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Sperry rail cars and tourist railroad's
https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4547		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Pat Fahey [ Mon Dec 09, 2002 7:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Sperry rail cars and tourist railroad's
I HAVE A QUESTION, HOW OFTEN ARE TOURIST LINE'S,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, RAIL'S,,,,,,,,,, CHECKED FOR RAIL DEFECT'S WHERTHER IT BE A LINE THAT DOSE NOT HAUL FREIGHT ,,,BUT ONLY PASSENGER'S,,OR A LINE THAT THE TOURIST LINE IS RENTING FROM THE STATE,,,OR ,,FROM A FREIGHT RAILROAD ,,, DO THESE LINE'S COME UNDER THE FEDERAL REG'S AS ANY OTHER RAILROAD? AND HOW OFTEN DO YOU SEE A SRS RUN OVER THESE LINE'S?,,,,THANK YOU PAT CPRH1b@attbi.com

cprh1b@attbi.com
Author:  Tim Andrews [ Mon Dec 09, 2002 9:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Sperry rail cars and tourist railroad's
> Regardless of whether a railroad carries passengers or not it is under FRA jurisdiction if it is considered non-insular. The FRA has a decision tree that asks certain questions like "does the line cross a public highway?". If the answers are yes then the railroad comes under jurisdiction.

49 CFR Part 213 covers track standards and in general says that any railroad, that is part of the general system of transportation, carrying passengers will be inspected visually twice per week (as opposed to only once if it is a freight railroad in FRA classes I and II). This will cover a lot of general defects including missing or broken hardware, bad ties, broken joint bars, track out of qage or surface, etc.

Unfortunately this type of visual inspection will not detect internal rail flaws. This requires a "Sperry" type of ultrasonic inspection. There are other companies that do this and some railroads like NS do this for themselves on branches and in yards where speed isn't an issue. I believe NS will also do this under contract on shortlines. In the past any railroad carrying passengers had to be internally inspect once per year. In the most recent set of revisions I believe that was changed to passenger carrying railroads in FRA classes III and higher( I don't have my 49CFR213 here at the house so I can't check for sure). TVRM has continued to have the ultrasonic testing done about every two years even though we only operate on class II track. Typically the testing process has located occassional bolt hole breaks, flaws in the body of the rail are few and far between. In either case the bad section is quickly replaced.

I would suggest that you get a copy of 49CFR for the latest information. There also classes taught on this subject in a number of places. The University of Tennessee does one twice per year at TVRM. 20-30 representatives of shortlines and industries attend the class which includes five days of classroom instruction and field exercises.

Tim Andrews
TVRM


andrewstim@prodigy.net
Author:  John Isaksen [ Tue Dec 10, 2002 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Sperry rail cars and tourist railroad's
> I would suggest that you get a copy of 49CFR
> for the latest information. There also
> classes taught on this subject in a number
> of places. The University of Tennessee does
> one twice per year at TVRM. 20-30
> representatives of shortlines and industries
> attend the class which includes five days of
> classroom instruction and field exercises.

> Tim Andrews
> TVRM

Tim, and all:

Just a reminder that the Code of Federal Regulations is available online - and lots cheaper! (Lat time I bought a hard copy of CFR 49 was about 10 years ago, it was about 50 bucks at the time!)

Click on the link below, and select Title 49. You'll be able to search for specific Sections, or get the Whole Thing.

Aditionally, for those of you looking for Nonprofit Organization regulations, look under Title 26, Chapter 12, Volume I, parts 1.401-end. (Rules are under Part 7, section 1.501)

Data is available in either Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) or as ASCII (.txt).



Code of Federal Regulations Index
johni@warwick.net
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