Boiler certificate extensions

That doesn’t necessarily mean that another extension is impossible though, 35027 had four extensions issued when working at Swanage and although there was a long lay off in the middle of about four years between being stopped in service at the Bluebell & entering service at Swanage actually managed 15 years on the same boiler ticket with the aforementioned extensions.

I attach this extract from a thread about the Mid Hants and I find this intriguing. When I was involved with managing pressure systems in my working life the instances of obtaining an extension beyond the 14 month inspection period were extremely rare. Later, when I became involved with steam locos the inspection body that we used would not consider granting an extension. In the railway press however there are , every so often, comments that a loco has received an extension to the certificate thus allowing it to remain in use beyond the ten year period. Now I've seen perfectly good tubes and flues being cut out of a boiler after ten years but also I have seen flues that have failed after five years. Some boiler designs can be inspected more easily than others but would still require the removal of cladding plates etc. I wonder what basis these extensions are being issued on , how widespread is the practice and is this being done by members of SAFED or independents? I assume that, given the availability of much more effective test and inspection equipment than the boiler inspectors hammer and flare torch of old and the widespread use of water treatment ,then the inspectors are prepared to make these decisions. It goes without saying that they are not going to sanction anything that is unsafe.

 

I think that the extensions granted to 35027's boiler certificate were very unrepresentative of reality. I think it isn't that uncommon for a loco to receive a single extension but in most cases that's it. Even a second exte nsion is almost unheard of. I suspect that @Steve will no doubt be able to give us further info.

 

I'd imagine much would ride on the nature and extent of the work which preceeded the ticket?

 

63601 ran for 13 years (1999-2012).
However, in 2001 it had the boiler off and hundreds of stays replaced. In 2006 it had a retube. And in 2011 it had new ends on the superheater elements, and some firebox work.
(Info mostly from GCR website.)

 

I'm not intrigued. It's quite common for extensions to boiler certification to be given. You don't say when you were involved with boilers but legislation has changed over the years. Under the old Factories Act, steam boilers had to have a hydraulic test every 10 years and, at that time they had to have all lagging, etc, removed. This was mandatory and there was no getting away from this. Nowadays, this legislation is no more and has been superseded by the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. This legislation has an entirely different approach and examinations of a boiler is governed by a 'written scheme'. The written scheme is the the owners but what generally happens in practice is that the boiler inspector will draw up the written scheme and most have standard schemes that they apply. Even if the owner draws up a scheme it has to be approved by the Inspector. Safed guidelines suggest that steam loco boilers be examined at 12-14 monthly intervals and I believe that this is pretty much the norm and appears in written schemes. Clause 9 (7) of the PSSR, however, allows for a postponement by stating:

The date specified in a report under paragraph (5)(c) may be postponed to a later date by agreement in writing between the competent person who made the report and the user (in the case of an installed system) or owner (in the case of a mobile system) if–

(a)such postponement does not give rise to danger;
(b)only one such postponement is made for any one examination; and
(c)such postponement is notified by the user or owner in writing to the enforcing authority for the premises at which the pressure system is situated.........​

This is something I used to do with boilers when working (I had 11 under my control) for operational reasons to get them to planned plant shutdowns and have done on occasion with loco boilers when I have had good reason to do so. The Inspector will invariably come and may have a general look around and witness the boiler 'in steam' to satisfy himself that the request is reasonable. Such extensions are invariably for periods up to about three months. Once agreed the HSE is informed to discharge the requirements of PSSR clause 9(7)c.

There is no statutory requirement for other examinations but it is usual for the Written scheme to require a hydraulic test at intervals, usually every 10 years and may include other requirements. Much of what is done on heritage railways comes from guidance originally issued by the HMRI in the 1970's (PM18 from memory) and later updated in HSG29. I have just looked at an old written Scheme prepared by Bureau Veritas for a loco which actually required a hydraulic at 6 years if kept outside and 10 years if kept inside. It also required the removal of lagging and all the tubes and lifting of the boiler from the frames at this time. Later Written Schemes prepared by other inspectors take a different approach and none of them actually require the tubes removing or lifting from the frames. They do, however require a hydraulic test at 10 yearly intervals and it says that this cannot be extended. What happens in practice is that I will discuss an extension with the inspector and he will usually agree this subject to that hydraulic test being satisfactory. I've had up to three years extension but it is always by negotiation and will be dependent on its condition, amount of use and age. Eventually the inspection report will say that all the tubes must be removed and the boiler lifted at the next inspection.

 

Apologies if this is a daft question, but was how was asbestos boiler lagging both applied and removed? Quite a difference I'd think between handling the sheet / board held in pace with wire and / or crinolines and the sprayed-on varieties of the stuff.

 

Boilers are inspected by the insurance examiner at 12-14 monthly intervals, there is actually nothing as far as i know that stipulates that an engine's boiler has to be lifted from the frames now, but the insurers prefer it, and they also prefer boilers to be gutted every ten years, for a cold exam, then a hydraulic once it's been retubed followed by the first stage steam test, and second test once it's finished and then everything can be tested, So it's not so much that there is a set time span, its how confident the examiner is in the railways own maintenance i think most will if an engines been out of traffic for a period of time allow an extension, but only until the ten years is up, becauasse, at that point, the insurance company would want to see that boiler lifted and gutted, before agreeing what needs to be done.

 

The ex LMS and BR standard locos out of Barry had 'mattresses' of blue asbestos held together with hooks and eyes so it was quite easy to remove them. I presume that the idea was that they could be re-fitted the same way. Ex GW locos all seemed to have the white asbestos slapped on wet.
Ray.

 

Boilers that fit between the frames have to be lifted. There's no other way of inspecting them.

 

Have you just managed to identify the one really good feature of the W&L's Monarch?

 

That, and the fact that if it has to come off you can just roll it

 

Replace have’ with ‘should’. Martin is right; there’s no legal obligation to do so. It may be the done thing now but it wasn’t the case fifty years ago with most industrial locos. The same with taking tubes out. They only came out when the old ones became a nuisance. It’s not normal to routinely replace them on package boilers.

 

It does depend a how tight the fit is - whilst your statement is true for most locos, some smaller SG industrials have such huge gaps between the frames and the firebox that you can see everything you might ever want to see without lifting the boiler.

 

What was that supposed to say before autocorrect attacked it?

 

Missed that one. It should have said 'became a nuisance.' Usually, once you'd blanked off four or five tubes it was time to give in and fit a new set. All these things that were once common place and now frowned upon, like fitting tube ferrules instead of beading the ends over.

 

The thing to take from this is that most preserved railway workshops now think nothing of retubing a boiler, changing stays, we now have boiler shops, where its commonplace to do a full overhaul, when back when it all started in the 1960's such was unheard of boilers had to be done elsewhere, often at places that still had the experienced craft persons, a few even went to BR works, Swindon still was overhauling the VOR engines till the line was sold.