User:Long Robin 79/Boiler certificate

Boiler Certificate

Early boilers were oftern poorly made of inferior quality materials, the stress of pressures created by a fire tube boiler lead to several catastrophic boilers failures oftern resulting in loss of life. As technology progressed so the pressures these boilers could produced increased. The introduction of the saftey valve further reduced the number of reported incidents but British Railways drew up guidlines for the maintenance and inspection fo these boilers to ensure further risk reduction. A boiler certificate is issued to a Steam Locomotive, usually on completion of a Hydraulic Pressure Test it certifies the boilers strength under pressure and is usually carried out when the boiler is removed from the locomotive. Currently the General Boiler Examination lasts for 7 years.

Historic Useage
This document is used to confirm that the boiler fitted to a steam locomotive complies with the design specifications.

Current UK
Under the current UK legislation the boiler certificate is refereed to as the General Boiler Examination. In order for a Steam Locomotive to obtain acceptance to operate on the British Railway Network it must be registered and in order for it to be registered it must obtain a Certificate of Engineering Acceptance the conditions for which are laid out in GM/RT2000. Before this certificate can be issued the operator must first obtain the Certificate of Conformances as detailed in the document GM/RT2003Unit. There are 3 CoC's that must be met before the CoEA can be issued they are: 1. Maintenance 2. Overhaul Policy 3. Safety Examination.

General Boiler Examination
The General Boiler Examination forms part of the Certificate of Conformation: Safety Examination. This examination can some times be refered to as the Hydraulic Pressure test. Once the boiler has passed it is valid for 7 years, however should it be necessary this maybe extended upto 10 years from the General Boiler Test if an Intermediate Boiler Examination has taken place.

Requirements
The requirements for the General Boiler Examination are laid out in document MT/276 a copy of which is not available on-line.