One interesting fact came out from yesterday, still does not have connecting rod, pistons, valves or most valve gear, and lacks some piping.

I'm not familiar with hours of service but from what I am hearing they are working very long days. How much rest would be required for the operating crew before going on duty? Since the many of the mechanical crew and operating crew are the same people, and they need 2 complete crews, it seems they will need all the qualified people they can get. (If they were commercial truck drivers, they would be required to 'go home' and be completely off duty for 34 hours before coming back on duty to drive)

I assume you're asking about ISO 9000 and 9001. Here's a webpage about them:
ACQ.org - What Is the ISO 9000 Standards Series?

and a (messy) Wikipedia page:
Wikipedia - ISO 9000
In 2019, every steam program carrying passengers on Class-I railroads follows them....ISO 9000/9001 are themselves long-existing standards. Per the wikipedia page I linked to above, the first versions of ISO 9000 and 9001 were published back in 1987, so ISO 9000/9001 are 10+ years older than than §230 boiler standards.

I first learned of them in mid-90s when I was a young, junior design engineer. My (probably faulty) recollection is that ISO 9000/9001 build upon W. Edwards Deming's work (wikipedia).

I doubt that other steam operations have bothered to obtain ISO 9000/9001 certification, but the most successful operations are obviously following the Quality Management Principles (QMP) listed in the wikipedia article I linked to above.

I have to admit that I really wasn't very excited about this project when it was announced. I couldn't keep from grinning during that video though. Hats off to them for pulling it off, I never thought I'd see a Big Boy under steam again.

As long as they aren't moving locomotives or cars around, they are not considered "operating". Operating crews cannot "work" more than 12, then get 10 hours undisturbed rest. If they aren't considered "operating", they can work as long as they can stand it, with no rest required unless they are going to operate the next time they come in, then the 10 hours kicks in.

More to Hours of Service than that, short version for you.

moderation eh.....and yet you are happy to leave a blatant slanderous attack on a former UP Steam crew member who is NOT a critic of the current steam program on TO.
Unbelievable.

Mike

Uh oh. Thread drift again....

For those that don't know, ISO 9000 is a quality assurance program that you write yourself. It's not like a code that your fabricated parts and bits have to meet or exceed. It's about documenting your procedures so they are easily repeated to maintain quality. If your procedures are already well documented and adhered to, ISO certification isn't hard to come by. If everything is tribal knowledge, then you have a lot of thinking and writing to do. To put it as simply as possible: Say what you do, do what you say, and document it so it's repeatable. You'll be periodically audited by an ISO representative and you'll train your own internal auditors. It all sounds like a pain in the butt and it can be if you have the wrong attitude but it goes a long way in assuring that you maintain the highest quality in everything you do.

To get back on subject, if the UP steam shop is ISO 9000 certified, kudos to them.

Others have chimed in on ISO-9000. They are correct, and I agree. If in fact, the Steam Shop is ISO-9000 certified, good on them! If the management buys into ISO-9000 it is a great quality tool. If they don't, it is another meaningless certificate on the wall. I have often observed you can make ISO-9000 concrete life-preservers. You just have to have documentation on your processes and the concrete you are using.

They made concrete ships for the 1st World War, so a large enough hollow concrete life preserver could float.

I remember....

Decades ago, being asked to help type up a set of exam questions for steam locomotive crew. The source was an old textbook on steam locomotive operation.

Question: "What is the difference between lifting and non-lifting injectors?"

Answer: "Non-lifting injectors are located below the floorboards, and lifting injectors are located above the floorboards."

Clearly we can do a lot better today than the accepted standard of knowledge of 100 years ago.

Speaking of knowledge 100 years ago, I was watching one of the several 4014 videos from last Friday's steam up. I had no idea that it was necessary to adjust the whistle to get the right tone! In the video I watched, the whistle did not work at all at first but after a while it started to chime properly, but only a little. It took some time to get it right and by the end of the video it sounded great and was apparently very responsive. Who knew!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-hGabZ3pPY&t=609s

I need to make an observation. I've seen a number of people (mostly on the Facebook discussions) talk about adjusting the whistle (given the almost continuous blowing). I don't believe there were any significant adjustments made once they began blowing the whistle. Why the whistle tone & performance likely changed so dramatically over about a 15 or so minute period, is water. The whistle is connected to the superheated steam header. They had recently hydro'd the boiler and the throttle is downstream from the header. In all probability, the superheaters were mostly full of water from the recent hydro and blowing the whistle for 10+ minutes caused that water to get pushed out through the whistle. Blowing out the steam lines and valves apparently occurred later (given the posts on their Facebook page). Another supporting detail is that the external videos show copious amounts of water coming out of the whistle and running down the smokebox. Additionally, it is also possible, on top of the superheaters potentially being mostly full of water, I suspect that the boiler itself had a lot of water ("tall water", "bottled up", "flooded", etc.) such that water was carrying over for awhile through the dry pipe. The extensive whistle blowing would have used enough steam+water such that a ways into the videos they were getting high quality steam, yielding a great sounding whistle under the control of the talented Mr. Dickens.

Adam Wright

Hi All
I am happy to read and see that the UP finally got the Big Boy under steam. But in reading the above posts, the UP steam crew have not even started assembling the valve gear on the locomotive.
So basically all the locomotive is, is a stationary boiler with a whistle, hmm, I understand it all takes time to reassemble a locomotive. Now the steam crew has to deal with the retiming of the locomotive. Hopefully, they get it right the first time around.
The whistle more than likely has some scale in the bowl of the whistle, and that is why we are not hearing the correct tone.
I hope the break-in runs that they don't run into any problems, remember what happened to N&W 1218 on leaving Birmingham, Alabama for Roanoke when a bushing or bearing ran hot.
The problem was a bushing was running hot on the right crosshead, of the main rod on the forward engine.
The bushing was replaced by the steam crew once it ( the bushing) was brought back to Birmingham shop and a new bushing was made.
Well, time will tell, and hopefully, all runs well for her, good luck, to the Union Pacific and the Steam crew with the locomotive.
Meanwhile here is a photo, of the whistle, on Big Boy # 4012 at the old Steamtown in Vermont.

Thanks, Alan! I thought that they would have drained the water out of the whistle line before trying it. Looked like the boiler was at MAWP as the pops were sizzling. At that I would have thought that the superheaters would have already boiled dry. But I did wonder where all the water was coming from running down the side of the smoke box. NO matter, a great day!

This is not something we see too often but is normal. You mostly only see it after a locomotive has been sitting overnight. I have seen the #844 howl like that first thing in the morning when they blow the whistle. There is a lot of water going into the whistle. The steam is very wet and saturated which is technically water vapor. Real steam is invisible and something you usually only see if the safety valves are opening. You will notice as the whistle gets louder you see less water vapor. If they were to keep blowing it you would see a minimal amount of water vapor as actual steam takes over.

Had they done this before testing the whistle the "proper" sound would have come on sooner. opening the throttle would have pushed the trapped water through the units and out through the valves instead of through the whistle...