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| Changes to the FRA Steam Regulations | ||
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"You and I look at a steam engine and see the contour of the boiler, the complexity of the Walschaerts, the strength of the main rod. Bill looks and says, "this thing is full of ICC laws." - David P. Morgan, referring to Bill Purdie. | |
| In recent years the FRA has been working with a task force from within the steam locomotive operators' community to update the FRA guidelines on steam locomotives. The FRA inherited jurisdiction over steam locomotives from the ICC, and the existing regulations are essentially the same as those used pre-1960, and have not been changed since 1978. | ||
| On 16 November 1999 Rodney Slater, Secretary of Transportation, issued a statement noting that the updated regulations will take effect on 18 January 2000. Earlier in November, Steve Lee of the Union Pacific Railroad, a member of the working group that drafted the revisions, gave a summary of the process to SteamCentral: "After the extended public comment periods last winter and the public hearing that was held in January 1999, we met and went over all comments. We did make a number of changes suggested in the comments. FRA then tackled a jurisdictional issue, and presented the proposal to RSAC for a final vote, in which the proposed new rule passed unanimously. That was in August or September. At last report, FRA was going through the proposed rule section-by-section to establish the financial penalties for violation of each section. Once that is complete, the proposal goes to the FRA adminstrator for her signature, then the agency will publish it as a Final Rule, with an effective date." | ||
| The effective date was designated as 18 January 2000. On that date an interim period will begin, wherein some regulations take effect immediately, and some take effect after one year. Requests for flue extensions will be considered for two years after the effective date, after which time extensions will generally be eliminated, and boiler life calculated based on "service days." | ||
| The Final Rule can be retrieved in text format from the 17 November Federal Register here; look under "Federal Railway Administration." Special thanks to Phil Merkley of the San Bernardino Railway Historical Society for providing an Acrobat-compatible copy. | ||
| Don't miss Steve Lee's Opinion article on the new rules. | ||
| View the new regulations (1.54mb file - requires Adobe Acrobat) | ||
| Download a Zipped version of the new regulations in PDF format (1.20mb file) | ||
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