After re-reading the complete FRA part 209 and 230 regulation booklet, I am attempting to calculate and complete a Form 4. This isn't for any official restoration or potential restoration, just for me to better understand the kinds of forces that are present in a boiler, and get a better idea of the paperwork side of a steam restoration. I'm hoping to find a completed form to aid me.

After two days of searching the interwebs and asking the people I know, I've got nothing. So I turn to the RYPN community for help. Would anyone out there happen to have access to and be able to e-mail or PM me a copy of a completed Form 4?

Thank you.

I wonder if that's the type of record accessible through a FOIA request to FRA? Does Steamtown do Form 4s? That might be another source.

The form 4 only contains the answers found when calculating a specific boiler, and gives no information on the calculations used to get those answers. I'm not surprised that no one has come forward to offer one to look at, since that can and has given unscrupulous operators a shortcut when presenting their form 4 to the feds**.

**I know of one large mainline operator that was approached by a museum with this same request, only to receive a call from the FRA some point later saying that they had received a form 4 for a medium sized 4-6-0 at the museum in question that had a MAWP of 300 psi, a grate area of 100 sq. ft. and a barrel diameter of 100", etc. all of which reminded the FRA's engineer of this particular huge engine, and when he pulled their form 4, darned if it wasn't the same document, with only the engine number and initials changed. Oops.

To get the actual formulas to build a form 4, the Engineering Standards Committee created a handbook that contains all (or most of) the formulas needed. Contact me with your e-mail, and I can put you in touch with the supplier.

Greetings:
Back in the late 1990s' when the Steam Locomotive Engineering Standards Committee worked with the FRA to update Part 230, we discussed whether or not to require that the calculations be submitted with the Form 4. Some of us "thought" that no one would submit a Form 4 without the calculations (including the formulas used) to back up their numbers (results) on the Form 4.
LOL, were we wrong!
Not only have Form 4s been submitted sans calculations, but a member of our committee "went to bat" for one of them (as a hireling) in their defense!
One can only hope that this loop hole (and another) can be closed ASAP!
All this said (read: whined), I suppose that an FOI could be submitted to the FRA for a Form 4 WITH the calculations (were you to ask for a VRR Form 4, that would be the case).
However, I'll save you the trouble: send me a PM with a USPS address and I'll send you a non-current Form 4 with all of the calculations (done, I would note, by an archaic program called "Correl", and accepted by the FRA).
Be well,
J.David

The ESC handbook is about the same size as the CFR part 230 (as of 2001 at least) as shown here. While it has most formulas needed, it would be good to have a copy of and working knowledge of ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Section I, Power Boilers. The 2015 edition contains Locomotive information (new to the code). While FRA and ASME don't always agree, most all of the required calculation information is in the ASME code, and/or at least the formulas can be used with slightly different variables, such as factor of safety, stress values for materials, etc. I have also shown here a complete Form 4 for size reference. I have shown the backside, to protect the innocent, but suffice it to say it is about 3/4" thick.