I would think one could build a significant size ~2 ft. ga. railroad on 160 acres, depending on the shape of the lot. All of Cedar Point Amusement Park's peninsula into Lake Erie is something like 360 acres, and the 3 ft. ga. railroad certainly encompasses a lot less than half of that, and a round-trip is a little over a mile, and takes about 15-20 minutes with one intermediate stop. If the lot is wooded and has some variation in topography it could be made to wind around the property so passengers would never know just exactly how far they are from any other point on the railroad in a ride that could be a couple of miles long.

I happen across this by accident, so this is more things for the mix.

https://www.parkworld-online.com/proposed-standard-will-establish-maintenance-practice-for-amusement-railway-steam-locomotives/

ASTM International’s amusement rides and devices committee is developing a standard to establish new inspection and maintenance requirements for steam propelled locomotives found at amusement parks.

According to Ron Lwin, a committee task group chair, the original manufacturers of historic steam locomotives are often no longer in existence and unable to give recommendations for maintenance, offering little guidance to steam operators. The proposed standard will provide minimum maintenance requirements based on widely accepted historical practices and currently used railroad industry benchmarks.

“The steam locomotives typically found in amusement parks, museums, and at tourist railroads may not currently have an appropriate maintenance standard to reference,” says Lwin, senior quality engineer for Walt Disney World. “This standard will serve as the primary reference for maintenance requirements of steam locomotives.”

The new proposed standard will provide minimum requirements for suitable locomotive operation that fall outside the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration jurisdiction or other local authority having jurisdiction with existing steam train rules, while the expanded appendix will include more specific best practices.


So if they define you as an Amusement operation, one can be zinged for all kinds of Disney ideas.

Dan

I found the ASTM standards for track for amusement park railways to fairly reasonable and based on FRA track standards for the most part. As long as the committee is familiar with steam locomotive operation and merely wishes to codify existing accepted practices instead of trying to implement practices that suits the big parks and places an undue burden on everyone else, then I think we will be fine.

One issue with amusement park inspectors is that they are used to inspecting rides that were built by a manufacturer and comes with maintenance and operations manuals. Steam locomotives do not come with such manuals which gives the inspectors fits. So the ASTM standards may serve that role and make dealing with the inspection agencies a bit easier.

As you describe it, the operation would certainly not be subject to FRA jurisdiction. State law could be another matter, depending on what laws or regulations the state might have (which can vary by state).

I was privileged to spend several years working in the ASTM Intermational process helping develop professional standards for my industry (even serving as a task group officer). The standards written are intended to represent the best available knowledge/techniques/science, etc. for the subject addressed. If you have interest here, note that:

1) ASTM doesn't regulate anything but the standards developed there are referred to in all kinds of regulations and codes. So if you can get a standard written there, it represents the gold standard of industry state of knowledge and can then be used everywhere later when laws, regulations, and codes are developing.

2) The ASTM process deliberately tries to get everyone involved, including not only industry representatives but also government regulators, public interest groups and individuals and so on. Literally anyone can join the process. In fact, the groups when voting have a balancing process so no one group can skew it. Even though I was an industry expert, I was sometimes not allowed to vote as too many industry experts were already signed on with no other non industry parties to balance one more.

3) It is a consensus process in that if agreement cannot be reached, you don't get to a standard. And to get to a standard your proposals have to be positively voted at each level up through the organization to reach a published standard. So not only do you have to satisfy most everyone in your group, you also have to pass scrutiny of experts looking over your shoulders from a lot of other industries and interested parties who are working on their own standards. You will be surprised at the useful input you will get from unexpected places.

4) If you join, you will be heard. Even if you get outvoted, your objections have to be specifically answered at each step, and only a minimum number of negative votes are allowed for the proposal to move to the next step. So if you really object, you have a lot of ability to make it count. (I know, it was part of my job to speak to the objectors and if we could not get them on board, at least hope to say why we thought they were wrong well enough to convince those above.)

5) Notwithstanding the inclusion of everyone who wants to participate, good knowledge, experience and science prevail. The process sees to that.

6) This is not a static process, the standard when published must be renewed every five years, so it is intended to continually update the state of knowledge if needed.

There is a minimum cost, a yearly ASTM membership fee. And for me as an officer, travel to periodic meetings was required though I expect a lot of it is now handled on the web.

I was a bit of a skeptic at first; I came away with a profound respect for the process and the people who administer it. If any of you have interest in what is being worked on here, don't sit back and wait to see what they come up with, but jump in. You may be surprised at what comes out with your name one of the ones on it.

And with a professional standard you have all kinds of ammunition to work with in the legal and political challenges.

Timothy

In that specific case, I think the most regulation they had to deal with was building code for the car barn, electrical code for the electronics and zoning code.

I'm often amused by the well-meaning yet incorrect information that is shared here. Several responses share anecdotal information about regulations based on "how they do it at ___" and make assumptions not rooted in fact. Some of the sentiments expressed here are just wrong or incomplete.

Don't take advice about the meaning and scope of regulations from anyone other than the entity responsible for enforcing those regulations. Rather than trying to weed out the good from the bad on RYPN, contact the state and FRA and ask questions. Contact some of the other similar narrow gage operators (Pacific Coast among others) in the state and see who they deal with, then contact that entity directly. While there are knowledgeable people here, when it comes to dealing with the government you can throw common sense right out the window... and in California common sense may " cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm"

As the operator of the equipment, it is your responsibility to comply with all the applicable laws and regulations. When you contact the state or the FRA ask clear and specific questions about what all you are interested in doing and get answers in writing (email). The correspondence my take quite a bit of time and lots of calls and repeating yourself but, having a document trail will help you greatly in the long run.

Personally, I think I would prefer to deal with the FRA over the State of California. I have been working with an "amusement" train operator who is constantly dealing with generally inept state inspectors and officials with the inspection of his equipment and there is very little recourse for him at the state level.

Good luck! It sounds like a neat project.

HotBox , I know. My older brother used be a lawyer for the County, they're called County Council . Boy the story's he tells about local governments and the state of Kalifornia. The good part is it is all private property, no public access, is zoned agricultural as the surrounding property, no schools or what not, no regulated wild life and it is for the moving of horse feed and fire wood about the property. No employees only the actual owners on site. But yea, I can see them coming. 2 foot or 600mm is a none issue, some machine work.

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Hello

In my job with the SMART-TD, I deal a lot with the Various state Corporation commission and the FRA.

Attached is a photo of the FRA’s Exercise-of-Jurisdiction Decision Tree, its easy to read and figure out.

For railroads that fall into the jurisdiction of the FRA, There are a number of states that have Corporation commissions the work with the FRA to regulate the railroad in the states.

In response to "CJCJeely", I've had extensive dealings with FRA, both during my railroad career and afterwards, on behalf of a tourist/museum railroad trade association. Contrary to all of the stories you hear about government bureaucrats, my experience was that FRA folks were actually pretty good to deal with. For example the tourist railroad decision tree attached to your note reflects extensive discussions between FRA and tourist rail interests That doesn't mean we always agreed with each other (we certainly didn't), but the disagreements were always professional, not personal.