Eastern Railroad Discussion > Train carrying garbage catches fire near Union Station in Hartfor

http://fox61.com/2016/08/26/train-carrying-garbage-catches-fire-near-union-station-in-hartford/
 

sparks from a loco?

Trash has a nasty habit of spontaneous combustion.  I've witnessed a couple of smoking loads of trash switched out to the RIP track and a back hoe and fire truck slowly emptied them out onto the adjacent pavement at West Springfield, MA, where I worked.  Not too surprisingly, a couple of months later, it happened again.  Only this time, the day after they hosed everything down and put it back in the cars, they were smoking again.  The process had to be repeated to get it all out.

Other than spontaneous combustion, the possibility exists that a cigarette carelessly (in intentionally) tossed into the car(s) either while standing or passing under a bridge.  Or, I also saw the after-the-fact of a shifted container on a spine car that rubbed against the wheel and the heat scorched, if not burned, some of the contents of the container.  Stuck brakes could concievably cause enough heat to start paper in the bottom of a trash car to catch fire.  The second car could easily be something burning blew off the lead car and into #2. 

Like Rosanne Roseanna Dana (the late, gifted Gilda Radner) used to say..."It's ALWAYS Something!".  Railroading has surprises every day!

One of the news reporters mentioned this was demolition waste from several construction sites.  All kinds of mischief in that, with cutting torches, insulation, carpeting, etc.

No idea if that's actually what happened, though.