Saw this article on the local news website tonight:
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/more-than-a-dozen-fire-departments-respond-to-brush-fire-in-carbon-county/article_1649c8d8-9ad7-11ea-9eb7-5bebc8d9b902.html
I'm not saying the railroad caused it, but from the article:
"A firefighter on the scene says a crew of workers were grinding the railroad tracks and that it's possible that is what started the fire.
He said those workers had made attempts to put fire out but were unsuccessful and called 911. However, none of that has been confirmed by authorities yet."
I understand - I think there was a recent mention of this in Trains - that one of the Colorado narrow-gauge lines is alleged to have caused a pretty good-sized brush fire a few years back from sparks from one of its coal-burning steam locomotives, which is why it was recently converted to burn oil.
Anybody else familiar with modern occurrences of this kind of thing?
Oh yeah, this is the same general area in which the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railroad runs - the railroad that's in the amusement tax dispute with the Borough of Jim Thorpe - but maybe a few miles further north (we'll see if any better location info is provided).
- PDN.
EDIT/ Update: This article from Lehigh University's newspaper's website says the fire is in Jim Thorpe itself, but doesn't mention the railroad at all, even though it's shown in both photos:
https://thebrownandwhite.com/2020/05/20/brush-fire-in-jim-thorpe-remains-ongoing-no-injuries-reported/
There was an incident about three years ago, of a lineside fire along New Jersey Transit trackage along the old Erie Main Line. Apparantly it was caused by dragging equipment of a work train striking sparks on the rails. I was quickly extinguished by local firefighters but did cause a bit of embarassment for NJT.
Found the story, with a little extra:
http://nj1015.com/mystery-train-on-nj-transit-tracks-dead-body-in-train-car-both-idd/
Trains can also start fires, due to sparks from braking or burning carbon thrown from the stack.
We've had several already this year, including this incident near Biggar, SK:
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=41437
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=41438
It isn't double track, CN and CP run next to each other here. A very scary time at night when you knock down a clear signal, only for a headlight to appear around a curve in front of you.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
From what I've seen grinders can cause some problems. Usually they have water on board, and the ability to apply it, but I also know that grass/brush fires can take off pretty quickly. Been there on the FD side.
This is, of course, a far cry from the days of hotboxes and cinders from coal burners. Hotboxes can still occur with today's roller bearings, but were much more common in the days of friction bearings, where an undetected hotbox might light fires along a pretty good stretch of track.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Subject: Bad Day for Union Pacific
Good news Bad news
Good news:It was a normal day in Sharon Springs, KS when a Union Pacific crewboarded a loaded coal train to head on the long trek back to Salina.
Bad news:Just a few miles into the trip a wheel bearing becomes overheated andmelts off letting the truck support drop down and grind on top of therail creating white hot molten metal droppings to spew downward on the rail.
Good news:A very alert crew noticed a small amount of smoke about halfway backin the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the rules.
Bad news:The train just happened to stop with the hot wheel on top of a woodenbridge built with creosote ties and trusses.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
GoodtimingBalt, did the RR pull the train off the burning bridge or did it fall?
Fell in, to my knowledge!
The fire that was the subject of my original post is still burning as of late this afternoon - this morning, it was at 250 acres and only 60% contained, in terrain that's difficult to access. No further word as to the possible involvement of the railroad or anyone else with the source of it.
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/poconos-coal/fire-burns-250-acres-at-lehigh-gorge-state-park-officials-say/article_0923fa86-9b61-11ea-8026-871ac3de341c.html
Paul_D_North_Jr...in terrain that's difficult to access.
That's a problem with fires along the tracks - the tracks go places people don't.
It looks like there is a road alongside the tracks for at least part of it - perhaps that was double track at one time.
An issue we have here in the east is sometimes we try to fight the fire, when instead we should just be containing it. That works for small grass fires, and even some small brush fires. But beyond a certain point, it's time to just draw a "line in the sand" and wait for the fire to come to you.
Looks like the state forestry people are involved, so they're probably more attuned to the line in the sand approach.
Back in the fifties when I worked on the PRR, we could track some loco's by the grass fires they would cause as they went from Colunbus toi Indianapolis Reports being called in to the Regional office. Don't know specifically but I seem to think it was non EMD units.
Thank You.
Electroliner 1935 Back in the fifties when I worked on the PRR, we could track some loco's by the grass fires they would cause as they went from Colunbus toi Indianapolis Reports being called in to the Regional office. Don't know specifically but I seem to think it was non EMD units.
If you go to the site of the bridge fire that was mentioned above at Sharon Springs CO/ Monument KS you will see an endless string of autoracks stored out there, part of the 25% of the national railcar fleet in storage because of Covid-19...the old KP between Denver and Salina is pretty well plugged. The railcars on the bridge were all scrapped due to fire damage (warped steel and ruined brake systems - excessive repair costs - they sat out there for months before being cut-up.)
On the old Santa Fe, welders tried everything to cut down the chances of loose sparks around welding/grinding operations. One of the more successful little fixes was taking old soda/water building fire extinguishers and putting them out on the trucks. The trucks already have air compressors on board, so charging the old stainless fire extinguishers after adding water (also on the trucks in plastic jerry cans) was no big deal. Saved a lot of SE Colorado empty space.
BTW - Colorado just put out its first Code RED 1 open burning ban today for the eastern 2/3rds of the state, joining SW Colorado/ Durango. We are dry again.
The area starting just below the Horseshoe Curve and continuing on up to the tunnels usually has one or more sizable RR connected brush fires each year. Its not the easiest area to get to which contributes.
mudchickenrailroads tried to keep units with different rack settings at different altitudes where carbeuration was most efficient.
Chick -- diesels don't 'carburete'.
The word you need to use is 'combustion'. Carburetors mix fuel with oxygen before it goes into the engine to be burned, and they adjust the 'mixture' so that combustion is efficient (there's a wonderful sesquipedalian term, 'stoichiometric optimization' (sometimes saltily just called 'stoich', that describes when there's exactly the right amount of oxygen to react completely with the hydrogen and then carbon in the fuel).
In a diesel engine, there's an excess of oxygen at high temperature and pressure, and the fuel is atomized into this air (where it presumptively immediately reacts and goes to combustion gases in the short period of actual power-stroke combustion, which differs a bit for DI and IDI engines, but is supposed to be complete. The problem is that in many engines, Alco 244s and 251s notably among them, the device that governs the amount of fuel injected to produce power is out of sync with 'knowing' how much oxygen is present in the cylinder. So there is some component of the fuel left unburned in what is basically a reducing atmosphere long before expansion in the power stroke is complete, and some of this may still be liquid. There are other ways that either unburned or partially-burned fuel or oil can get into the exhaust -- GEs in particular have fun with the lube-oil supply to the turbocharger, among other things.
Any fuel or oil that gets past the engine into the exhaust manifold may start to coke there, and if you get sufficient buildup (or the engine is idling inefficiently building up 'condensed blue smoke' in there, revving the engine up too quickly or "too much" may volatilize stuff not just to the point you see visible flame plume in the exhaust but get raining droplets of fire as far as 'something trackside that can be ignited.
The carbon is a bit different. This can build up in various parts of the engine and manifold structure as fuel 'cooks off' its hydrogens, and of course since it's a reasonably good insulator, it can build up considerable heat and is flammable in oxygen (much as charcoal in briquettes is). So you can have very hot carbon deposits that upon power change, or even road shock or weather 'impingement', break off and get ejected in the exhaust -- flaming orange chunks that are fuel and keep smoldering, and that are good insulators so they hold ignition heat for a long time. All this stuff is waaaaaay past any "carburetion" involving air mixed with liquid fuel...
mudchicken ...but EMDs are not perfect either...
I was running our F10 (rebuilt F3) on a Polar Express run either last winter or the winter before. Apparently I arrived at the "North Pole" under quite a fireworks display. And this after having run several miles in notch 8 on the way up the hill... The last mile into NP station is a pretty good grade, so I was probably in notch 4 or 5, with the other end pushing at the time.
Not for nothing did many logging roads install spark arrester gear on their EMD locomotives. Someone like Randy can do a much better job of explaining where and what causes the most difficulty with Roots-blown 567/645 engines, but there are a number of contributing factors that can lead to the 'carbon' problem Tree describes. Most of them, I suspect, involve long periods of idling followed by 'enough' Run 8 operation to get the deposits first very hot and then kicked loose... several miles with a good grade to load the engine ought to be quite adequate...
I've told my "fire story" before, but this is a good place to mention it again, with a few germane details. I was working C&NW Train 383 (usually a cushy job for the train crew, down to South Pekin). We were awarded a Geep to be set off at West Chicago. Since our huge train only had a couple of units besides that one (SD45s, perhaps?), the Geep was on line for the 16 or so miles to West Chicago. I was on the waycar with the conductor, so I missed the real fun.The first we knew about it was when the dispatcher called us and said that we were setting fires. Why we didn't isolate the Geep at that point I don't know, but that was the scenario. The hind end, of course, got treated to a different show: smoke and flames along the tracks, with us moving through the cities just as their fire engines were leaving the barns. Lombard was the first one I noted, followed by Glen Ellyn (the department was a way off, but we could see them coming down Main Street), Wheaton (their FD is now a pizza place), and Winfield.The enine was set off at West Chicago, and our train had no further problems until Nelson, but that's an entirely different story.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
How 'bout some Precision Scheduled Pyrotechnics?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQAGWo3PbZk
I remember seeing several NP SW1200s equiped with spark arresters to cut down on sparks.
Ed Burns
Retired NP from Northtown (Minneapolis).
Flintlock76 How 'bout some Precision Scheduled Pyrotechnics? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQAGWo3PbZk Looks like a locked axle? Can't this be seen in the rear view mirror?
Looks like a locked axle? Can't this be seen in the rear view mirror?
Recently, down here in Southwest Florida there were several small brush fires that were suspected to have been caused by the Dinner Train operated by the SEMINOLE GULF RAILWAY.
Investigation into the cause revealed an unexpected culprit. There was a bearing failure on one of the generators that powered the kitchen car. It would shoot small hot pieces of metal out of the enclosure, and these would start a fire.
Eventually the bearing would have failed completely, and it would have been corrected.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Older Diesels will sometimes get loaded up with carbon (especially with the slow speeds most tourist lines run). The carbon can work loose and light off, causing fires along the ROW.
Every now and then a roller bearing will fail, which can cause problems, too.
sciloverI’ve heard railroads are one of the common causes for bush fires! I think it due to brake shoes falling and dry bushes around the track. It’s a serious issue as bush fire can escalate very quickly.
True MC ... However like power lines these fires usually happen in more remote places where they do not get detected quickly.
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