Does any road still use fusees and or torpedos now a days.
Are crew memebgers schooled in their use.
In what circumstances are they used today?
Are they carried on the newer freight units? or on passenger trains?
How do fusees differ from car flares? if at all.
How pronounced is the reprot from a torpedo and would it wake-up a dozing crew?
Torpedos are history. The were discussed briefly in another thread not long ago.
Fusees are still in use - I lit one not long ago for a nighttime highway crossing. Most are short - five minutes vs the fifteen to twenty minute versions you usually have in your car.
My knowledge of fusees/flares goes back to my youth. My father was a police officer in a small town. I haven’t had any training on the railroad regarding lighting and handling them.
A fusee is used (generally at night) under any circumstance where a red flag would be appropriate during the day.
Use them all the time on the NS. 10 minutes Fusees. Use them at crossings at night, hand signals at night, place on the rear on a car so somebody on the other end can protect a shove move in the dark. Also use them to thaw out switch locks etc.
When I was a kid (1940s and '50s), fusees were primarily sulphur. Is that what they’re made of today or have health issues changed them? I remember that the smoke from one used to be pretty strong and dangerous to breathe.
Years and years ago, we were told how to light fusees, when to drop them, how to put them out, and so on. I never had a thrown fusee fail to stay lit when dropping them according to Rule 99. I also flagged with them a few times–probably didn’t go as far back as I should have–that was the days before each subdivision had its minimum flagging distance posted in the timetable.
One thing we used to do in the hump was have the top-of-the-hump crew “light” the tail end of a car or cut of cars, when we were concerned about seeing the car in a fog–we’d light it up, cut it off, and watch until we couldn’t see it any more–it sure beat cornering cars that hadn’t cleared our switches!
Fuses (or Fusees) I understand, but what was a torpedo and when did they become obsolete?
– a.s.
A torpedo was an oversize percussion cap, held to the railhead by bending a lead or copper strap down both sides. Rights of Trains goes into all together too much detail as to how and when to use them, circa half a century ago. With the widespread use of radio communication, there are now better ways of informing the DS and other train crews about where you are and what you are doing.
Chuck
Torpedoes were little pillow shaped explosive packs about 1-1/2" square by ½" thick with metal spring or shapeable lead bands on each side. A torpedo was laid on the railhead and the metal bands could be wrapped around it to hold the torpedo in place. They would explode when run over, even at a barely moving speed. They are approximately as loud as a 12-gauge shotgun. The signal sent to the engineer by torpedoes required two of them in succession something like 150 feet apart. But even if only one torpedo explosion was heard, it meant the same thing as two. I have never heard of any accidents involving torpedoes, but it is hard to believe that there were not many of them. I don’t know if they could be accidentally set off in storage by becoming unstable or if a whole group of them could set each other off by sympathetic detonation. I am sure that one of them would be capable of blowing off a hand.
I wonder when they first originated. They were used up to at least 1970 or so. As far as I know, they only had one meaning, that was to reduce speed to some specific limit for a specific distance, but I can’t recall the details.
The fusees I recall on the Milwaukee Road during the 1960s had cardboard roll extension handles so they were handy to use for giving hand signs. The fusees that I have seen sold for highway safety have always had the steel spike extending from the end so they can be stuck in the ground and remain standing upright on their own. However, I believe some railroads used this style as well, so they could be left standing, usually with the spike stuck into a tie. In the recent era, the steel spike extended from a wooden plug that fit into the end of the fusee casing. I found one of these fusee spikes dating from pre-1900 using a metal detector. Instead of a wooden plug, which would have, long since rotted away, the spike was anchored in and extending from a cast iron plug sized to fit the casing of the fusee. Leave to the railroads of that era to use cast iron in their fusees.
Does any road still use fusees and or torpedos now a days? Yes, Snoqualmie Valley Railroad in Snoqualmie, Washington.
Are crew members schooled in their use? Yes, SVRR crew is trained on when and how to use torps and fusees.
In what circumstances are they used today? Fusees are used for visual warnings and torps are used to alert train crew of a problem down track.
Are they carried on the newer freight units? or on passenger trains? SVRR only runs passenger.
How pronounced is the reprot from a torpedo and would it wake-up a dozing crew? I was in the last of four steel side heavyweights on our train, and I heard a torp go off four cars plus locomotive away.
A 1972 rulebook states, “The explosion of two torpedos is a signal to immidiately reduce speed to 20 mph or as much slower as conditions require, keeping a close lookout for train or obstruction…” There are 5 other rules pertaining to the use of torps for protecting trains.
dd
One way of securing a torpedo to the rail was to wrap one of the lead bands around the head of the rail (on only one side, of course) and to trail the other band back on the rail so that the locomotive wheel would run on it and hold the torpedo in place until the weight of the engine caused the torpedo to explode.
Somewhere, I have seen that the first explosives used in such a manner were percussion caps that were secured to the rail in some way. It may be that a trainman had a box of caps in his possession and thought of them as a means of geting the next engineer’s attention. I imagine that the first engineers who ran over such wondered in the world had happened.
I was glad to learn about torpedos here, and that they are not used anymore due to better communications. In the mid to late 1960’s the PCC cars of the Shaker Heights (Ohio) Rapid Transit Lines each carried about half a dozen torpedos in the under-dash emergency kit, along with fusees, signal flags, a hemp rope, etc.
My buddies and I not only rode the Shaker Rapid at late hours, we also chartered fantrips. Not infrequently, late at night, an obliging motorman would stop in the tunnels just east of 55th street and allow us to place two or three torpedos on the track ahead, just so we could have the pleasure of hearing several torpedos go off inside a tunnel. What is it about high school boys and loud noises?
I think we all realize today what a crazy thing that was to do, but reading about what torpedos looked like and did brought it all back to me. One last thing: I remember them as black and always dirty.
What an interesting thread.
Many of the flares/fusees that we use now on the highway have a bent wire held to the cylinder by a paper band. You can either bend the two ends out to form a tripod or pull the loop out to hang the fusee on something (or maybe stick it in a coupler). Better than leaving those spikes laying around in the road.
Re: Torpedos. I recall reading an account (in Trains?) about some railroad pranksters who placed three torpedos on the rail fairly close together, in anticipation of an oncoming speeder occupied by a foreman. Apparently the force of the three reports was enough to tip the speeder…
Fascinating what people did l before electricity or radio communications. I think of literal “highball” highballs (not the mixed drink [swg]) and now these torpedeos.
Boy, have times changed and relatively recently. I guess today if someone either employee or near ROW heard a loud percussive bang (especially two) we would be thinking call Security/The Cops/grab Hazmat suit/Get the aitch out of here. At least, I would. After all, I’ve never heard one in real life and I guess would have to be allowed access to SV
I have heard that with today’s quiet “whisper” cabs, there were cases where the crew in the engine cab didn’t hear the torpedos go off. An audible signalling device isn’t of much use if it can’t be heard.
That and the chance that someone is going to have to provide flag protection in line with the old Rule 99 (Under a different number in GCOR) is about zero. When I first hired on 10 years ago, I heard where a section foreman protected a track defect by flagging until he could get hold of the dispatcher. Mostly, torpedos were used for efficiency testing until they were discontinued.
In some rule books, mostly older ones, One torpedo was a signal to stop, Two torpedos were a signal to reduce speed for a prescribed distance.
A slang term for torpedos was “guns.”
Jeff
One tale I heard was that the idea of the torpedo came from a Union soldier who needed to get an oncoming train stopped. Lacking a lantern, he stuck two paper musket cartridges to the rails. The unexpected reports got the engineer’s attention - he promptly whistled for brakes and managed to stop before rolling out onto a bridge that was no longer there.
Needless to say, when the word got around somebody figured that there had to be a simpler way to package a loud bang…
Incidentally, cap pistols were one of the first casualties in the anti-firearm crusade. Now you can’t even find those bright orange suction dart launchers.
Chuck
That is not quite true… I saw some hand-pump pellet guns WITH LASER SIGHTS available in “bubble packaging” on the end cap at Wal*Mart today. There were also “cartridge” (as opposed to paper roll) cap guns in the toy aisle.
Im confused… Fusee = Flare?
Also sorry to get off topic but I dont get why they got rid of toy guns… They sure looked alot more fake than the Airsoft (BB gun) 1:1 exact replica’s of real firearms I see kids in my town running around with these days.
Fusee = flare, but flare seems more like the highway term. I never heard railroaders call them anything but fusees, but I suppose there might have been regional differences in the use of the term. Doesn’t fusee mean rocket in French or some other language?
Torpedoes were plenty loud. They made sense because they added an audible warning to the visual aspect of flagging, which might be missed by visual distraction. Impact set them off, but all they apparently required to detonate them was pressure. I have seen a locomotive run over one at maybe 1/10th mile per hour and it fired. I am not sure if you could run over one slow enough for it not to fire, but it seemed not.