Most people don't realize that Underwriter's Laboratories, which provides the UL certification on SO MANY items, was set up by the insurance industry. If a manufacturer wanted insurance coverage on something they wanted to sell, it had to pass the UL tests or else no coverage. UL has pretty much become the de facto regulatory agency in place of the government on so many things, particularly electrical.
After a bit of searching it appears to me that scale model live steam boilers are regulated - or not - on a state by state basis. The Safety and Operating Rules on the web site of the Golden Gate Live Steamers mentions requirements for inspection, testing and certification of locomotive boilers under section 2.10, but it describes it being done by the club itself and makes no mention of any government regulations or requirements.
My friend built a 1.6" scale narrow gauge (4.75") mogul for his home layout. He operated at a club hauling the public, which decided that all the live steam boilers needed to be inspected and certified. The club arranged for a Hartford Steam Boiler inspector (and not the state of Virginia) to visit the club and certify the boilers. As I understand it, the inspector said there were no regulations that applied to these small (my friend's was made from
8" dia c>
The International Brotherhood of Live Steamers (IBLS) has wheel and track standards, but I don't know if they go down to 2.5"
You might try this guy:
Hook your tape measure over the outside of one rail and measure to the inside of the other rail - Center to center distance. Measuring from inside to inside you might need long arms or an assistant.
There is lots of commercially available live steam in gauge 1 at
1.75"/45mm.
Use finesse. I've mostly read test to 200% initially, then 150% annually.
I agree.
My local club stopped certifying boilers several years ago. Their reasoning: If we certify it, and it blows up, we share liability. If we don't certify it, we aren't liable.
See how lawyers are making us all safe.
We do test boilers when people bring them in and want them tested, though.
Terrific, many thanks.
Dan
On 10/15/2007 8:36 AM snipped-for-privacy@mtholyoke.edu spake thus:
Still doesn't make sense. As I understand it, laying track isn't the same as, say, spacing roof trusses or some other carpentry job. Don't they make fixed track gauges for laying rail, instead of depending on someone's tape measure?
It doesn't make sense because you're looking at the problem the wrong way around. It happened, so ask yourself 'why did they do it that way?' instead of asking 'Why didn't they do it the logical/normal way?' Back then there wasn't a 'normal way' so they did it as they thought best.
Regards, Greg.P.
On 10/15/2007 2:22 PM Greg Procter spake thus:
Point taken; it's easy to be perplexed about such things from our "advanced" perspective.
But still: you'd think that even way back then in the Neolithic Railroad Epoch that the smart guys who designed early trackwork would have figured out that since the thing was based on the flanged wheel, the crucial parameter was the *inside distance between rails*. It's this distance that determines whether or not the damn train falls off the tracks or not (well, mostly).
Anyhow. I guess it just has to be one of those mysterious things.
I have a French book from the 1880s (aimed at engineers) describing (Fr) railway practice which states track gauges in terms of rail centre to rail centre, so it lasted well after the "Neolithic Railroad Epoche". It also has dimensioned drawings from very early times that threw me as they are in feet and inches. I started building a model and realized that they weren't British feet and inches!
Greg.P.
Greg.P.
Yes. Whenever I've seen it done, or been involved myself, gauge bars were used. In my part of the workshop at the tramway museum I also have a selection of fixed gauges for measuring the back-to-back dimension - very useful when you are running cars from a variety of different operators, or indeed different countries.
Cheers,
Mark.
No-one has questioned the original statement, that the French gauge was
1500mm. That has me wondering. Erik, where did you get that figure from?
In the Paleolithic Railroad Epoch there were ruts in the roads for the wheels. Then someone came up with plateways: rails with flanges to guide the unflanged wheels. C to C distance would be a good measure for these.
Then somebody must have come up with the idea of putting the flanges on the wheels, and measuring the gauge between the insides of the rails, and making gauge bars for track laying. This may have caught on everywhere except in France, and this is where the thread diverts into French jokes.
I never use finesse, I prefer Head and Shoulders®.
Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired
Frankly I don't remember where but as it was unusual compared to the practise in England and Denmark at that time I did notice the figure.
If you calculate the internal track gauge, you should remember that at that time (1870-1900) steel rail head width was appr. 2½in (prior to appr. 1870 iron rail was used). Added to the internal gauge of 4ft 8½in we get 4ft 11in between centres which is equal to 1498.6mm or very close to 1500mm. In other words, the different way of measuring gauge did not lead to any practical discrepency. The practise was only changed to the current when heavier rail came into use.
I may search for the information if you like.
Dan,
I've just latched on to this thread and there are track standards for
2.5" gauge in the UK - now known as Gauge 3If you want to design track for passenger hauling, then you woudl tend to build to heavier standards. Here's a UK page which deals with UK standards. I think you have slightly different gauges in the US - like 4 3/4" instead of 5" and 7 1/2" instead of 7 1/4" (depending on which coast of the US you are on).
Retired, eh? Then I'd say Depends
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