Fire Breathing Locomotives!!!

[Anonymous]

I was on a motorcycle trip a few week ago through MT to look @ railroads and got to see something extremely COOL!!!! I stayed in camp ground right next to the RR the whole trip which was very cool. One night in Bozeman, MT, I heard an eastbound train coming, so I walked across the road to be trackside to see the train. The sun had just gone down and I looked east and saw that there was a double red about 1/4 of a mile down the track, so I knew the train would stop right in front of me. Sure enough, the eastbound BNSF intermodal w/ 2
C44-9W's stopped right in front of me and dimmed his lights. I knew that there was a westbound train coming down the pass (Bozeman Pass, approx. 4 miles away). A minute later, I heard the horn coming from the pass and the lights emerge from around the corner. To my surprise it was a set of Montana Rail Link helpers from Livingston, MT (6 locomotives) and they hooked onto the BNSF intermodal. The crews hooked the train together and every once in a while a TERRIBLE noise would come from the second helper from the head end!! The crews kept checking the engines trying to find out what was wrong but finally decided to load up and head over the pass to Livingston, MT. When they started to power up, the engine that was making noise and another helper engine started shooting out bright red sparks from the exhaust into the VERY VERY DRY MONTANA LANDSCAPE!!!! The train didn't start a fire there, but when I was walking back to the tent something smelled like a good old Montana forest fire. About an hour after the train left I heard sirens headed towards the pass but didn't see any signs of a fire the next day when I drove over the pass!!!! That was the coolest night show ever!

[Anonymous]

Something with the turbo in GE's causes them spew flames out of the exhaust. I have never seen it first hand but there are photos of it.

[Anonymous]

Isnt that because water or half burned fuel was in the fuel tank?

[Overmod]

This was one of the high points watching U34CHs on the Pascack Valley line (and elsewhere). When these were notched up you'd see orange licking up out of the stack for a few seconds, very delightful. Strong barking exhaust, periodically reverberating back from some lineside feature. Honorary steam locomotives in every respect!

I've seen some other GEs do this, too.

Isn't there a problem with EMDs that have a failed overrunning clutch in the turbocharger, that can cause lube oil to get into the turbine side and ignite there? I THINK I saw this happen one night on the West Shore, from the old Fricke's Restaurant dining room where the viaduct came over Overpeck Creek (parallel to the Suskie). Great plume of flame roiling up from the stack, with spark and gobbets of flaming material falling out. Good theater, particularly on a wooden structure...