Re: NNG: Texas State Railroad

I'm no expert either. I get most of my info from Steven, and I remember a few bits from other boilers I've had the pleasure to be around. Steven has the ear of many folks smarter than all of us.

One of the things I have determined here is that the TSR insulated themselves in many ways from the rest of the industry. They didn't seem to network with other steam operators very much and developed their own way of doing things, some of which are very....uh....different....from normal excepted practices. It's not that what they do is necessarily wrong, it's just different and in many cases inefficient.

But, this was a State property, and that was OK then, there was lots of money to burn. When suggesting a better way to do something, the most common remark heard is "but, we've ALWAYS done it that way....."

Well, not anymore. Now we do it THIS way.

Another point to be made here is none of the boilers were beyond repair.
300's boiler was messed up by someone trying to seal weld the seam between the firebox wrapper and barrel. Once heat from the welding got into the steel, the seam opened up like a big sprinkler. the more they welded, the more it leaked. They gave up and had a new boiler made.

316 and 1316 got new boilers because this was the management's way of dealing with the new FRA boiler regs coming along in 2002. Instead of repairing the boilers as needed, they bought new ones instead. Thankfully, Magma #7 was spared this because it was determined the engine had no history of operating in Texas, and didn't qualify for restoration. In the State Parks & Wildlife era, the TSR did very little boiler work here. P&W felt there was a huge liability in having it's own employees work on the boilers, so all boiler work was done by outside contractors. The first summer I was here, 300 cracked the bead on a flue, and it started to leak. The prevailing thought was that the engine was going to need to have the smokebox opened up, the flue pulled, and a new one installed. Why?

Because we've ALWAYS done it that way....

I told them to call Butler, who told then the proper procedure, what welding rod to use, etc.

Engine ran the next day, and it's still running.

They were amazed. They didn't think you could do that.