The engine on fire on the curve looks to be second unit running long hood forward. Fire is at stack and back across engine compartment. Looks to me like a GE unit, those were NEVER the best engines (I don't care how many more they've sold in recent years than EMD/Progress Rail). All too often you'd see a "fire at the stack", although not busting out on the engine itself.
I would think that the eastbound going down the grade would have told the westbound guy of the problem, unless it didn't really intensify until the eastbound had passed.
Many many years ago, as a young engineman doing OJT, I was checking out a set of idling engines at Selkirk for SENH to Cedar Hill in New Haven. About 3 or 4 back was a GE U36b (if I recall), and it sounded "off" to me -- something was "knocking" with each rev. But what did I know back then?
Well, heading south down the Hudson line the engineer (an old character from the New Haven's Maybrook days, who said he'd worked on the O&W when he was young) commented that the train wasn't pulling well. Then the dispatcher called, asked if we knew anything about a fire around Germantown. So I went back to check the consist out while we were rolling along.
First couple of engines were well enough, then I came round the corner of "the knocker" and -- the whole side was blown out. A piece of the camshaft was laying on the gangway. Guess a crankshaft bearing had let go at full throttle, and that was that. And that's where the fire in Germantown got started.
Those U36's were originally from the Auto Train, I believe. Real pieces of you-know-what. I doubt they even bothered to fix that one...
On the other hand, had the engineer secured the train properly in the first place, the engine being shut down would have been a non-event. They could have shut down all the engines and bled off all the air brakes and it wouldn't have moved.
If it had been done properly in the first place, there would have been no need for the engineer to return to the train and the maintenace foreman's knowledge of air brakes would be irrelevant.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
OvermodCan happen quick. I passed a cut of three idling engines on the way to drop one of the kids at school.
This is part of what contributed to the Lac Megantic disaster.
After the engineer had departed, the Nantes Fire Department as well as a police officer from the Sûreté du Québec's Lac-Mégantic detachment responded to a 911 call from a citizen at 23:50 who reported a fire on the first locomotive;[16] according to Nantes Fire Chief Patrick Lambert, "We shut down the engine before fighting the fire. Our protocol calls for us to shut down an engine because it is the only way to stop the fuel from circulating into the fire."[67] The fire department extinguished the blaze and notified the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway's rail traffic controller in Farnham. MMA did not grant permission to the engineer to return to the scene, instead summoning a track maintenance foreman unfamiliar with the operation of railway air brakes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster
Cheers, Ed
NDGThe fire in in the engine compartment
I think it's more 'over' the engine compartment than actually coming from inside, and that this is a fairly typical turbo-failure kind of event. I see a fair number of engines with the typical pattern of burned-off paint where crud ejected from the stack blows across the top of the hood and starts pouring down the side.
Can happen quick. I passed a cut of three idling engines on the way to drop one of the kids at school. By the time I came back only a few minutes later, the three were in the same place but the middle one now had that Erie Triangle of burned off paint... nobody around it, no sign of firefighting, not even smoke rising from the remains; if I hadn't just seen it intact I would have thought it old damage.
Reminds me of an old Pennsy film What In Blazes.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
Freeze Frame the Video @ Time 00:49 and the fire is NOT in the Cab.
The second locomotive is facing in reverse and it's illuminated number glass over cab front is visible between the containers on the nearer track.
The column of flame is coming out of the Exhaust Stack.
The fire in in the engine compartment.
Thank You.
mbinsewi I've watched this a bunch of times on full screen, and it almost looks like it's the cab. Hard to tell. Mike.
I've watched this a bunch of times on full screen, and it almost looks like it's the cab. Hard to tell.
Mike.
Yes the fire is in the cab. You can tell by the window frames by the glow.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
Reminds me of this video!
Boy that’s got to be a scary experience if it was in the lead locomotive!
Judging from how often I’ve heard about these fire, I’m not sure they are all that rare. I think these fires are something to do with dynamic brakes, as right behind the cab is about where they would be on early EMD SD70s (though I can’t tell the engine type from the video)
Regards, Isaac
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It's not all that rare to see fire come out of one of the engine stacks in a consist or old fire damage on the side of a loco.
This may be a little more difficult to model
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley