L A Live Steamers 50th.....Not

[highiron999]

To All:

For the Los Angeles Live Steamers there wil be NO meets this year! Labor Day weekend you are welcome to visit and run, but there will be no formal meet until the Memorial day meet 2007, at which time the club will celebrate its 50th anniversary!

By May 2007 all the new yard work will be done and train parking will be dramatically improved, hopefully reducing the usual jam on the mainline. Also, we will have redone the 'Valley Line' and added additional yards on the West End to accomodate 'train order' runs.

Standards are still being finalized and focus on coupler height (unloaded 4 3/8 +/- 3/16 inches to centerline) and able to rotate +/- 7 degrees, side bearing clearance min 1/100 inch-max 3/32 inch when tipped or constant contact rollers, and (must have one) automatic airbrakes, drawbar, or safety chains (rated 500lbs or more-center pull single or dual ) including IBLS wheel standards with max. flange height limit .22 inches. No part may extend more than 18 inches from track centerline. Passenger seats 10 inches max height (compressed) above car floor.

These specs are requirements for visitors. How strictly they will be enforced and when, I do not know. the trend seems to be that they will be suggested guidelines THIS year and required in the not too distant future.

DON'T YELL AT ME! I JUST VOLUTEER HERE!

Suggestions welcome and will be passed on to the safety commitee OR

e-mail to:booster@lals.org.

That goes right to the president who can take it to the next board meeting.

Leonard Evans/highiron999

[bcody]

Are the powers that be trying to tell people not to come visit? If they enforce the above requirements I think I will pass on visiting. How do the rest of you guys feel? Bill

[willy]

Makes good sense to me.

I just wish more clubs could adopt similar reasoning. IE the seats thing is a clear indication to me that some one was smacking their forhead on tunnel entrances! What a newb. lol

Willy

[Pennsy fan]

A thought around the our club (LALS) is that vistors will be able to do self inspections by people who want come. You will have a check list that you
will send in and that will be all you need to run here. But also you are responsible for anything you equipment causes if it's not right. This is a real
problem for us to make this simple because of the rules that have now have to live with. We want the the people to come and have fun but also have NO accidents at all ever! We are under the looking glass from the city of L.A.
and they want us to do what we can to be safe. This is one of the things you get when your on city property, so we are stuck for now.
David.

[LivingLegend]

Willy....

Bill McKelvey was the man in charge of LALS's Western (and Eastern) Expansion(s) during the early 1980's. When the tunnels were built, I was one of the guys that helped put up the forms for the pouring of the concrete for the portals and wing walls. Seems to me, best as I remember, during the planning stage McKelvey measured srrl5 sitting on the tank of his 3-3/4" engine to make sure he would have enough head clearance to the top of the tunnel and the top of the tunnel portal. David sitting up straight on his engine would have been the highest (engine plus engineer) of anyone that would be running, or riding, on the railroad. David might remember better than I do, and can clarify.

Most likely, the decrease in the car's seat height is to lower the car/passenger center of gravity to keep them from tipping over if a derailment occurs or if a passenger leans too far to the side. That situation is what led to the current overload of rules and regulations.

Before installing seats on the club riding cars years ago, the passengers at LALS sat directly on the floor of the gondolas. Go back to the old days and do away with the seats and sit on the car floor.... Presto! Less chance of the public, or club guest, tipping the car and dumping the riders out onto the ground!

LivingLegend

[Rowland]

Are the powers that be trying to tell people not to come visit? If they enforce the above requirements I think I will pass on visiting. How do the rest of you guys feel? Bill

Not at all, Bill. They are simply saying that the equipment and right-of-way must conform to some common standards in order to be compatible with all the other equipment operating on the railroad at LALS, and comply with the requirements imposed by the owners of the land.

Another issue is the extensive damage suffered by the rolling stock, motive power, and the right-of-way when any one, two, or all three components are operating outside the maximum design limits.

The downside is that the damage to the equipment usually occurs gradually over time and it evades early detection. It was a real eye opener after I observed a number of inspections of both equipment and right-of-way. It was startling what the calipers revealed.

You don't realize the damage that occurs by non-standard equipment operating on the right-of-way. You might as well go to the club treasury, grab a fist full of ten dollar bills, and set them on fire in the parking lot. And the same holds true for the owners operating equipment on bad order right-of-way. It's a two way street.

Better get used to more stringent enforcement of standards if you plan on visiting pikes operated on publicly owned land.

An axiom carved in granite for todays Live Steamer is, "Your generousity of sharing your part-time hobby with public guests by giving rides will get you sued like a business if someone gets injured".

One last thing. If any of my fellow brothers and sisters in the hobby are working to keep your doors open at your pike by reducing your risk of being sued, or preventing your eviction by your landlord as a deep pocket, high risk tenant, and you need me to help out by seeing to it that my equipment doesn't tear up your right-of-way or pose an un-necessary risk to other people riding at your property as determined BY YOUR STANDARDS, just let me know and I'm on board.

You want chains? You got it.
You want seats, or no seats. You got it.
You want breaks? You got it. What kind? I'm easy.
You want anything else? You got it.

It's your railroad, you built it, and you're assuming all the risk while I'm on your property. Consequently, I'm going to help in any way I possibly can to show my appreciation as an invited guest, by being a considerate guest.

I apologize if this appears to be a rant. After a while, you just get tired of the PBM Committee sniveling and whinning when the world doesn't evolve around them.

Rowland

[willy]

Willy....

Bill McKelvey was the man in charge of LALS's Western (and Eastern) Expansion(s) during the early 1980's. When the tunnels were built, I was one of the guys that helped put up the forms for the pouring of the concrete for the portals and wing walls. Seems to me, best as I remember, during the planning stage McKelvey measured srrl5 sitting on the tank of his 3-3/4" engine

Yep them were the days. I remember Dave coming by and making a personal 10% grade on the high tunnel just so he could get there. Boys and there toys.

I wonder what the equestrians would say now if we tried to block their access to place those 3 tunnels.

Willy Rowe (LALS Alumni 1981-1985)

[Fred_V]

several years ago the Mid South club put out a new rule book that really angered a bunch of folks. "i've been a live steamer for 30 years and we never had to.........." was heard all over. many of the old guys never came back and the meets were small for a couple of years but the club survived and is bigger and better than ever now. we live in a different world today and we all have to adjust to it.
fred v

[highiron999]

Thanks for the comments and the supporting statements from all. The seat height is to increase stability as there has been no collision of a head with a tunnel, due to both adequate height and the "telltails" at entrances.

Bill McKelvey knew how to do it right the first time and when he was 'run out' by those wishing to shortcut his methods, the club suffered.

Leonard Evans/highiron999

[LivingLegend]

The new standards LALS has put on member's and non-member's locomotives/rolling stock is the easiest part to deal with. The bummer, from what little I've heard, or been able to find out, is not being able to run your equipment during the hours the club is hauling the public. If you aren't pulling the public, then you and your loco (and rolling stock) have to be off the railroad during those hours.

It isn't really that much of a problem during the 3 or 4 hours public hauling takes place on the Sunday of the 3-day Memorial Day meet.... Still plenty of other hours during those 3 days to get some running in. A 2-day meet such as the Fall meet in October doesn't leave much time for running. By the time the track would be free of public riders (Sunday of the Fall Meet), most people from out of the LALS area would be packing up to head for home. Seems LALS members wanting to run on an average Sunday lose out the most though.

Highiron999. Clarify and correct me on the above if I'm wrong. I don't want to give out wrong info.

LivingLegend

[mattmason]

I think LALS has to do this in light of what has happened. The resons for it and what could have been done are all in the past and we have to deal with it now. I think LALS is doing everything they can to stay in the park and not have to leave. If you don't like it, then it will be one great track you will miss out on. I can't think of another club that has so many signaled interlockings in the West.

For me, I have never been a fan of public on straddle cars because of seat height, something LALS is addressing with a seat height requirement. It just makes most straddle cars too unstable. The big exception is the Real Trains straddle cars LALS recently got; they are low and very stable from what I saw.

The litigious nature "park" clubs are exposed to is affecting the same. I think home clubs (read large tracks like Bitter Creek and White Creek and smaller home tracks like Ken Schroeder's in Nevada) are where the hobby is being pushed to. Less public liability exposure and less politics overall when it is a privately owned RR.

Lennard, can you clarify what new standards will affect the silver rails (1" and 3/4") at LALS?

Matt Mason
Editor, The Home Railway Journal

[Pennsy fan]

Just note you can run on sunday if you have meet the level 2 or our min safty standards. Both you and the train has to have this in place. This is for our members. As for vistors we are still working on it.
We are putting in track so we are keeping extra traffic down right now until we get caught up with the new track laying.
D.