Overalls - A warning - Loco Crews and Shed Staff please read!

You're welcome, Coalboy - and please pass it on; you could save someone's life.

With best regards,

Jack

 

Yes I know what you are talking about. I had 10years working 7 days per week (Sat/Sunday afternoons off )on steam loco's. In those days there were only two weeks holiday per year ,and not so many bank holidays. There was no body more keen on steam than myself, but it finally got to me in the summer of 1965 .Had it been a five day week maybe things would have been a bit different.Moved to the motor trade ,but after a short while I was up and down the country searching the last steam out at the weekends ,5 day week was the norm in the motor trade.

 

For those of a collecting persuasion, it's jobs like these where an old wringer-type or twin-tub non-automatic machine that you can set to agitate indefinitely might be useful... a good few hours of that treatment should get the worst of the crud out before it goes in the modern automatic machine...

 

Preston Services have a washing machine for sale that can be fired by coal.

 

Not overalls but, when I was driving (HGV), wearing a quilted 'Bomber' style jacket. I used to get a bucket of hot water. Add a liberal amount of Brake & Clutch cleaner - stir, and submerge overnight.

Then, into the washing machine. It came out a lot cleaner but, smelt strangely for a few days afterwards.

 

You should take a look at http://www.automaticwasher.org - a community of obsessive washing-machine (and other appliance) collectors and restorers all over the world... they're as nutty about old 50s Bendixes and the like as we are about Bulleids (or whatever!). I came across it when searching for information on repairing my old (late 90s!) Bosch washer-dryer...

 

I'm sure they think the same about railway enthusiasts.

 

I've become something of a convert... when you see the devotion they put into tracking down, saving and restoring old machines, it's really little different to what steam restorers do, just not as expensive!

 

A point that may interest some is that folded oily material is apt to spontaneously combust. If your gear is really oily it’s a good idea not to bundle it up as heat generated in the centre of an oily bundle can eventually turn into flame. More than one merchant ship has been lost due to fire caused by engineer’s oily boiler suits bursting into flames and setting fire to the accomodation.

 

Fabric Softener builds up on the fibres and reduces the effectiveness of any flame retardent treatment to the point it can negate its effect

 

Fabric softener will build up on the fibres and negate the effect of any flame retardant treatment . You are advised not to use it when washing items which are treated. . This information I obtained from The Fabric Research association as result of a project I was doing for my then employers . I have no reason to presume that things have changed

 

I'm a motorsport marshal, and we wear single layered proban overalls for flame resistance. One useful tip that we're taught is to wear cotton based clothing underneath, as polyester based materials can still melt under the overalls which isn't good for skin! We're also given these washing instructions https://www.marshals.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Proban-Washing.pdf, and we're advised to replace our overalls after 50 washes (but at £80 we don't, we just minimise the washes lol, thankfully our overalls don't / shouldn't get anywhere near as mucky as on a footplate). What I also do is extend my overalls by treating them with this flame retardant spray each year https://www.fireproofspray.co.uk/flametect-nitro-d-64-p.asp

 

Can we add padded shirts to the list? Recently a 92-year old friend was wearing one while using a cutting disc in an angle grinder, sparks from which set his shirt on fire and it went up in flames. Fortunately another friend, who by chance was there at the time, helped get the remnants off. He was taken to hospital locally (Stoke Mandeville) with extensive burns to his right shoulder, arm, and ribcage areas. Sadly, he didn't recover and passed away twelve days later. Be warned!

 

... in a similar vein, we had a p/way worker who was using a disc cutter when the sparks set fire to his waterproof hi-viz trousers.

 

Thanks for this.

I hope your colleague makes a full recovery.

 

As we've resurrected this thread, I've set fire to my overalls on two occasions during my life so I know how easily it can happen, even when you are wary of it. Fortunately, on both occasions I was wearing boiler suits of a suitable material and not oil soaked so it was more smouldering than flames and I didn't suffer any injury. You tend to concentrate on the job and not where the sparks are going.

 

It just highlights the need to wear the correct PPE when using disc cutters or grinders.

 

One thing people can do is stand out of the way of the shower of sparks. You see people grinding or cutting stuff and the sparks are going all over the them. Adjust the cutting so it is going away from you. You can move the guard around a bit too to help. If the sparks are going over you it dangerous too because a piece of the disc or what you are cutting can fly off too and go in the same direction. I always wear gloves for this reason.

 

You are supposed to wear fire retardant overalls when you use grinding tools and anybody who attempts to grind a stretcher bar or cut a rail with oil soaked overalls is an idiot.