Fire Risk

There must be something someone can invent? Maybe something that sprays a mist of water over the chimney or something??

 

Ships have funnels, locomotives have chimneys!

I don't think there is a magic bullet. Minimising risk will come from a combination of control measures, including - but not limited to:

• Spark arrestors in smokeboxes
• Proper maintenance of ashpans and ashpan doors
• Ashpan sprays
• Defensive driving
• Control and clearance of line side vegetation
• Carrying of adequate fire-fighting gear so that crews can (within safe limits) tackle fires they discover

Note that that list contains actions on loco crews, workshop maintenance staff; loco overhaul groups and lineside / pway staff; it's a collective effort.

Tom

 

A number of industrial locos and also road steam machines have an additional basket type device on the chimney, does anyone have any experience of how effective they are as an addition?


Ta in advance
Chris

 

Interesting to note on the Clan Line website, the diary dates have been updated to show the Pullman trips for 2027. After early May there are no trips with the Pullmans listed until end of September currently. I can only assume after the last few years of very hot weather in the Summer, Belmond are taking the safe option and not doing steam in the summer, saving it for spring and autumn when they can definitely run as advertised with steam.

 

What do they do in Australia (other dry fire-afflicted nations are available)?
Re the basket, I only ever recall seeing it on small shunting locos, I suspect the continuous blast of hot corrosive exhaust on a big passenger engine at continuous speed would render such an item a consumable.

But I guess we have to consider spark ejection mods that may cost performance to be better than no steam (eg a less permeable screen in any spark arrestor).

 

The largest loco I've seen fitted with a 'basket' was an NCB Austerity at Graig Merthyr Colliery. The duty involved taking trains of empties up a steeply graded 2 mile branch in a narrow valley. So I imagine there was significant propensity to start fires with vegetation either side of the line. The steam was in use there during the 1976 summer, there was no diesel so I imagine the chimney basket was an attempt to reduce the throw of hot cinders.
There must have been similar risks at other valley collieries like Maesteg for example, which had close residential proximity too.
Incidentally the loco I remember, 'Norma', is now at Oswestry.

 

I'll bang my drum again as I have been doing for several years now.

Someone with the financial ability could investigate the NR view on an oil fired class 8 steam loco.

I cannot ever see any coal fired steam loco being let out on the main line during the increasingly regular heatwave conditions we are seeing.

Bryan

 

35028 might already be booked up for End Of SR Steam events next Summer as it is the 60th Anniversary. This might explain the gap in the Pullman bookings in 2027.

 

Returning to the topic of fire risk, there are other problems caused by prolonged hot weather.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/weather/g...r-slowing-down-trains/ar-AA28Nq7n?uxmode=ruby
The West of England line is in trouble again, just as it was last year and Ely - Lynn has trouble with the peat subsoil drying out. Other reports refer to Ely - March. Norwich to Yarmouth and Lowestoft and Wickford - Southminster being at risk.
(When it rains there will be too much too quickly and there will be embankment and cutting slips .... )

Cheers, Neil

 

I walk under the ECML near London regularly, and it's always wet in the underpass. It's actually stopped dripping now. So ged knows how much rain will be needed to top it up again and/or what it will do as it gets it...

 

Sentinel locomotives have funnels according to Sentinel.

 

At the moment there is a fire burning underground in the peat at Holme Fen, near the ECML...

 

I look at the ten day forecasts quite often, as a weather enthusiast, steam enthusiast AND a gardener! Hopes rise when I see rain a few days ahead, then the next day the rain has disappeared from the forecast! The problem at the moment is that the UK and Europe are gripped in a huge blocking pattern of high pressure which is proving very stubborn. The jet stream is weak over us and so low pressures are also weak (which is more typical for summer anyway), and any fronts associated with them are weakening rapidly as they approach. The very dry landscape is also tending to 'suck' moisture out of any air mass, although that is a fairly minor part of the equation. There have been some minor frontal rain outbreaks but I have watched these dwindle away rapidly as they cross from the west. If pressure was lower, it might allow the development of thunderstorms in the heat but they are being prohibited from building under the high pressure.

Oh well - steam looks better in winter anyway!

 

I am surprised that they are still running steam. I would have thought diesel only in the current conditions. But possibly with their Thomas event due soon, seeing the locos only in light steam and only running in the station confines at Ropley.

But it's their railway and not mine, so they make the decisions.

Bryan

 

In my 40 years as a railwayman I've never seen the line side vegetation so bad, and now so tinder dry too. I get it that Network Rail under the cosh on costs so veg management has suffered; but sparks from trains aren't limited to steam locomotives, clasp brake blocks and diesel locomotives throw sparks.

As a former steam loco owner, I see up thread the suggestion of a spray over the chimney. I don't see that as practical, but measures such as a good spark arrester, clearing of char from the smoke box, managing the ashpan and driving sensitively all help.

Interesting the use of a large engine on the Mid Hants presently - in that it won't be worked hard. I travelled the MHR in late June and Swanage and was impressed at the state of line side on both lines and the paucity of evidence pointing to small fires within their boundary fences.

 

Me too, and it would only take one fire on adjacent farmland to incur them huge compensation costs.

 

I imagine their lineside vegetation may be far less dense/fire prone in the first place.

 

Another quote from D S Purdom"British Steam on the Pampas( ref the other fire risk thread ) "During the 2nd world war when oil was scarce in Argentina, a device invented in 1922 by Mr P Saccaggino ,which proved very efficient for wood and coal burners , and proved foolproof was used .It was costly to maintain , but was nothing compared to the compensation paid for crop fires .He describes briefly ,A cross piece having a fixed shaft screwed into its centre was placed in the chimney petticoat near its mouth. This shaft extended down almost to the level of the blast pipe. Ball bearings were mounted at the top and bottom of the shaft and to the outer races a tube was fixed .On this tube was mounted what was more or less a conventional conical wire mesh spark arresting basket, which was free to revolve about the shaft on the ball bearings. Motion was imparted by the blower jet or the exhaust steam impinging on the vanes which connected the basket to the tube, which were placed turbine -wise to assist this rotary motion. Whilst the engine was working the basket revolved at very high speed and while the exhaust gases passed freely by, all live sparks were effectively disintegrated and eliminated as a potential source of danger. Entry at the top or bottom was effectively prevented by suitable baffles. By fitting collars of various depths to different classes of chimney petticoates, it was possible to adopt on standard size of spark arresters to all engines. A small drip feed lubricator on the out side of the chimney fed cylinder oil to the ball bearings was very effective. .Arrangements to wood and coal burning engines, for flooding the ash pans en route , were made.