Now hold on a minute… Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I’ll admit that I don’t have any experience
> restoring or maintaining air brake equipment. SO
> I may just be blowing smoke here. But that said,
> this whole air brake & clean room thing seems
> rather fishy to me. There are lots of steam
> locomotives operating around the country, big and
> small. If they are FRA compliant (most are) then
> they need an air brake. How many small all
> volunteer groups have the time or funds to set up
> a clean room for air brake work, or to send their
> parts off to one? I’ve NEVER heard of such a
> thing until now. I can also think of several well
> equipped and well respected museum and tourist
> railroads that do all or nearly all of their own
> work (Durango & Silverton, Cumbres and Toltec,
> Cass Scenic, Nevada Northern, Western Maryland
> Scenic, Strasburg Railroad, just to name a few)
> and I’m not aware of an air brake clean room at
> any of them. So what do all of these successful
> and respected steam railroads do for their air
> brake work?

You answered your own question. Those that have
the people, facilities, etc to do their own, do their
own. Many of them also do air work for others.

And there are at least a couple of air brake shops
that specialize in ancient locomotive and car air
brake valve and portion work.

If the operations you are familiar with are just
doing air "work" with a pencil, that's fine.

Until they get caught.