings at Shoeburyness and modernisation of the locomotive facilities there cost £64,370. Additional intermediate block signals at "many places between Barking and Sheeburyness, also between West Ham and Upton Park" cost £61,970.

In 1984, a very small station at East Tilbury was rebuilt at a cost of £80,000: new (550ft) concrete platforms were built, a new brick booking office on the up line and a brick shelter on the down line, and demolition of the existing (brick and concrete) structures (p. 203).

In 1938, there was a plan to build a new "booking/parcels office" at Laindon station at a cost of £14,620, although this was aborted by the following year's war.

Southend East Goods Yard was brought into use in 1907, having cost £5,000 (p. 221).

Southend East was opened in 1932 at an estimated cost of £50,660 (of which £17,040 was spent on buildings and canopies). In 1933, a further platform was added to the down main (with no buildings or canopies) at a cost of £3,342. This was a brick platform. This latter figure gives a good idea of the base cost of platforms (pp. 222-223).

In August 1910, the railway accepted a £21,200 tender to build a new depot at Plaistow. A turntable was added for £685 in October 1910, £1,145 in that same month for a lifting gantry and in February 1912 £10,374 for the provision of electric power and lighting to Plaistow works, shed and station. (p. 282).

The original plan to electrify the line on the overhead DC pattern in 1949 was estimated to cost a total of £19,500,000 with annual increased working costs of £900,000 due to increased passenger services. (p. 296)

A new station building was constructed in Grays (a small station) in 1954 at a cost of £33,000. Some (unspecified) improvements were made to Southend Central's buildings in 1955 for £24,000. (p. 297).

[jamespetts]

According to this website, the BR Clan class 6p steam locomotive cost £20,426 to build in 1952.

[jamespetts]

According to this e-book, a very early steam railway locomotive from circa 1812 cost £400 to construct, weighed 5 tons and burnt 75lb of coal in an hour.

Edit: The same book, at p. 25 (.pdf page 40) states of the "Royal George" locomotive of the Stockton and Darlington Railway of 1827,

The first year's work of the "Royal George" consisted of conveying 22,442 tons of goods 20 miles at a cost of only £466, whilst the same amount of work performed by horses cost £998, showing a saving by the use of the "Royal George" of £532 in one year.... This was the first time that a locomotive engine had worked for a whole year at a cheaper rate than horses

This locomotive is reported to have been used until 1840 on the Stockton and Darlington, and was then sold to a colliery at £125 more than the cost of having originally built it.

Edit: At page 36, it is reported that Stephenson's Rocket had a coke consumption of 40% less than Hackworth's Sansperiel due to the use of a tubular boiler.

[jamespetts]

According to this website about the Great Western Railway,

In 1939, average coal consumption was 44.21 pounds at 4.44d (1.85p) per mile whereas in 1944 this had risen to 55.18 pounds at 11.88d (4.95p) per mile.

Edit 1: this website states that the LMS Princess Cornoation class

burns up to 1 ton of coal every 40 miles of running, evaporates about 45 gallons of water per mile

.

Edit 2: this book states that the Ffestiniog Double Fairlie engine consumed 2.84lbs of coal per mile.

Edit 3: this e-book states that the British Railways Standard Class 8 ("Duke of Gloucester") hauled 590 tons on a level road at slightly less than 80 miles per hour, giving an indicated horsepower of 2,500, and consuming 4,850lb of coal per hour (and 30,000lb of water per hour), giving 65lb of coal burnt per mile assuming 75 miles per hour and 40 gallons of water per mile.

Edit 4: this e-book at p. 53 gives figures for the Wilberforce 0-6-0 locomotive on the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1839 (though the locomotive was built earlier) as being able to haul 171 (Imperial) tons, consuming 68lb of coal per mile, running 16,688 miles, costing £318-10-8 (or 4.5d) per mile run for repairs (presumably not including coal consumption). The annual wages of the driver and fireman combined were £353-12-8.

Edit 5: The same book at p. 60 gives the 1836 "Harvey Combe" (a "ballast engine") as having a cost of £1,400 and "was of 50 horse-power" (37.285kW). It attained 25-53mph with a gross load, including engine, of 81 (Imperial) tons and consumed 0.47lb of coke per ton mile, but could only manage 32.88 miles per hour with a gross load of 50 tons (!).

Edit 6: The same book at p. 82 gives the "Wallace", one of the first locomotives for the Dundee and Arbroath Railway, as having cost £1,012 (including tender) to build in 1838.

The first engines to burn coal instead of coke were introduced in 1838 (ibid).

[zook2]

You might find this site
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/index.html
interesting. I've only glanced at some of the topics but it has a massive bibliography list.



"The Coal Question - An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines" (1866)

Some 19th century coal prices cited there. Not much to go by there, but the entire work is online:
http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Jevons/jvnCQ5.html

[jamespetts]

Thank you!

[Jando]

An example of pricing for modern stock:

Nuremberg gets new subway trains for one of the main lines in the city: 21 trains for a total sum of € 164 million. News with pictures of new and old trains here (in German): https://www.br.de/nachrichten/mittelfranken/inhalt/neue-u-bahn-zuege-vag-nuernberg-100.html

[jamespetts]

Interesting - thank you!

[jamespetts]

According to this web page, the GNR Stirling 8ft single (G class) coast £2,033 to build in April 1870. It is remarked that the leading bogie (as opposed to a single pair of leading wheels) made the design more expensive than other locomotives.