Nostalgia & History > "Railroad Torpedos" (Another Story from 'KRK')

I thought some of you might like this story from about twenty-six years ago:

"Some twenty-six years ago, while still living in the SF Bay Area, I drove from Union City to a little town near Pittsburg, via Altamont. Thought I would never get there because of the route.
My destination was the home of a deceased SP Trainmaster's "SON".. His Father had died and thru a friend, got in touch with ME to dispose of all of his Father's RR Goodies...

I picked up boxes of employee timetables, switch keys, signal flags, control stand reverse handles and who knows what. Most of the stuff I donated to "PLA" in Niles Canyon, although the control stand reverse handles were donated to Brad Lomazi's railroad show in Sacramento.
Now then, let's get to the "humorous" part of this story ........
One of the BOXES I picked up from the "Son" was packed full of "railroad torpedos"...
I placed them in the trunk of my car and went bouncing over the backroads of the Altamont to get back home to Union City. They appeared to be crystalizing like dynamite !!

I found out that "railroad torpedos" are officially classified as a "Class C Explosive" and it appears they are illegal to possess. After having the torpedos for several days in my garage, my dear wife "urged me" to get rid of those suckers !!

We tried to take them to the Union City Fire Department.. They wouldn't touch'em with a ten foot pole! They said I needed to contact the Alameda County Bomb Squad. I said OK!
Rather than call them on the phone, my wife was rather upset and agitated, and suggested WE take them to the Bomb Squad folks.

SO--- We loaded the torpedos back in our car and took them up to the Sheriff's Substation at 150th Avenue in San Leandro near Fairmont Hospital. We really had no idea where the hell we were going anyway! We parked in the parking lot and carried the box of torpedos up to the entrance doorway. There we were greeted by a typical "warning sign" that said it was illegal to enter the premises with "weapons, drugs, EXPLOSIVES, and other forbidden items" ...

Without hesitation, we entered the building, torpedos in hand, and placed the box right on the desk sergeant's desk in front of his eyeballs. He asked what we had! "Railroad Torpedos" came the answer from the innocent railfan couple.. Railroad WHO ??
I explained what they were and that they were considered "Class C" ...
He called a Lieutenant from the Bomb Squad who appeared in "shorts" as he was on his way out to vacation. The Lieutenant told the Sergeant to give me a "receipt" and place the offending items up on top of a file cabinet in the office. This was done and crazy KRK and wife got the hell out of there!

We never heard anything more to this day. But I figured there were enough torpedos in that box to blow that file cabinet clear thru the exterior wall of the building !!

Be SAFE out there guys-- and know what the item is before adding it to your Collection!

Cheers.

"Key Route Ken"...

---

Pretty safe to handle, but the lead strap might give you brain damage now.

>I found out that "railroad torpedos" are officially classified as a "Class C Explosive"

Yeah, and it's illegal for railroad employees to possess them, as well. Kind like brake clubs: once a tool of the trade, now it'll get you arrested for possession.

It says something about railroads' resistance to change that torpedos were rendered obsolete by radio dispatching in the 1980's, but most railroads continued to stock locos and cabooses with them until well into this century. Even before that, they mostly were used for protecting trains only in dark territory. In signaled territory, if you ran over a torpedo, it either meant that a track gang lay ahead, or more likely officials hiding in the weeds, conducting an efficiency test. In the early 1990's on my railroad, we had a new-hire engineer who ran over a torpedo during an efficiency test and kept on going at full speed (you were supposed to slow down to Restricted Speed). His unassailable argument was that he had never heard a torpedo go off before that.

Torpedos were once part of the new-hire indoctrination ritual. When I hired out as a switchman, we had a training day in the yard, where we learned to get on and off moving equipment. An extra switch crew was called to teach us the ropes, and one of their first moves was to line up a half dozen closely-spaced torpedos on a rail. The poor new guy riding the side of a boxcar for the first time just about jumped out of his skin when the wheels started setting off the charges. The switchmen laughed like crazy and the company officer in charge was absolutely livid, but wisely did not cause a ruckus. It was all part of the indoctrination, just like when I to a union meeting across the tracks from the yard during "beans" and drank my first beer while on duty.

Great times. Dangerous times.

-E.O.

The ones I had to dispose of were starting to leak an oily substance. I understood what they were and was extremely uneasy handling them.

As an idiot teenager I occasionally placed them on the rails of Muni's (San Francisco) N-Judah streetcar line. Once I recorded the noise from my house two blocks away on my Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder. Even two blocks away the noise was loud. They probably had to change the seat covers in that streetcar.

Of course I never did this, but I understand that if you strap a tropedo on the top of a hammer, and drop from the second story of a tower, say Gibson City, IL onto a concrete structure base, it may blow the hammer above the second floor, or may not.

Back in the late fifties, when we were all kids, the last PE car to Bellflower left LA late in the evening with a whole bunch of us kids up front, enjoying our last blimp ride. "Someone" salted the bridge over the LA river earlier with about 50+ torpedoes and when we ran over them in the early hours of the morning, it sounded like a war going on and about gassed us out. At the end of the line at Bellflower we were met by the police department asking if anyone had heard machine gun fire back there. None of us heard a thing and the police drove away to look some more.

Times were different then, and none of us were ever hurt.

Watts local

>"Someone" salted the bridge over the LA river earlier with about 50+ torpedoes

Now that's what I'm talking about!

- E.O.
Back to football and commensibles...

Someone who knows this story better can chime in, but there was a Daily Breeze story years ago about the Lomita CA Railroad museum having some live torpedoes in a glass display case. According to the paper, the LA Co bomb squad showed up and took them away one day to defuse them. Supposedly they actually brought them back once safe. I do shudder to think what would have happened if one went off in the display case. Especially with all the school kids that go through there.

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
TinyTrains Website

A fuse will make quite a bang too, if laid on the track and run over by a train. I've seen the yellow powder from an old wet fuse sprinkled down about 15' of rail and run over, and make all kinds of racket. A loud snap, crackle & pop sound.

CCDeWeese Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Of course I never did this, but I understand that
> if you strap a tropedo on the top of a hammer, and
> drop from the second story of a tower, say Gibson
> City, IL onto a concrete structure base, it may
> blow the hammer above the second floor, or may
> not.

Not a hammer, but I did it on the head of a spike at Carroll tower in Baltimore, a little air strike on guys breaking into a trailer in the intermodal yard across the track.

It was loud.

TAW

I posted this earlier:


In August 2005 I posted this when writing about Signal Bridge #6 on SP's East Bank line. The Lincoln Heights Jail in Los Angeles was adjacent to the signal and we spent many an hour waiting for a signal from the Dayton Ave. tower operator because of yard congestion ahead.


Switchman Bill Nunnally tells the story of while waiting at Br. 6 one night he took a tie-plate and put the metal straps of 4 torpedoes through the spike holes. He then 'sailed' the plate Ala a frisbee out over the fence. When it hit bottom the resounding explosion of the 'guns' caused quite a stir in the guards shack atop the roof of the jail.
Searchlights came on and sirens wailed as they were sure an attack was taking place!!. If you knew Bill Nunnally you gotta believe he really did it.

Charlie