This is starting to lead to confusion more than understanding. The regulatory framework for doing a hydro test and requirement for it (if you are FRA but not required in all states) is in black and white to be followed whether you like it or not. A fracture based on a hard, localized and fast mechanical impact like the trapped air scenario is very different than the slow, steady and dispersed stress of a test done when the vessel is completely filled with water of an appropriate temperature. Yes, the material failed, but when it was subjected to the wrong kind of stress the wrong way. This is like saying it failed when subjected to a few sticks of dynamite. Of course it did.........

I have some idea about the argument against the hydro test but don't understand it completely. It isn't difficult to do properly, and provides one means of innocuously finding weak points in a noncritical context. I have yet to see what other procedures are proposed to do the same, but it's worth considering.

Who, what, when, where, why and how did the alleged 8444 incident happen?

For a partial win, Kelly Anderson wins the award. Hot air is included in the process. However, not from me talking to the boiler. Rather the shop staff, of which we have many fairly large fellows have a dinner feast the night before we perform hydro tests. The feast normally includes high gas producing foods. The next morning, during staff meeting I start by introducing hot air in the form of my morning epistle which starts the process. Once my words have concluded, the shop staff aims accordingly as they introduce large amounts of flatulent around the vessel. The increased temperature and exposure gradually bring the boiler to pressure. As such Kelly, you are partially correct! We stole the procedure underground from a facility in the east of the USA....a small Burg as it were! :-) ha ha.

Invasive was the word I had intended to use and even at that I may have miss-used it. I meant to say that often a Hydro test as performed by the book can cause more damage than good. However, as I search the many definitions of the word I am finding that I may be using it incorrectly. No edit change to the original post. I come to the page raw. Mistakes and all.

8444: I believe that this story stems from some long legend that in the late 1960's the 8444 was damaged during a Hydro test in Cheyenne or was it in Omaha.....? I have no idea. The records that I mentioned were of another known locomotive which indeed had a cold water hydro accident and I know of one on the eastern side that had the same at one time. I believe that if 8444 had such an incident that it was the same cause and effect.

Robby, I understand where you are coming from. The rules we have today are an evolution that as I understand things, has grown out the misfortune of others. The new Part 230 is a culmination of many mistakes from the late 1960's to the early 1990's. Rules, rule making and the evolution of rules are normally a reflection of both good and bad experiences combined with both good and proven to be bad practices. Rules also become a balance of what has proven to work and what was clearly a mistake by a misguided individual who paid for his/her mistake. Personally Robby, I try very hard when I am in committee meetings to always ask the historical question of "where this rule came from and why." Often, we can be well intention-ed and want to change a rule from our single vantage point. Once we understand the history behind a rule, often we elect to leave it as it is. Just the view from my chair.

My only point, Robby; In your original note and subsequent notes, you mentioned material failure and I just want to make sure that as a group we focused on your question and left the perception that material was the cause out of the discussion.

Hot air.....hot water....call me what you will. :-)

Kindly,

What supposedly happened to 8444, when, where, and why?