The same rules are invoked on in North America. Wasatch holds a National Board "R" Certification and ASME "S" Certification. These were not invoked in the contract, however, FRA standards were, as the boiler was to run under FRA jurisdiction.
Assuredly there is NO boiler repair standard that allows a Chinese threaded staybolt to be installed in a sloppily torch cut hole in a locomotive crown sheet by welding, either fillet or full penetration.
This photo and attached files were obtained by FOIA request from the FRA.

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JFC. Well, there's the evidence. The question is then: why?

Regarding the Buy America clause, I don’t know any specifics of this case. However, as a general statement, there are conditions which will allow a vendor to apply for a waiver. Typically it’s because you cannot source the material domestically or doing so would be more than 25% more expensive.

Was that done here? I don’t know. Would the staybolts meet FRA rules and requirements? Again, I don’t know. But, in theory, they could potentially have been used and comply with the Buy America requirement under waiver.

M Austin thank you for posting those photos. I am shaking my head at these photos. This is down right criminal! Especially concerning was the enlarged, torch cut, stay bolt holes. As anyone who has worked with pressure vessels, the smallest area compromised could lead to the failure of the entire vessel. In this case the large amount of metal removed around the stay bolt would reduce the metal thickness in that area to at least half of the minimum.

I would also never leave a rough torch cut hole like that as every valley is where a crack could likely start. I have worked with holes like that and I doesn't take much time to simply build up the metal with a little welding and then drill a new hole. Wasatch have you guys ever heard of a carbon arc? Have you ever used one? It's hard to believe someone was up there burning out the entire stay bolt into what must have been a huge pile of molten steel with a cutting torch. No wonder the stay bolt holes are so reamed out. Guess you just keep cutting until the bolt drops out? Good grief.

The offset crown sheet photo??? Wasatch what were you thinking? Damn man I have seen some shady work over the years but did you think nobody was going to notice that? It's pretty much completely over the metal it should be butting up against. That weld build up can't be no more than 1/2" thick. Boiler is totally compromised.

You didn't even V grove the crown sheet to the knuckle before welding? This one is truly hard to believe. Those welds must have 100% penetration. No way you would even get 20% through that thick metal the way it was. No way a surface weld would hold with that thick metal. It would have cracked the first time it got hot.

This boiler was nothing but a time bomb waiting to explode. That FRA inspector was a God send. I am sure these photos will be used over the years for the hall of fame of bad repairs.

Some have been asking about the settlement. The court says you are legally entitled to it. Collecting it is a another matter (if they refuse to pay), with new court cases that drag on for years, and often you get nothing. OJ Simpson to this day still hasn't paid a dime to the Goldman's. If the company or person doesn't have the money what can you do? Sure after years of paying lawyers and court appearances you might be able to seize some assets. Often those assets don't even cover a fraction of what you are entitled to. It's a big mess often ending in bankruptcy.

Has anyone followed the service life of welded vs threaded stays in railway locomotive boilers? Those studies could be interesting reading.

I think the attachments from M Austin put this one to bed. Materials aside, the quality of the workmanship is frightening. Seems reasonable to say that the railroad didn’t get what they paid for. Case closed.

Let's do a little research from RyPN:

Wasatch post from 2011 on the Alaska 557 thread:

There is something to remember about the 557. It is, in my honest opinion, the last NEW steam locomotive in the United States. The records that we have indicate less than 5000 miles of use. It was used as a training model for the Army. There have been about four boiler repairs made......simply for the sake of making repairs for training. The side rod brass, tires, pins, piping and appliances.....brand new! If we did not have the 49CFR Part 230 rules, I would have fired the locomotive up and run it to Wheeler. It would have done fine!

Wasatch again, 2012:

Folks, I can not impress upon all of you enough the fact that the 557 is indeed, the very last BRAND NEW STEAM locomotive in the USA. When I say Brand New.....what do I mean?

I mean, it is Brand Spanking New. It has very few miles, it has had repairs made only for "repair training sake", it has been stored well in a good climate and it has been unchanged and unaltered for many years.

In no way will I argue with Alaska Railroad. Suffice to say, I believe that the locomotive could be placed in service for less than $250,000.00 as is, right now. In fact, with a good volunteer group, a new set of tubes and some good equipment, the actual "get her running number" could be as low as $50,000.00. Really, I am not joking a bit. It is a Brand New Steam Locomotive.

Now, the joke about putting a fire in her and testing her out; Short of re-starting what is now a locked thread, if I were in the shoes of ARR I would hang a sign on the cab noting the locomotive as non-compliant, I would hydro test the locomotive, with the jacket off. I would finish a good UT examination to be safe and sure and I would indeed test fire the locomotive. I would not haul a car with it, nor would I cross a public crossing or navigable waterway. I can assure you that every aspect of the locomotive will function. I can assure you that the locomotive would run great and other than the front truck tram issue....there is little to be done.

So why does ARR have a price tag of $600,000.00 plus? Maybe they want to change the look, or add a new tender, or re-do the cab, or.....who knows what. At any rate, $600,000.00 is more than enough, no matter how you cut it.

********************************

So, 8 years later, with many hours and dollars expended on 557, and all of it carefully documented and presented right here by Mr. Morris; was 557 really in such excellent condition as stated above?

Don't cut corners on this stuff. Keep the lessons of Gettysburg and Medina in mind at all times.

Howard P.

I was part of an inspection team that looked over the 557 while it was still in Washington State. Iowa Pacific was interesting in purchasing 557.

We too heard the "good as new" report. However we were also aware that S160's were built with no lee-way as to the boiler factor of safety standards. With that in mind most of our inspection concerned thickness of the firebox sheets.

As suspected, despite the "good as new" statement, the 557's boiler had seen enough service to erode the firebox sheets to require, at a minimum, a significant reduction in maximum working pressure. As the locomotive already was just big enough to do the job we were going to ask of it, reducing the boiler pressure by 30 lbs was a deal breaker.

They would have had to get the thing up to pressure to ever get to the explosion part. Fortunately they never even got that far. The story I got was when they went to "hydrotest" the thing they didn't even get around to putting pressure on it because it held water about as good as a spaghetti strainer.

While slightly off topic, I wanted to clarify any misunderstandings about the inherent safety of the S160 boiler design. Although there were catastrophic failures of some S160 boilers (about three??) in the U.K., my understanding is that these were due to crew errors and unfamiliarity by the British crews with the U.S. style of water gauge and their shut off valves.


From the Baldwin Locomotive Works specifications for the first order of four S160s for the Alaska Railroad - "Each boiler shall be tested in conformance with A.S.M.E. Locomotive Boiler Code. Any Leaks developing may be caulked, but the test shall be repeated until all leaks are stopped. After A.S.M.E. tests the boiler shall be fired and the pressure raised to 245 pounds per square inch, and shall be steam-tight at this pressure. After steam test the boiler shall be blown down and allowed to stand until it is cooled. It shall then be refilled with water at 150 degrees F. and the pressure raised to 245 pounds by firing. The boiler shall remain steam tight until thoroughly cooled down."

And -

Boiler build to comply in all respects with the A.S.M.E. Boiler Code, except that the shell shall have a factor of safety of 4."

Although at least the first two to three years of production of the S160 boilers by all three manufacturers were made to the same prints, ALCO's written specifications are somewhat different - "Boiler well designed, thoroughly braced and stayed, of best workmanship, and capable of carrying a working pressure of 225 lbs. per square inch. Boiler tested to A.S.M.E Boiler Code."

And -

"Boiler design to A.S.M.E. Boiler Code, Section 3, except to have safety factor of 4.

Over and over in the past I have preached that people looking to hire a contractor to work on their locomotive should check references before they pull the trigger and it often feels like I'm talking to the wall.

Finally, after four pages of debate, after photographic evidence is presented, people are starting to back off from defending Wasatch regarding this job. Note that Wasatch has plenty of company when it comes to less than stellar work. There are several others in our industry who produce work just as sobering, and they are always able to find new people willing to hire them.

In this case the source of the staybolt material is so insignificant as to be moot.

Look at these two photos from the FRA memo:


We see that the top row of tubes consists of six tubes, level with each other.


Here the top row of tubes consists of two tubes, with four plugged holes in between.

Has anyone stopped to think about why there are so many plugged holes in only the front tube sheet? Note that to the left, there is one tube that isn't parallel with the others. Why? I will bet $0.05 that the crew installing the tubes slipped a tube in offset vertically one tube hole from the front sheet to the rear sheet, then followed that lead until they got to the top of the tube pattern and discovered a bunch of empty holes in the front sheet, with no corresponding holes in the rear sheet. I must assume that there are several plugged holes at the bottom of the tube pack on the rear tube sheet.

We have made that same mistake at Strasburg, fortunately caught after about a dozen tubes were installed. What is the solution? Cut all of the offending tubes out of the boiler and start over again, while reminding the person doing the job how much boiler tubes cost these days, and warning him to be more careful going forward. You don't, I repeat, don't plug the left over holes and walk away from the job.


What should be a full penetration weld. Sadly, this is common. Last year we were hired by a customer with the wherewithal to pay to have the job done twice, to fly two welders out for two weeks to grind out, properly weld prep, and actually full penetration weld in recently installed firebox sheets put in with apparently no weld prep at all, just a cover pass on the fire side of the sheet. Wasatch was not involved in that job, it was a completely different contractor who is as far as I know, still active.


What looks to be radial bolt installation from the FRA report.


Radial bolt installation from the last boiler we built.

Now, perhaps Wasatch corrected all of these issues in the time since these photos were taken, I don't know. If so, I humbly take back everything that I have written. The actual boiler is sitting in Sterns to tell the tale.

What was shown in those photos makes me very angry and frustrated. We bust our butt to produce consistently high quality work while surrounded by cowboys willing to do anything to make a buck and to Hell with the consequences. Outside of our shop, I know of three steam locomotive contractors that I would hire to work on my locomotive. I know of a greater number whom I wouldn't let "sweep out the shop" (yet they always have work).

People in this industry need to wake up. The next major accident may well be our last.

Wow.

This is far and away the most interesting thread I've seen since I've joined this site.

Kelly, thanks for that rant. It is most educational.

In fairness, if YOU had been the arbitrator I would have just shut up and listened.


So, is anything salvageable here? All new firebox, tube sheets, after having a torch applied to them? Would $900k finish the job (it isn't clear to me if the owners paid that much to the contractor or if he did that much damage to the sheets).


Indeed, though I would imagine it is awkward to get recommendations from the few who know.

Funny story:

This happened at one of the handful of volunteer work sessions that occurred before the volunteers were kicked out the door without so much as a thank you as things between the historical society and Wasatch started going sour.

As the tubes were going in the volunteers very quickly discovered that the hole pattern in the rear tube sheet and the front tube sheet didn't match very well. A count between the two sheets was done twice and it was found that the front tube sheet actually had 10 more holes than the rear sheet. This was something done by the contractor previous to Wasatch.

This was quickly brought to Wasatch's attention and they told the volunteers to just make the tubes fit where they could and they would plug whatever holes were left. Quite a few tubes in the bundle there aren't exactly straight.