Is salvage of power boiler tubes and flues by swaging on replacement ends (safe ending) still allowable practice?

If so, considering a typical 6 or 8 coupled oil fired locomotive, steaming carefully demineralized water and operated in low steam demand museum excursion service, under pressure say 500 days in the 15 year boiler inspection cycle: if the tubes and flues are found to be serviceable on removal would swaging on replacement ends rather than buying all new tubes and flues be an effective way to reduce the cost of 1472 day inspections for museums.

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In a couple engines I was involved in, by the time you de-scaled the tube, cut each end off clean, welded a new safe end, and hydro-ed the tube, you spent more money than if you simply bought a new one.

This was using paid labor...

My experience is the same as Earl and Kelly. In the early days of the Durango & Silverton, we safe ended all tubes during inspection and replacement. After a few years, it became apparent that the labor costs far exceeded just purchasing new tubes. If you have qualified and experienced folks who will volunteer this labor, it may be cost effective, but still time consuming.

Mike Ramsey

I assume that "qualified and experienced" means a certified welder, a person who in my day was pretty hard to find. And expensive.
Ned

Safe ending tubes can and has been done. The most recent case I can recall is the superheated flues on IRMs 1630 a few years back. They had the work contracted to a local Chicago boiler company.

A lot of the work involved in doing so is in the prep work (cleaning, grinding, beveling, ect.) rather than the welding itself. It may be possible to save some money by doing this in house.

As far as finding a welder, you will need someone who has an appropriate ASME pipe certification to do this. They are around and not incredibly difficult to find if one knows where to look. Maybe they could be willing to donate the labor if given a few incentives.

Is this technically true about needing "appropriate ASME pipe certification". Not saying it is or isn't, just asking the question. Obviously you do not want an inexperienced welder doing it but unless the rules have changed I do question the "rule" part of it. I do not think a welder has to be certified to seal weld stays or flues, but don't know for sure so I ask. Have not seen or heard much about ASME boiler codes and FRA requirements lately. So things may have changed and I am quite possibly mistaken. Seems to me on a stayed part of the boiler it was not required and dicier barrel work it might of been but then again it has been a while since I worked with the boiler maker whose answer I would trust. Not trying to be controversial just would like to know.

So would the same cost analysis apply to reusing old flues in good shape on a shorter run where you only had to swage the one end after cutting down to size? I helped replace a tube in a vertical boiler on a crane back in time. Was in HS at the time. The guy I was working with built a die for swaging and went through a process that I can't remember, probably for annealing? Took a pretty good day to do this one tube but I later hydroed the boiler for the inspector a couple weeks later and all was good. I know I would not want to do the swaging the way we did to a whole boilers worth of tubes. To the best of my memory there were no more problems with that boiler and the crane was scrapped along with four other cranes. Five actually but one was a diesel and not on property. Regards, John.

John,

it is my understanding that the person welding does not have to be certified to perform welding on an boiler that is covered by the FRA steam locomotive boiler regulations. They do have to perform the weld procedures per an accepted national standard for boiler repairs and be competent in performing the procedures being used.

Ed

Thought that was almost exactly like it was written but wasn't sure it hadn't changed. Thanks for the input Ed.

It is my understanding that back in the day this was a common practice in large railroad shops that did have many classes of locomotives. They could cascade tubes down to smaller locomotives.

Brian

John Risley, my interpretation is it depends on what part of the boiler you are welding on, stayed or unstayed. If you are using a National Standard weld procedure then you are required to use a welder certified to that procedure as it is a component of that procedure. I have never seen an accepted National Standard that does not have a requirement for the welder to be certified to that procedure. At this time the FRA does waive the requirement of the use of an Authorized Inspector in the repair process, but that will change with the first major incident, if we are not careful.
If you use an accepted RR weld practice for stayed areas, then the RR has the ability to determine to what standard the welder needs to be certified to, internal standard or external(ASME, AWS, etc). I would never want a welder who has not demonstrated proficiency (as in physical bend or xray) in the weld procedure to weld on my boiler, and neither would your insurance carrier. Documentation being a key component.
My 2 cents,
Mike Tillger
FRA reg below
230.33 Welded repairs and alterations.
(a) Unstayed portions of the boiler containing alloy steel or carbon steel with a carbon content over 0.25 percent. Prior to welding on unstayed portions of the boiler, the steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall submit a written request for approval to the FRA Regional Administrator. If the approval is granted, the steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall perform any welding to unstayed portions of the boiler in accordance with an accepted national standard for boiler repairs. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall satisfy reporting requirements in §230.20 at this time.

(b) Unstayed portions of the boiler containing carbon steel not exceeding 0.25 percent carbon. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall perform any welding to unstayed portions of the boiler in accordance with an accepted national standard for boiler repairs. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall satisfy reporting requirements in §230.20 at this time.

(c) Wastage. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall submit a written request for approval to the FRA Regional Administrator before performing weld build up on wasted areas of unstayed surfaces of the boiler that exceed a total of 100 square inches or the smaller of 25 percent of minimum required wall thickness or 1⁄2 inch. Wasted sheets shall not be repaired by weld build up if the wasted sheet has been reduced to less than 60 percent of the minimum required thickness as required by this part.

(d) Flush patches. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall submit a written request for approval to the FRA Regional Administrator for the installation of flush patches of any size on unstayed portions of the boiler.

(e) Stayed portions of the boiler. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall perform welded repairs or alterations on stayed portions of the boiler in accordance with established railroad practices, or an accepted national standard for boiler repairs. The steam locomotive owner and/or operator shall satisfy the reporting requirements in §230.20 at this time.

Thanks Mike I don't think any thing has changed since my recall or understanding. I have seen too many mistakes made in boiler repair by well intentioned people. The people who made the mistakes were not stupid or totally uneducated, nor were they evil. I like working with knowledgeable people with a proven track record of successful repairs. I am the gofur and let them drive. Serious boiler work is for serious people who know their stuff. Not just the repairs themselves but the documentation and record keeping. Cheaper to pay a solid professional once than pay for the job twice. But if it were not for other peoples mistakes our tried and true contractors would be living on soup and crackers.

Thanks again for the input Mike. While not planning on ramrodding any boiler projects in this lifetime I find boiler work totally fascinating to observe. Even the more nitty gritty documentation and survey work. Finding braces that Baldwins boiler makers forgot to put in, or hidden deep pitting on the underlapping side of a rivet seam. Nobody knew until the project was well underway. Interesting as long as I don't have to pay for the repairs. Found a CD that a friend had copied for me back in 2013 unopened. It was a scan from an old ICS book {I think} on boiler repair. Was interesting to read as the RR sounded like they had the ya or ne on welding as part of the process as electric welding was rather new. There was a lot of excitement in the writings of the "The Boiler Maker" section about certain repairs using the newer improved electric welding. Stated that this section was conducted by George M Davies in a 1930 publication. Of course much of this info is dated. The information is still somewhat pertinent to understanding some of the repairs that you can come across, like shapes and size of riveted patches to repair a crack in the barrel. and of course the use of chalking. Sorry to ramble so. Nuts, bolts and rivets excite me. Regards, John.

John and others who wish to learn about locomotive & boiler repairs check out this archive of the International Correspondence Schools, a great place to start or refresh your knowledge base. Scroll down to the 500 series for railroad info, but they have info on materials, machine shop work and many other trades

https://icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/bb/

Mike Tillger

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An HAER survey of the E. Broad Top RR shop included this graphic depiction of the swaging and forge weld process for safe ending serviceable boiler tubes for reuse.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.pa3372.sheet/?sp=3/