La Fascinante Locomotive à Vapeur cédant la place à La 2D2 Électrique French Electric Locomotive

We all loved the steam locomotive, both those who experienced it firsthand and those who, younger, didn't have that opportunity. In 1970, all passenger services pulled by steam locomotives disappeared from the SNCF network (this was on the northern suburban line), and in 1974-1975, the last steam locomotive ran on the SNCF network, even though electric traction had begun at the start of the century, taking almost 70 years to "kill steam," as they used to say: the demise and the agony were long. Produced in 1946 by the SNCF's Central Film Section, this documentary presents the latest electric locomotive, the 2D2 5500, which combines comfort, speed, and safety. We follow the production, transmission, and transformation of the electrical energy necessary for modern electric traction, into 1500-volt direct current. The 2D2 series electric locomotives were used by the French railways. These 2,878 kW (~4,000 hp) locomotives first entered service in 1933. Various tests were carried out on the steam locomotives to better assess their behavior and characteristics during different operations. One can only understand André Chapelon's profound sadness and great disappointment. But if one considers, on the one hand, the price of energy supplied by power plants, a price that has steadily decreased, and, on the other hand, the price of labor, a price that has steadily increased due to a necessary economic and social evolution that began after the Second World War, one can understand how the electric locomotive, consuming nuclear energy, operated by a single person, and economical to maintain, was bound to supplant steam wherever there was a need for intensive transport. Could André Chapelon have foreseen the rise of nuclear power in France, the increasing cost of labor, the loss of competitiveness of coal as a source of traction energy, and the oil crises—factors which, one after the other or together, brought advantages to electric traction? Neither the remarkable performance of steam traction nor its exemplary reliability, with an incident rate of around one per million kilometers (the best electric locomotives have a rate of 15 per million), is in question. It is cost alone that has been the deciding factor: not the cost of the locomotives themselves (they are half the price of their electric or diesel equivalents), but the cost of their coal, their maintenance, and their operation. Steam will therefore be replaced by electricity on main lines, and by diesel on smaller lines or for shunting.