Does lightning ever hit trains or tracks?
Saw a bolt of lightning hit the rail about a carlength ahead of a moving train on the B&O back in the 1960s. The next block signal was dark, but the rest of them were lit and working normally. The crew reported it at the next phone (no radio back then). No damage to the train, but the front brakeman came very close to needing clean underwear.
Having personally witnessed a bolt of lightning strike a manhole cover (which, of course, was flush with the road surface) I am certain lightning can strike anything on the right-of-way…
I imagine that when lightning hits the tracks it will hit the track circuts, and it can mess up the signal system pretty bad. Same way with a locomotive that has DPU equipped. It is pretty technalogically advanced. So I bet that when it does happens, the shop crews will come close to neeing a clean pair of underwear too!!! Same way when the dispatchers signal reedouts go blank.[(-D] Seriously though, maby another forum member can elaborate on this a little more. A complete failure with anything, like that is no laughing matter though. Especially when someone can get hurt.
Heck yes - If it can strike my tamper cleaning up behind in a derailment,then it can zap a train. Thank god for fusible links…
Lightning almost always gets into the signal instrument houses through the pole line or a ground strike right next to the instrument house, not via the track circuit. “Lightning arrestors” do the job of stopping the transient current before it does any damage in most cases.
The dispatcher’s screen doesn’t go blank, and the dispatcher doesn’t even “see” signal indications or even really see the signal system at all. If there’s no data flow from a control point to the dispatching office, then the graphic representing that track segment on the dispatcher’s console simply blinks on and off steadily, just as it does when the signal system at that location is out of correspondence.
I worked on locomotives for 5 years and I never heard of a locomotive being damaged by a lightning strike. I guess it’s happened, but no one even mentioned it in my career in the shop. Locomotive electrical systems burn up just fine on their own.
Really, I think the track is probably a lousy place for lightning to strike compared to trees, buildings, mountain tops, pole lines, and other things that don’t bleed off charge quickly.
RWM
RWM/Mudchicken:
In your opinion, how would you order weather phenomena relative to ROW hazard?
RWM: As an aside…how is the chicken in Van Horn, TX?
A direct lightning strike to a locomotive does some strange things , you’ll be changing lots of parts including the ground relay, most of the semiconductors, possibly a traction motor or two, AR10 diodes and transient caps…very difficult to trouble shoot .
Lightning can hit anything. When I was doing some historical research I stumbled onto a front page article from the 1950s in Pierre, SD where a man was struck and killed by lightning while being pulled behind a boat water skiing.
There’s a picture out there someplace of lightning striking a tree next to a farmhouse. From the same bolt there’s a [i]teeny little tendril{/i] of lightning leading over to the TV antenna, which of course, fried the TV inside.
There’s a lot of energy in a lightning bolt. More than most things we build are designed to handle.
Yes, lightining can and does hit tracks and trains, moving or stationary. It is rare for lighting to do serious damage to a train or locomotive. This is because modern railcars are well connected to the ground and are made of relatively heavy steel parts. The body shell of the locomotive forms what is called a Faraday Cage. Because the shell is conductive and it virtually totally encloses the components within the shell, the strike is channeled around whatever is within the shell.
A properly installed television antenna with a shunt for the strike to pass directly to ground prevents destruction of the television. If the antenna is not properly installed, the strike can indeed be channeled directly to the television, destroying it and a good bit of the wiring within the house.
Lightning striking an automobile is somewhat the same story. The car may be hit and the occupants may be frightened by the extremely bright light and loud noise, but the occupants are seldom injured if they are fully inside the vehicle. Usually the car is not damaged and continues to operate normally. Again, the Faraday Cage formed by the car body works to protect the occupants even though it is interrupted by relatively large window surfaces. In fact, if you are out in the open and there is no better shelter, one of the safest places to be during a lightning storm is inside a car with the doors closed.
The same principle applies to airplanes in flight. Lightning strikes happen with some frequency but seldom cause damage. The conductive shell forms the same type of cage. The real danger to airplanes is the strong shear winds and hail within and near thunderstorms rather than the lightning per se. The lightning only indicates the presence of conditions conducive of strong winds, hail and heavy rain.
I would think that the electronics on a locomotive would be isolated from the frame like they do on aircraft which are hit quite often by lightning. The frame and other heavy steel parts would carry he charge to the other rail and into the ground.
[tup] Good explanation by Alan R. above. Matches what I know, but said better and with clearer examples than I could think of. Thanks. - PDN.
However, I do not reccommend being on the tracks during a lightning storm.
A few years ago I was out taking photos (using my metal tripod) of lightning over the tracks during a rather vigorous storm. The lightning bolts were all about 2-3 miles north from my location (I could tell from the time delay from seeing the bolt to hearing the thunder).
At one point, I noticed that there hadn’t been any lightning for a few minutes; all of the sudden I felt a tingle all over me and then BANG! Lightning had hit the lineside pole right next to me (I could tell because it was smouldering). The strike knocked out the signals on the line, set the crossing protection going, and fried my digital camera. I was almost deaf for about 2 hours afterward, and consider myself fortunate that I didn’t get fried as well.
Needless to say, I don’t do that any more.
Of concern to the outdoorsman are “bolts from the blue”.
From the NWS: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/bolt_blue.htm
Also from NOAA: http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/outdoors.htm
That’s a really scary story - ‘There but for the grace of God go I’ kind of thing - it could happen to any of us. You were lucky . . .
From the 2nd link above -
‘When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!’
Or - If you can hear thunder, the lightning is close enough to be a threat.
[:-,] I suppose you didn’t want to wind up like the cows in the photo at the 2nd link [Q]
Thick steel rails are a much better conductor of electricity than a thin barbed-wire fence. So I could just see a bunch of railfans from a photo run-by line-up winding up like that . . . [:-^]
- PDN.
Zardoz’s indication of an impending lightening strike was confirmed some years back by a gentleman who was a Park Ranger in a Western National Par, he was on a television show, and held the dubious honor of having been ground zero for multiple lightening bolts; He held the record in the Park Service for the number of time he was struck…He said he could always tell when it was going to happen. because what hair he had left would stand on end!
One of a former employer’s drivers was in a truck caught in a storm while stuck in traffic, lightening hit the chrome radiator beze on his Freightliner, and blew out all his electronics (engine computer, CB radio, Stero, etc). On arrival at the treminal he was still visibly shaken and much paler than usual, his co-workers insisten he might want to change his ways, in light of the heavenly message delivered to him[bow].
Still in all a lightening strike can be very scary when wittnessed up close!
What formula were you using to determine distance? Some people think it’s one second one mile. The correct formula is FIVE seconds, one mile. The speed of sound is roughly 750 MPH for anybody who wants to do the math.
Some years ago, a youth playing in a baseball game in SE Michigan was struck by lightning. Reports were that there were no storms “nearby,” and that there were blue skies overhead.
I was working under the canopy at the Thendara RR station this past spring when a storm wandered into the area. I didn’t see the bolt, but the flash was obvious. I was about to start my usual count when the “boom” arrived. It was close. Another volunteer did see it, and it was close.
Daughter - something of a weather buff like her dad - was on our covered back porch enjoying the show one evening when a bolt struck a tree next to a pond less than a quarter mile from the house, but out of her view. The flash/boom, however, was immediate. She came flying into the house, eyes the size of saucers…
Yep, lightning demands our respect.
Roughly, and ignoring such things as temperature, medium density, medium composition, etc.,
At sea level, in dry air, the speed of sound is 1,125 ft/s. (~5 seconds/mile)
The speed of sound in water is 4950 ft/s. (~1 second/mile)
The pre-near-miss bolts I was refering to were 10-15 seconds ahead of the thunder; the light and sound from bolt that struck near me arrived simultaneously.
Larry’s story above reminds me of a lightning event from many years ago;
While we were away on vacation, a lightning bolt struck the wood utility pole out back of our house, and shattered the top 7 ft. or so of it. The resulting splinters were all over the yard around it - some sticking up out of the ground, and of a size that would have seriously injured or killed anyone who was impaled by them. My Dad - who was a World War II ‘Battle of the Bulge’ infantry veteran - opined that it was as bad as the results from an a mortar or artillery shell burst. We were all glad that the dog [Airedale] - whose house was nearby and was normally chained to said pole - was being boarded at the kennel at the time.
Moral of the story - Even if the bolt doesn’t hit you, what it does hit and damage can be very dangerous as well. Heed the NOAA advice - get indoors or another safe place as soon as you hear the thunder in the distance, and for 30 mins. afterwards. Then it’ll be safe to go out again . . . . [8D]
zardoz, thanks for the account of your near-miss, and the NOAA links. I’m going to print them and post them for our field people to see as well. [tup]
- Paul North.