Video…
Interesting idea for UP.
I believe there are several such rigs in the west. The Adirondack line used to have several, including one owned by the fellow who built the line (Webb).
If that doesn’t count as rare mileage I don’t know what does.
In my years in the fire service, I have written apparatus specifications, operated various types and sizes of apparatus, helped set up displays of many dozens of pieces of apparatus at training conferences, visted many fire stations, and so on, but the two diesels hauling this train are certainly the largest ‘fire engines’ I have ever seen.
Alas, they are simply moving the train. Back in the day, there was usually a pump mounted on top of the boiler of the steam locomotive.
No better way to fight hard to reach fires and defend rail lines in the wilderness!
Must be a fun job, ride a train and fire a water cannon!
Meanwhile praying that you don’t run into an area where the fire engulfs you and the train and you have no way out.
As a former firefighter there is no way I could call that “fighting a fire”. Tiny steams from little toy plastic nozzles directed ramdomly at vegetation or brushfires out of range is not fire fighting. If there was any danger the the locomotives would not be the first in line. They are not even protecting company assets like ties by wetting them ( and which could be mechanized to prodsuce a uniform wetting) but merely wasting time and money.
Amazing that with the cute buzzwords Like “Precision Scheduled Railroading” there is this waste of resources, apparently to show that UP is saving the country from fire.
I’m not so sure they were fighting fire at all, just exercising the equipment.
Those “toy plastic nozzles” are still capable of 80-100 gallons per minute each.
I will agree that some Class A foam, or other additive, would be useful if they were actually fighting fire.
Fixed fan nozzles on the leading end would also be useful.
Odds are that unless the timing was such that they were actually encountering fire near the rails, what they’d be doing is building a buffer, not an unusual practice.
Now if they could mu the 9672 to the fire train, they could have a truly symbiotic relationship. (Good part starts at 0:48)
This version is shorter at only 3:12 long