Though I am not a sitting member of any of the committees that met the past two days in Strasburg, PA., I did attend as a member of the public gallery. This report is intended to express my personal views and opinions directly related to the general activities. This report does not represent a formal public report of the organizations actual business conclusions.

General Attendance:

All members, save Steve Lee and David W. Griner were in attendance. These include, R. Franzen, G. Scerbo, J.D. Conrad, R. Schueler, R Stone, S. Jackson, W. Withuhn, L. Moedinger, G.M. Ray (new member assigned this session) S. Butler, R. Yuill, D. McCormack, M. Janssen, R. Reetz (sorry in for any miss-spellings of names).

In addition, the ASME has and is forming its own committee to oversee and participate in the design and implementation of the new Locomotive Boiler Code. The members of the ASME Sub Committee included John Braun and Marty Westland (so far).

Of most note to me, the meeting began with a wonderful presentation by two highly respectable metallurgists. I do not have the names of the two men other than Don and John. The two retired steel foundry employees lead an outstanding discussion related to why certain make-ups of steel are less prone to corrosion and what make-ups of steel are more prone to pitting and corrosion.

Robby P. could have added greatly to the conversation as from what I understand, Robby is a well educated metallurgist. It would have been interesting to have had additional commentary.

Strasburg brought in a set of tubes that had been installed not more than 5 years ago in some cases. Some of the tubes, of the same locomotive had very heavily pitted tubes, while tubes located next to other tubes had zero pitting! The question to the experts was….What is it about the two tubes that causes one tube to pit and the other to remain whole, when located in the same boiler!

Without re-hashing the entire discussion, the conclusion offered by the experts was that the copper and other “tramp” elements included in the tube are contributing factors in respect to how the tube responds to corrosion.

We may ask Kelly or Rick or even Linn to post a few pictures of the tubes so we can all see the items.

G. Mark Ray was appointed to head a task force that will review corrosion contributors to try and offer a more isolated answer as to the primary corrosion contributing factors related to steel composition. Be it made very clear that the entire body, (committee and gallery) agreed that oxygen is the primary cause of corrosion. The question on the table is; how do individual make-ups of steel react to specific amounts of oxygen. I would encourage anybody here to contact Mark Ray if they have a desire to follow this project.

The topic noted above almost entirely consumed the entire first days events.

I was unable to attend the entire second day, however I was in attendance for the first two hours. The main issue was related to items pertaining to the NBIC as proposed by R. Stone.

My Pulled Post:

Indeed I pulled my own post. I apologize to Robby if he saw my post, it may have been construed to be challenging in nature and content. May I publicly say that I appreciate the rules of the forum and it never has been nor will it ever be my intention to purposefully offend anybody on the forum. The moderators have a difficult task in watching what goes on…..it is a very big sand box, if you will. I extend my deepest gratitude to the moderators for their continued efforts in promoting positive interaction.

That said;

Our industry as a whole is generally reluctant to attend these meetings. We hear often…..”oh, yea, the meeting of the God’s of steam” Or…..”they don’t invite me…so I don’t go” or….”they wouldn’t listen to me anyway….so why go?”

May I take a minute to dispel these miss-conceptions of the ESC and associated boards. A.) Everybody, from what I see is invited to attend. B.) Though there is not a formal hand written, postal delivered invitation to attend, anybody who has any interest to attend is welcome. The Gallery had well over 60 chairs set-up in anticipation of guests. On the first day I counted only 16 of those seats filled by non-members. C.) If you raise your hand, you will be allowed to share comments. I myself am not a sitting member, my voice and my comments are always heard. The “table” includes the gallery in all discussions! D.) It is really a wonderful experience to sit with these guys at dinner, on breaks and during the meeting to discuss our industry. The best of the best in the world are at this meeting…..what better steam collage is there known to us in the US?

Now, my final soap box; Do these guys (the ESC) a favor. Either come and participate or send your comments to your local representative or don’t complain about the new rules/changes. I have very strong political positions that require me to extend my view that unless you are willing to be an active participant related to the impending change, you have no position in complaining on what has been imposed on you by the resulting change.

I extend my heartfelt thank you to all of the members of the ESC for their efforts to preserve and hold safe our industry as a whole. They have endured a great deal in our behest!

Thank you,

John E. Rimmasch
Wasatch Railroad Contractors
wrrc.us

Dear Mr. Rimmasch,

Thank you for the report as I appreciate the time and effort it takes to do one.

Thank You,

Robby Peartree

What happened during the ASME portion of the meeting?

Per John’s request, here is a sample of the corrosion issues we are dealing with. These came out of #31 and were put in the boiler at the same time. They are both SA-178-A with a 5 ½” OD and .165 mw. The only difference between them is that they have different heat numbers with means different chemistry and physicals. The uncorroded one has higher amounts of corrosion resistant elements such as Nickel, Copper, Chromium, etc and we do employ a very strict water treatment program. The maddening thing about this subject is that the specification for SA-178-A (along with many others) is so broad; you can end-up with vastly different make ups and still satisfy the specification. In other words, it is a crap shoot with what you get unless you are able to specify how much of the anti-corrosion elements you want and still satisfy the specification. Typically, you will have to order a mill run to accomplish that.

Rick

#31 is superheated???

Vroom! Vroom!

I thought I would ask the question again to move this topic to the head of the line:

Does anybody know what was discussed during the ASME portion of the meeting? I looked at the ASME Code Week meeting schedule for San Antonio and did not see the Locomotive Subgroup listed.

Thank you for any info.

S.O.

The meeting opened with the formalities of selecting a secretary and other business functions of the committee. The rest of the time was mostly spent discussing the proposed ASME locomotive code. When the committee sends the code to the ASME for approval it will be posted on the ASME website for public comment. Don't look for the published code before 2012, as it takes time to write and refine it and then it goes through a very extensive voting and refinement process within the ASME. The meeting was attended by at least one other ASME member, Dave Berger(excuse me if I misspelled the name), who heads up Section I Power Boilers, of which the Locomotive subgroup falls under.

If you have a chance to attend one of the ASME Locomotive subgroups meetings, which are held in the same time frame as the Engineering Standards Committee and the NBIC Locomotive Committees meetings (next meeting I believe will be a few days prior to the Train convention in Alamosa CO), you should do so, they are very informative and all the committees open the floor for public questions and comment through out the meetings. It is your chance to influence the future of the industry. I second what John Rimmasch stated above, please participate now, not after all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed, and then the vocal minority comes out and complains that they didn't receive an invitation to participate, consider this your invitation, or as the wedding preacher states "forever hold your peace"!

I would also like to thank all the committee members who volunteer their time and pay their own way to be part of these organizations and have taken the bull by the horns to lead the way in changes of regulations, maintenance of boilers, and are now addressing the code of construction for new locomotive boilers.

Mike Tillger

Mr. Tillger,

Thank you for the information. I plan to do all I can to get to Alamosa, I hope others will attempt to make that meeting or others.

Regards,

S.O.