So everybody gets a Barco low water alarm, thereby resolving the problem (provided there is some water left in the tender to put in the boiler), and the GPR advertises training on their website so there is no need for all of you to spend your convention in Sacramento putting together training programs! You can all go out there and have a good time, and nobody had to spend any money on electronic diapers! :-)

My post was meant to continue a reasonable and important discussion. I don't think that throwing in juvenile comments helps that along. It just drives off those who might have something useful to add.
And what does 'electronic diapers' mean anyway? Is that like 'pantywaist'??

Anyone else care to comment on the comparison between the safety valve and a low water correction system? Am I way off there?
Why did the low water alarms of the day not get widely used? Or did they? If the Barco was reliable and useful, it would seem that at least the major roads would have applied them. Perhaps there is someone who can enlighten the rest of us?

My post was meant to convey that the technology to monitor low water situations already exists, and has existed for many years.
The electronic diaper thing is simply my impression of little technoid devices meant to do what the engine crew can and does do.
The idea of automated equipment proposed in this thread strikes me as simply silly and unnecessary. Of course, others already don't agree with me, or they wouldn't have posted all their technoid outer space ideas.
My opinion, and it's my opinion, and I'm entitled to my opinion, is that all that crap is unnecessary.
Nothing wrong with installing a low water alarm if one should desire to do so. But I see no real good in trying to write it into the Federal Register as a mandate.
A good and well trained crew doesn't need an electronic babysitter.
My opinion only. Your mileage may vary

By the way, major railroads did indeed use the Barco Low Water Alarm.
Not all engines had them, and they weren't required by law.
Some boilers were blown up, even after the invention of the Barco, but not very darn many.
I'm not aware of any that blew up that were equipped with a Barco.
Still my opinion only, and your mileage still may vary
Mark D.

I must disagree with this premise. Humanity is not indivisible from low water incidents. Many humans have worked for decades tending boilers without causing a single one. Others have caused them - we simply need to cut those from the herd. The challenge is to do so before they are allowed to cause one - this process needs to be developed.

My (admittedly limited) range of experience with electronic controls suggests to me that their relative complexity and lack of comparable robustness would render their application to traditional steam locomotives troublesome at best, impossible at worst. I was once responsible for a building that had a stationary low pressure boiler for heat - with automatic controls. On the average of three times per month, the control system would fail, and I would spend a half a day getting the system back to working order. This was on a stationary, small, low pressure application, not one inherently subject to the rapid fluctuations and mechanical shocks, which are everyday occurances for locomotives. If they won't remain reliable under those low impact conditions, I can't believe their reliability would improve under harsher situations. The scenarios Kelly proposes are very likely based on that experience.

I'd venture to suggest that the most common reasons steam locomotives are out of service on today's tourist railroads, and probably back in the "old days" as well, is failure of the lightweight and complex appliances such as the brake valves, governor, dynamo, injector, lubricator, etc rather than failure of a massive simple part of the running gear or boiler. Lighter and more complex electronic appliances are very likely to exacerbate this problem.

I'm not going to go out and buy stock in Barco either right now, assuming it is still in existence, although its relatively simpler, more massive mechanical nature makes it more robust and likely to remain reliable in service than electronics. With the right well trained people in charge, neither is necessary.

dave

Once again the answer to this issue which was clearly demonstrated by hundreds of thousands of crew hours covering countless tens of millions of miles over nearly two centuries is 6 critical ingredients;
1. crew competence
2. crew competence
3. crew competence
4. crew competence
5. crew competence
6. crew competence

PERIOD!!!
Ross Rowland

I don't think that's what's being said. Let's try it this way:

1. The safety devices on the locomotive worked as intended. And I haven't heard anyone say that the water delivery appliances weren't working as intended. Another safety device may not have changed the outcome.

2. A safety device installed for the purpose of aiding the crew in the performance of its duty is usually welcome. A safety device installed for the purpose of allowing the crew to be less trained, less competent, or less attentive to their duties is no safety device.


Adding automatic water controls to a locomotive might make sense - but it won't change the need for a trained, attentive crew. And if the incident is reported correctly, the problem was not a mechanical one - it was one of attention and judgement.

The only device invented to date that makes a careless person more attentive can be found in the Victoria's Secret catalog, not on a steam locomotive.

JAC

yes there were instances where locomotives equipped with low water alarms did drop their crowns.

The reason most RRs didn't make them universal was they felt (and they were EXACTLY RIGHT) there is no substitute for a competant crew.

KEEP IDIOTS AWAY FROM THE CAB

Why have you technonerd advocates not acknowledeged the simple safety of a soft plug?

And while this has been a fascinating discussion, the ultimate consequences of this incident will be decided in zip code 20590 and nothing any of us write here is likely to have any influence on the outcome.

IMHO there is a great difference between someone that can make steam on xyz and someone that is truely a locomotive fireman in the traditional sense. To truely be fully trained as a fireman one should be able to fire any locomotive with not much more than,"at mp 134 you want to have 1/3 of a glass as you start into the grade" That is to say that no more than a rout guide should really be required. That is my opinion based on my experience and I know is shared by some in the industry.

Low water alarms, I assume there were others besides Barco but I have not gone to my books to look them up, were certainly used on a widespread basis. My home road, the Western Maryland, applied them to all or nearly all of their locomotives. Being a mountain railroad they also put thermic syphons on their engines because they continuously carried water from the mud ring to the crownsheet reducing the potential of overheating the crownsheet. I think Bill Purdie wanted low water alarms on all of his locomotives in the Southern steam program but someone can correct me if I am wrong on this one. It may well be that mountain railroads tended to install more low water protection than flatland roads simply because there were more chances of things going wrong.

There certainly are instances of engines with low water alarms dropping their crownsheets. However, all of the instances I have heard or read about the failure was due to the crew not taking proper action. Does anyone know of a low water alarm failing thus contributing to a boiler failure? I would love to read the report just to file the details away in the memory banks. It would also make good reading for those with low water alarms perhaps helping them head off a potential problem at the pass.

Perhaps it is because I have experienced the old equipment I feel all the electronic gadgetry is not needed. The old timers had these steam locomotives pretty well figured out. I also am old fashioned enough to be a lot more comfortable with big heavy old time clunky devices that I am sure work and I understand how they work and how to fix them. I also have been known to change my mind when I am proven wrong but in my experience on the railroad someone a lot smarter than me has already come up with the solution to problems long before I even knew there was a problem.

I think crew training is the most important issue in this situation. The problem I am not sure how to overcome is the relatively short attention spans so many of todays people seem to have. It seems people are not able to concentrate even when their lives as well as the lives or others are at risk. Driving down the road is proof enough of that. I find being responsible for the safety of a train load of people enough to keep my mind on the job. Perhaps I am jaded since I spend so much time on the railroad but concentrating on a steam locomotive just comes natural to me.

One of my great laments in this hobby is that I will never have the opportunity to gain the experience everyday crews did in the old days. None of us will ever have the chance to operate the number of different locomotives they did. Nor will we handle locomotives in all the different types of jobs and conditions they did. In that sense we can never be as qualified as the steam crews of 75 or 100 years ago. The trick is taking our limited experience into consideration and training crews to safely and properly handle the limited number of locomotives we will be working on.

I will reserve judgement on the 745 crew until the official report comes out. I think we must then read the report and learn from it. In the mean time we must be proactive in preventing these situations from happening. Perhaps a new discussion on just how we do that is now in order.

John Bohon

Nathan low water alarms were on most NKP engines, including all the 700s. NKP was ceratinly not a "mountain" railroad. Same device was on most N&W engines; I seem to recall the Nathan design may have been originally designed by an N&W motive power dept employee.

About 1923, the New Haven had a 4-8-2 blow up in Rhode Island; it was pulling a night-time symbol freight on double-track and the towerman at Kingston reported the engine passing with all pops lifted, the low water alarm whistle blowing, and the three-man crew apparently ALL asleep in the cab. It launched about two minutes later, and an opposing passenger train ran into the wreckage-- no one left on the head end to flag the opposite main.

Look in the ICC accident reports that are on-line; the 1950s C&O 2-6-6-6 incident at Hinton is reported in detail there, and I think the NYNH&H Kingston event is, too.

Part of the fireman's training at a certain New England operator of steam locomotives used to (it may still) include various informational handouts, some of which were copies of articles form Railway Mechanical Engineer issues of the 20s and 30s describing low water events in graphic detail, complete with photos. It certainly focused one's attention on the subject of keeping water in the glass.

If rumors I've heard have any bearing, the LASTA incident was not the only one this year. The other one did not result in crown sheet failure (they too may have been protected by soft plugs) but misjudgement of grade and boiler water level led to damaging circumstances that sidelined the locomotive (for some months). It serves no benefit to identify the operator as no public word was ever made and too many people would make hay of this misfortunate event.

I think (serious flame suit required here) that the idea that we can foreever prevent future low water incidents is rather impractical and foolish. We can do our best to reduce the incidence of such events and certainly reduce the severity of their occurrence (low water alarms and properly installed/maintained soft plugs--among others.

Many traction engine enthusiasts are well ahead of us on the necessity of consistent and quantified training for the operation of these pressure vessels. The program at Rollag Minnesota has been recommended many times--but I don't have the means to spend a week to attend the class (though I'd love to).

I think that until there is an industrywide expectation for crews to have a consistent and quantifiable skills base, we will have more of these incidents, whether publicized or not. There is one major force that will probably get us there--insurance coverage. If professional training programs turn out employees who create less insurance payouts, then the insurance industry will no doubt favor such operators. This will not be pleasant, but so it goes.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Superbly stated, Mike. Insurance is indeed one of the critical factors influencing this situation. In our neighborhood, just about everyone's insurance is being cancelled this year. Doesn't matter that we are at an elevation of more than 75 feet above mean high tide, we are located within three miles of the water, and that is about how far the surge went inland during Hurricane Katrina. Of course that happened in an area where there is almost no elevation for a considerable distance, but those slight technicalities don't matter to the insurance companies.

Equating that same situation to the operation of steam, the next boiler explosion could signal the end of insurance coverage. The insurance companies always manage to win. If they do get hit with having to make a big payout, they can change the rules so that next time the disaster is not a "covered event" or the group at highest risk is denied coverage, or they can raise the rates to make the coverage unaffordable.

To which I append:

1. Training
2. Training
3. Training
4. Training
5. Training
6. Training

and;

7. Accountability
8. Accountability
9. Accountability
10. Accountability
11. Accountability
12. Accountability

...Which in the end equal the same thing.

GME

So to effectively implement that you would need a source program combining training and practical experience developed and reviewed by highly qualified individuals with documented credentials, an instructor development and evaluation program to make sure all the talent in the instructing pool is up to the task, periodic evaluations to make sure they stay up to the task, an extensively documented curriculum with all revisions and updates subject to review by the source group, a comprehensive testing program to make sure the students learn and retain the knowledge provided, and an industry wide database to document qualifications of the individuals who graduate from the program.

Hmmm. Sounds a whole lot like teaching in the Nuclear Power Industry.