Re: Why 1472 Days?

trainrider47 Wrote:
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> Although the 1472 day rule sounds like the same
> 1472 days of the previous FRA rule, it is actually
> more liberal in some ways, particularly for
> tourist railroads and museums. The FRA counted
> any day with fire and pressure in the boiler
> within any month as having accumulated that
> month's service. In other words, if a museum
> fired their engine up once or twice per month,
> they would use up a month of service time. Under
> today's rule, they would only use up one or two
> days.
>
> If there was a steam railroad today that ran 365
> days per year, the current rule would actually be
> more restrictive, since it is 1472 days period,
> with no extensions, whereas the old FRA rules
> would allow a couple of one year extensions.
> Railroads like the C&TS can now get 10 years of
> service before tearing down the boiler, whereas
> before it might have been from 4 to 6 years.
> Groups like the 4449 and 1225 can now get a full
> 15 years of service before having to tear
> everything down. In the UK, the rule is 10 years
> on a boiler before a mandatory overhaul.
>
> As far as tubes today, it is a mixed bag. There
> was a rash of premature tube failures a few years
> ago, blamed variously on improper water treatment
> and on inferior metallurgy. If the steel for your
> tube came from China, look out. The best tubes
> today come from Germany and bring Mercedes prices.
> How you care for your boiler no doubt makes a big
> difference in tube life.
>
> Michael

In reality if you ran a locomotive 365 days/year, your boiler would be in need of reflueing and wouldn't get an extension anyway. Many class one roads never got 48 months of service out of a locomotive boiler before it needed tubes or something else major. In bad water areas, tube jobs happened annually, fireboxes renewed every five years, etc., in the era before water treatment. One of the things the new regs help with is the "service days" portion as it applies to monthly boiler washes. Before, now matter how little or how much you used the locomotive, you washed the boiler every month - on the same day of the month, or took it out of service at the due date and put it back in service a few days later, sliding the date later each month. Now after you have 30 service days (defined as having a fire in the firebox AND pressure in the boiler), you perform a boiler wash.