The Chicago Tribune this morning had a story about the trailing Genesis unit (of two in the consist, normal for this train) on the Eastbound California Zephyr catching on fire in Iowa yesterday. As the story goes, the crew noticed the fire from the cab and subsequently stopped the train, detached the burning unit from both the train and the lead unit and called the fire department. Not a good day for Amtrak, considering they seem to have a shortage of “good” power as it is.
Anybody in IA happen to get some shots of the burning (or burned) unit?
Are fires like this just fuel fires that will die out when the fuel is shut off? Or, does the fire tend to spread to the whole unit, which then goes up in smoke?
If this was a truck thread, we’d be touting (and running down) Fords, Chevy’s, and Dodges. But it’s a railroad thread, to our loyalties tend to run to locomotives. And the debate has been going on for a long, long, time.
Leave it to csxengineer to take a humorous tack on the subject.[:)]
Locomotives catch on fire for a variety of reasons…EMD, GE, ALCO, Baldwin, Lima-Hamilton, Fairbanks-Morse…between fuel sources and electrical sources there are enough possible problem areas that no locomotive is exempt.
Hope the Iowa Fire Department that handled that car-b-que did a better job than the Arvada, CO did with a fire also on #5 a few years ago. In that case, a fireman fell through the fiberglass shell roof of that locomotive’s carbody.
EMD - ALCO-GE -BLH…they all burn. It’s got to be really hot to get diesel fuel to burn unless it’s atomized. I have a very distinct memory of working alongside an SD40-2 burning in a derailment where the fuel boiled in the tank and part of the bell melted. You get into trouble faster if the unit is leaky and poorly maintained, you have crud deluxe in the sump and the unit is overheating. Catastrophic failures happen.
…Do all brands of railroad engines have a fire supressing systems built in…?
I would imagine if a fuel fire ever does get started and the interior of the engine body around the prime mover has oil leaks accumulated, etc. on equipment, it doesn’t take long to get a hot out ot control fire going…
Yeah they do it is called teh emergancy fuel cut off only works if you can get to it. Semi trucks can go up in huge flames also if you break a fuel line and it hits they exhaust you will get a fire no matter what you do.
…In my above post when I asked of a “fire suppressing system”…I meant, something to actually fight the fire if one gets started…Sure anything will get on fire if one feeds it fuel…and fuel injection vehicles are fed fuel under high pressure so it is imperative to not have leaks.