Over the weekend a forest fire was started around Fairhope, PA along the CSX Keystone Sub (Sand Patch). To date, there is no official cause known but firefighters believe it could’ve started from sparks off a passing train.
In all my years of railfanning I’ve never seen sparks coming off a train so my question is this…When do / what causes sparks to come off a train? Not just that, but so much so that it could start a fire. I’m obviously missing something here.
Brian
Oh yeah. It happens. You just wish it wouldn’t…
Brakes, especially older ones with all metal shoes (or worn ones, with metal touching the wheels).
Sliding wheels.
Carbon particles in the diesel exhaust.
Among other things…
It really doesn’t take that much to start a brush fire, if it’s been dry for a while.
Carbon sparks from the exhaust are a problem and start fires not infrequently. It’s more a problem on the non-turbo engines so most have some sort of spark arrestor or particle trap in the exhaust manifold. But no scheme is fool proof.
It happened frequently enough that the Milwakee Road used to have speeders follow a couple miles behind there trains to spot any fires that might start.
It was a lot worse in the 1880s and 90s on the CPR. They practically burned all the bow valley! The PR department retouched photos so the trees would look green. That’s why there are no old trees along the right of way!
Matthew
Of course I’m sure you knew this already
Durango and silverton does that same thing with the speeders.
Any kind of spark can start a fire.
In early summer 2002 the Mustang Fire in Northeastern Utah/ Southwestern Wyoming was started by a passing camp trailer that had a bad axle and was shooting sparks, That little spark almost consumed a whole town, at one spot the fire was no more that 15 feet from the town.
In 1971, I caught a brakeman job on CNW Train 383, working the exra board. I knew that there was an old Geep in our consist along with the usual road power (would have been SD40s and/or SD45s at that point). I was on the waycar-end of the train, and we were passing through Chicago’s western suburbs (Lombard, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton) in time to see fire engines leaving their firehouses in each of the locales to deal with fires set by that Geep’s exhaust. Fortunately, it was set off in West Chicago, before we got to real open country.
A couple years ago there was a wildfire out by Blue Mountain Rd. on the Moffat Sub that was supposedly started by sparks from the brakes of a descending coal drag. Don’t know if they ever proved that or not.
If the conditions are right (dry vegetation, hot air, low humidity, high winds, etc.) it doesn’t take much to get stuff going. Just ask the Ranger that started the Hayman Fire. She was going to start a small fire and put it out to look heroic. Instead it burned 130,000 acres or so, and destroyed several homes. Doesn’t take much to get 'em going.
Doesn’t help that we’ve spent the last 100 years trying to put out every single one that starts, either. Forest densities are so high right now that every fire pretty much becomes a crown fire, and burns out of control. Of course, anytime it is suggested that we do a little selective thinning of the forests, the tree huggers in Boulder come out en masse and start singing the praises of Gaia. But I guess that’s getting a little bit [#offtopic].
We have perscribed fires all the time in the Cascades / Sierras.
Cumbres and Toltec, too – it’s cute![:D]
Its been pretty dry lately in the Northeast…A spark from a carboned up loco can do it…I have seen some flamers out there…including some GE’s with ailing turbos…sparking wheels or axles, a cigarette tossed out a window…doesn’t take much when evrything is tinder dry…
If you watch a passing train during the night,keep an eye on the wheel area and you’ll see a sparking break shoe,almost every train has one.
Earlier this year I saw a westbound BNSF manifest train with to BN hopper cars that were sparking like crazy,every brake shoe on each car was down to the metal…and the 2nd hopper had a hot wheel…it had an orange glow.I don’t think the train crew knew about it though…at least I didn’t hear anybody talk about it on the scanner.
In this age of roller bearings, we lose track of an old lineside fire source - hotboxes. Carl’s account of the problem with the Geep played out all to frequently, but the sparks came from overheated wheel bearings. Steamers, especially coal fired, were a notorious source of fires, too.
Two summers ago, we were watching a tiny Iowa shortline that had a century series ALCO locomotive. As it moved a few grain cars 3-4 miles to the next little town, it started a small fire along the tracks. In the early 80’s, I lived in Gillette, Wyoming. About once a week, a coal train coming out of the Powder River Basin would start a trackside fire.
I havent seen one start a fire but today I saw an old GE unit shoot fire out of the exhaust stack five times in a row. The flames were five or six feet high.
ICMR
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
Where is the Rail Grinder when you really need a brush fire?
Ha Ha A steam locomotive on PRR’s Delmarva Branch passed thru the town of Farmington Delaware - started a fire which burned down over half of the town. Not sure of the year though… The bad part of this is legend has it farmington was a big town in its hey day until the fire, now its nothing more than 10 seconds to get through town.
Thanks for the infomation. It was mentioned on here a couple times about the exhaust. Don’t know why but thoughts of sparks coming out of there never crossed my mind.
Ok, this may sound like a dumb question but can sparks from brakes, sliding wheels, etc… shoot out far enough to hit trackside brush on a class 1 mainline? I thought with all the ballast the sparks wouldn’t have been able to reach that far. I guess I always thought sparks would have to be like those generated from railgrinders on a regular train in order to touch off a fire.
If anyone is interested, in our local paper there’s a picture of a train going past one of the burning areas. The same picture is on their web page: www.dailyamerican.com
Brian
not a dumb question at all. But it has a one word answer: yes. They don’t have to reach the brush – all they have to do is get into a bit of nice dry grass with a gentle breeze blowing away from the track, and off you go.
I saw a Loram rail grinder a while back, and I was very impressed with how well it contained all of the sparks and debris. They even had hoses on the caboose to spray off the crossings – no melted tires or damage from debris!