A few weeks ago, on a trip to Texas, my mother and I are contentedly riding along towards Houston. It’s early morning, the sun is shining, the hay is waving in the wind, life is good. We’re driving alongside a railroad track. In the distance we hear a train’s horn: "Whoooowoooowooo…"
But this is no ordinary train, ladies and gentlemen. No, as the train approaches it becomes clear that the 2nd or 3rd car is completely engulfed in flames. This train comes roaring up like the Hell Express, fire exploding out of the roof. "Whoooowoooowooo…"
I turn to my mother, and we share a long look. “Are trains… usually on fire?” I ask timidly. My mother drives in silence for a few long moments. “Not in Mississippi they ain’t,” she says finally. We share another look, and she speeds up. We get a good ways ahead of it and start looking for a cop. Of course, right when you need one, there’s not a police officer to be found in the entire state. Finally we pull into a restaurant and ask the wait-staff if it’s normal for trains to be on fire in Texas. The panicked looks on their faces are answer enough.
"Whoooowoooowooo…" screams the Hell Train as it roars past, belching flames. “Someone’s pulling the horn,” I say hopefully. “That means the conductor is still alive, right?” The train goes over a bridge, carrying it away from us. Finally we find a cop, who with the confident swagger that comes with being a cowboy-hat wearing denizen of Texas, assures us that all is well. I remain skeptical.
It’s possible a ventilated car carrying hay passed through a rainstorm, and then outside in bright sunlight until it spontaneously combusted… but why would they store hay in a ventilated train car?
As an ex-railroader and current railfan, I can assure you that trains are not normally used to transport fire from place to place, that you were absolutely correct to report this, and that the cop was likely being an idiot.
Was there any chance the “third or fourth car” was actually a trailing locomotive? I’ve seen cases where a turbocharger failure has resulted in a spectacular eruption of flame from the locomotive’s exhaust stack. While rather alarming to see, it is not immediately dangerous.
If the fire was in a freight car could you tell what type (box, covered hopper, tank, other)? Not that any one type would be better to be on fire than another, but a flaming tank car full of petrochemicals, with another 8,000-10,000 tons of similar cargo trailing behind it, would be, er, bad.
Most main lines have automated defect detectors every 15-20 miles; these check for both dragging equipment and overheated axles (signfiying wheel bearing failure); a car engulfed in flames would most definitely trigger such a detector, which would transmit a recorded message to the engineer telling him/her to stop the train.
Back in the old days (cue banjo music), there used to be manned stations every 10 or 15 miles, and the station master would visually inspect every train that passed. For that matter, there was a caboose in which the conductor and rear-end brakeman would ride, and they would most likely have seen this when it first happened and stopped the train immediately. With the crew on the front end and normally looking ahead, there’s no gaurantee they’d notice this until the train brakes went into emergency either becase an air hose burned through or the cars frame failred from the heat and the whole thing derailed. So again, good on you for reporting it.
It was definately the 2nd or 3rd car, I couldn’t really identify what it was used for. But it wasn’t the head of the train. This wasn’t just a little fire either, the flames were exploding out of it, had completely engulfed the car.
El_Kabong, can you e-mail me off-line? The questions are railroading related, but far too specific to hijack this thread further. My e-mail address is in my profile.
::chuckle:: Senior Kabong, I like the way you write. Here, have a badly tuned guitar I don’t need anymore, to supplement your arsenal…
How 'bout a flaming tank car full of petrochemicals, with another 8,000-10,000 tons of anhydrous amonia, sulfuric acid, or any number of chlorine or organochloride compounds behind it?
that may even be badder…
…and people worry about spent nuclear fuel…
PS. Missipienne, cudos to your Mom, who, I think, showed a lot of cool, managed to hold on to some dry humour, and did exactly the right thing by getting the hell out of Doge rather than watching the cool fireworks. When you see a freight train on fire, the only smart thing to do is runlikehell, preferably upwind.
-trupa, whose best buddy works in the safety group in a big Canadian railway company, and who gets to hear all bout the nasty accidents…
