There was an interesting photo in today’s Chicago Tribune showing Amtrak unit 200 burning down at the 12th Street diesel facility near Union Station yesterday. In the photo there were lots of CFD personnel there pouring water onto the unit. I can’t get a picture off of the Tribune web site for some reason. Anybody see this event firsthand?
Sounds like it’s doing what a GE supposed to do … kinda like setting a fire in a forest to encourage the growth of new plants , simply natures way .
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Inadequate horsepower. Now they need to spec bigger engines that can withstand the load without burning up.
I would imagine it is either a Little Rock train, washington train or a Northwest train. Whoever was very late getting that train is the one that burned.
Quick welding repair that got out of hand?[:O]
…Does a normal diesel / electric locomotive have adequate built in fire suppression installed.
I don’t mean a hand fire extingusher, but a real system that can really do something. With leaks of oil here and there and over time I imagine an engine room might become rather dirty with such, hence a pretty good fire potential.
Nah.
Shipboard engine rooms sometimes have Halon Gas Protection among other things. The problem with those is that it does not support life.
…Guess it simply seems wasteful to not at least have a system to give a starting fire a chance to be knocked down.
The piece of equipment we’re talking about is not cheap.
I realize the danger to life from the former mentioned Halon gas, but we certainly have other systems avail. Just seems unusual to me the RR’s wouldn’t want something as such built in from the factory.
It’s a cost/benefit issue. How many a year does this happen to? What is the cost of outfiting all units with the system? Probably cheaper to buy a new unit for everyone that burns up, than to pay to install a fire supression system.
After all, the crew can walk to a phone if somethng happens…even if it is a long walk. Shipboard, it’s tough to do that. An engine room fire has the potential to sink the entire ship, but a locomotive fire is much less likely to cause catastrophic damage to the entire train.
By “burn down”, does that mean the engine is beyond repair? I’ve seen #200 a few times on the CZ.
…JSGreen: I understand your point for cost/benefit issue…But this kind of incident can happen any place and some places are totally isolated that no fire equipment can get to them. An out of control fire could spread to dangerous cargo cars, etc…
I understand these days of cut costs, etc…It just seems odd to me a sizeable cylinder of fire retardant wouldn’t be included in the engine room and electrical panel with proper distribution system in place. Possibly a total ruin could be prevented by stopping a just starting oil or electrical fire, etc…Just my thoughts.
Again, I understand so many products are now built with no redundancy available at all…Signs of the times.
One cylinder of a “clean” agent like FM200 (a replacement for Halon) in a size sufficient to deal with a locomotive will run $3000+. Multiply that by the number of locomotives in service, add regular maintenance (our system is in rooms, not locomotives, which would be a maintenance nightmare) and you start to see the cost/benefit ratio.
…Why does it have to be the expensive gas {Halon type or newer}to act as a fire retardant…? Surely other workable ingredients are available…
Yes, 3000 plus $'s is expensive, but what does an engine cost and the potential danger of a fire getting to beyond the engine…Of course an unknown.
Most new public and many priviate buildings seem to be coded to include fire suspressing equipment now…
A lot of people on this thread seem to be pretty good at spending other people’s money. How much out of your own pocket would you be willing to spend to install a similar fire suppression system on your own automobile?
On a really non related note, Amtrak #5 came inbound to Chicago yesterday afternoon with it’s normal consist of cars but with only ONE Genesis unit…must have lost one somewhere along the way…doesn’t say much for Amtrak’s continuing engine reliability, does it? Oh, then an eastbound BNSF coal drag (loaded, as are all east bounds) came through Eola late in the afternoon and just west of Aurora (Montgomery?) it lost one of two SD70MAC units and you should have seen the one remaining unit trying to get the drag of about 125 cars up the grade out of Aurora so the crew could stop in Eola yard to check out the problem on the radio with the Mechanical Department folks…turned out to be low cooling water on the offending unit. I guess Amtrak is not the only railroad with problems.
…Good morning Paul. Speak directly if you’re indicating of me spending “other peoples money”. I probably am as conservative as most folks. Maybe more so.
I’m simply trying to make some sense as I see it. That’s all.
To answer your question on the automobile, I’d sure take a good look at it. Between our two automobiles and our home we have 8 fire extingushers. I realize that’s not a built in system, but it’s an indication I try to do what I say.
I also wonder if a fire supression system would be effective in a locomotive, for a couple of reasons.
One reason Halon (and its newer ecologically friendly replacements) is so effective on shipboard is the enclosed space. Once the Halon displaces the air, the fire goes out, but doesnt cool it off. Since the engine room is essentially a sealed space, the halon will stick around until the fire area cools off enough to prevent a flashback…the same is true of the modern battle tanks (specifically the M-1 Abrams). Because is is built to defend against NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warefare), it can be sealed up to prevent nasties from getting in, which makes it a candidate for an air displacement fire supression system.
Looking at the side of all modern locomotives, there are lots of cooling vents in the side of the engine. Any fire supression applied would vent out and allow air inside quickly, so quickly that the residual heat could reignite the fire.
Fire supression systems in buildings (those that I know of) use water…and they have a direct connection to the water mains, they wont run out!
I believe there may be fire supression systems (halon type) in some data centers, but those are also in a closed/air conditioned space, which would retain the air displacement agent better than an ordinary office (open space). Some one who has worked in those spaces may be able to provide more details…
I guess this is a long winded way of saying that a Halon system may not be effective enough to justify the expense of installation…
Modelcar , it is interesting to note that in my experience with industrial locomotives like an SW type engine in a steel mill , there are some locomotives with exactly the system you describe. Most of them have a handle that you pull in case of a fire and somtimes you can see the manifolded fire extinguishers mounted on the running boards just in front of the cabs. I always thought that the biggest reason they had them was because they did not maintain the locomotives, they were always covered in oil and carbon and took very little to get a big fire going.
The ATSF used a device called the slammer . The slammer was a device that inserted a sliding door between the air filters and the turbo intake . There were a variety of sensors around the locomotive that were simply two wires soldered together with low temp solder that would melt and interrupt a circuit that would trip the slammer . In case of fire the engine would certainly shut down.
On many locomotive fires the temperatures get very high , consider a dynamic brake fire that has temps around 1200 deg , you cannot put that fire out unless you have lots of water !!!
Now that, I considered doing for my big block. A friend’s engine did catch fire and we swung an ax and sliced his air conditioning line against the flames and put it out that way. That blast of chemicals blew it out before it started to work ont he carberatur and fuel line.
Once or twice Ive had my Holley accumulate fumes and ignite creating a tower of flame about a foot across and 4 feet high, I usually stay on the starter to suck the fire down into the manifold.
At work, I keep a ear tuned for the “Woosh! BOOM” when starting any of the newer cars because sometimes a fuel line has rotted out and sprayed gas all over the engine compartment at high pressure. The next thing to do was to un do the fuel cap, get clear of the vehicle and call the Fire response on the radio and they will take care of it. About 5 cars a year catch fire this way at work out of thousands per month.
Most of the time it’s the ABC Fire exinguisher of the dry chemical type that does a good job on most fires on the road. I probably used about 30 of them and let the fire department get the rest on the bigger ones.
But once in a while… you get the people out of the way and just let it burn itself out. As long people are safe and out of harms way the fire is not a problem.
let me tell you about truck fires sometime… the ones you dont read about in the news… like the Propanes and gas tankers. Smaller ones like tire fires, brake fires, engine fires electrical cab fires… little stuff like that.
The only fires that concern me are Barn Fires. Everyone on the County must walk, ride, drive or go to that site to see the fire and impede the responders trying to put it out.
There are also Meth lab fires but that wi
Slightly OT here… but just for the record I would like to point out, when give the opportuinity, I can be very good at spending other peoples money. [;)]
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