Eastern Railroad Discussion > RAIL BURN

I have 3 more pictures of the three spot burn job that you might be able to ID the location.

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Well I got over in the Eastern side. supprise me! Now I can't find the original thread. Here's the remainder of the pics.

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And yet another

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And the last

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OK, So how, no, WHY did this happen?

Okay, I am amazed at this! But I only see three sets of burns. What kind of engine would have only burned three sets? Or how is it that only three sets were burned?

That is by leaps and bounds the worst rail burn I have seen, even in pictures! How you couldn't notice the smell from that happening is beyond me, guess the wind must have been right, or something. Why only three burn marks (holes)? Could very well be the offending engine had a traction motor cut out, that could account for it. Cant think of any other reason.
TR
Savannah Ga

Never let the conductor run the engine. ;0)

Beava
CP hogger

The axles on a locomotive are not connected by gears, so they will slip independantly. Obviously this guy wasn't paying much attention to his ammeter. (It drops when you get a slip)

I have seen a GP40 spinning all four axles before though. The sparks were flying pretty good. He's just lucky he was moving about 3-4 MPH. ;0)

Beava
CP hogger

People were starting to assume that there was a crew present when this happened, so I thought I better come on and clear things up. It was done by vandals right after the Conrail breakup. A train was parked on the controlled siding at Batavia. They must have known what they were doing, since (as I recall someone telling me) they cut out the air brakes on the locomotive rendering them useless, kicked apart the jumper cable and throttled up the unit. Bottom line is, the unit just kept spinning its wheels while the unit and the train behind it held it from taking off. No one noticed it until a new crew came on duty. I'm thinking back a long ways here, so forgive me if what I just said can't be done. You engineers would probably know more about that...

Spatcher out.

It looks like they left the handbrake on since there are only three axles indicated. I imagine at notch 3 you can get a heck of a burn from letting it go set up the way it was explained. Obvioiusly the unit did not have an alerter system in place, or it was cut out.

RRKen

That does bring back the memory of a similar event in Queensland Australia around 1959/60. At a station called Gundiah on the north coast line when my father was on duty as the station night officer, the offending train crew did not change the safe working staff at the previous station. That officer called dad who then changed all the signals to red placed detonated alerts on the rails. Fortunately the guard in the guard  van (caboose) saw the signals at red, he immediately applied the air brakes in his van thus stopping the train. Dad and the guard dashed to the diesel locomotive which was still roaring at near full throttle the crew sound asleep, drunk. They managed to stop the loco engine but not before the loco had chewed through the head of the rail, 12 depressions. Fortunately the oncoming train, with a steam loco had to stop between stations to take on water and they were able to tell that crew not to proceed. The driver was reducer to a labourer and the fireman I think was sacked. It most of the day to get the line repaired and back into full service, I think there was a major project gang nearby to help with the repair. I don't have any photo red of the event though.
kindest regards from Socks, South East Queensland Australia.