Railroaders' Nostalgia > Additional uses for Fusee's!

Take some home! Did a good job of starting your BBQ Briquettes.
Also used freguently to jam open the louvers on our SD9's.
No hot engine bell!

I was just wondering...Does the rairoad still use fusees? What about track "torpedos"?

patd3985 Wrote:
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> I was just wondering...Does the rairoad still use
> fusees? What about track "torpedos"?

Fusees yes, torpedoes are long gone.
 

ApproachCircuit Wrote:
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> Take some home! Did a good job of starting your
> BBQ Briquettes.
> Also used freguently to jam open the louvers on
> our SD9's.
> No hot engine bell!

Haha, yes they are great for starting camp fires too. The most common use I see is in the winter on the railroad, thawing out frozen locks and the like. I am also guilty of using them to keep the hot water button pushed in a couple times. I heard guys would do that to the hot oil button and crankcase over pressure but I wasn't that brave.

Nothing like holding a fussee on the hot water button while your engineer is trying to start your stalled train and you are in a tunnel, do I "hear" future ear problems?
CR

Bottom end resting on the wondow sill of the engine and sticking out just enough to make the punks think you had a shotgun.

TAW

Sometimes I had to use a fusee to hand ignite the fire in a passenger engine's steam generator when the electrodes are not working or too wet.  I preferred using extra long fireplace matches.  Seaboard Coast Line recommended using long folded strips of cardboard from our work report books.  Sometimes you needed the extra heat of a fusee or you didn't have time to get the other alternatives.  As a SCL passenger fireman I always had fusees in my overall leg pocket.  You opened up the sightglass on the firepot dome of the boiler.  You held on tightly to the freshly lit fusee with channellocks or visegrips in your gloved hand.  You did a steady grip on the boiler with your other hand and put the fusee through the sightglass to the electrodes and the fuel spray.  Hopefully the ignition wouldn't shoot too much fire back out the sightglass hole at you.  Once ignited, close the sightglass and fire the boiler hard and hot to keep it from cycling .

I worked with a guy who used a fusee to light a cigarette. He set his hair on fire in the process. He would already not have passed a casual observation for compliance with Rule G, but this was proof positive.

TAW

Years ago CSX got the ideal to replace all the old Adlake switch locks with large master locks. Found out when they freeze up and you thaw out with a fusee, you melted the plastic parts inside thus seizing up when it cooled off. Good for one time use only..
Showed a "cub" brakeman how to drop one off a moving caboose to space trains in dark territory. He would drop them off and they would just bounce off the track. Give them a throw backwards away from the caboose, and they dropped nicely in the center of the track without bouncing.

Steve

Low water button. The hollow end forms well to the brace on the engine body door in front of the engine protector.

I've seen one used to tie a waybill to when it (the waybill) was being tossed off the cab.

The obvious is switch locks. As mentioned above, you had to take it easy on the new locks though.

I've heard of a trainman throwing a lit one at a motorist that almost hit him.


 

RetiredHogger Wrote:
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> I've heard of a trainman throwing a lit one at a
> motorist that almost hit him.
 
Oh hell yeah !  Very good retribution for trying to run a railroad man over on a crossing.  My flagman threw a fusee at a driver, and it set his back seat on fire.  Irate driver came back with burning back seat.  Big angry flagman promised to beat driver's ass if he got out of car.  Driver wisely left with back seat still burning.   My favorite trainmaster had to fling a fusee at a driver trying to mow him down too.  His fusee burned up paint on fool's car hood.  Trainmaster was big and angry too.

Fusee’s have many uses and are a useful tool, that being said it’s surprising the Carriers don’t get rid of them. I have even used them for their intended use for flagging…

Torpedoes were useful not just for flagging, so of course the industry got rid of them.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

I found them to be very effective to run moles out of the yard. Poke a hole in a run with a stick or your finger, light the fusee, stick it. It doesn't harm the grass, but moles don't like it. Those runs ventilate, and after a few minutes you can see smoke coming up all over.

Posted from Android

LocoPilot750 Wrote:
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> I found them to be very effective to run moles out
> of the yard. Poke a hole in a run with a stick or
> your finger, light the fusee, stick it. It doesn't
> harm the grass, but moles don't like it. Those
> runs ventilate, and after a few minutes you can
> see smoke coming up all over.
>
> Posted from Android

outstanding idea...........

66

Also yellow jacket nest in the groung. Fusees n the hole kills them, you don't get stung. They usually have a second hole also.

Sam

RetiredHogger Wrote:
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> Low water button. The hollow end forms well to the
> brace on the engine body door in front of the
> engine protector.
>
> I've seen one used to tie a waybill to when it
> (the waybill) was being tossed off the cab.
>
> The obvious is switch locks. As mentioned above,
> you had to take it easy on the new locks though.
>
> I've heard of a trainman throwing a lit one at a
> motorist that almost hit him.
>
>
>  
Thanks for the reminder delivering orders to other trains on the fly.

Another use if a head on a train was extremely stinky light one and the smell would equalize any odors!

Posted from Android

For quickly starting a fire in a caboose stove nothing works better than loading up the stove with with coal and sticking a lighted fusee into the coal pile. No kindling necessary.

- LD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/23 12:54 by LarryDoyle.

And, besides their intended purpose per Rule 99, they're great for passing signals when switching long cuts of car. Technically illegal since a red light only indicates stop, it was done a lot. Some roads offered yellow fuses for such signaling.

-LD

I learned the art of throwing lighted fusses from an engine from an old head. You crimp the bottom edge of the fuse and when you drop it from the engine it doesn't roll. Some of the roads had a nail protruding from the bottom for sticking them into a wooden tie when flagging or providing warning.
Another use was for weed control. A famous LA switch man was famous for burning any vegetation that was within a quarter mile of a switch. One night he was a little ambitious ignited weeds and a few palm trees subsquently ignited a power pole. The local FD had to be called to extinguish the conflagration.

Posted from Android

goneon66 Wrote:
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> LocoPilot750 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------

> > I found them to be very effective to run moles out
> > of the yard. Poke a hole in a run with a stick or
> > your finger, light the fusee, stick it in. It doesn't
> > harm the grass, but moles don't like it. Those
> > runs ventilate, and after a few minutes you can
> > see smoke coming up all over.
> >
> > Posted from Android
>   66

> outstanding idea...........

Second that motion! I've tried about everything else on moles. They have done a terrible number on my lawn this year, which was gorgeous in Spring, and now has growing brown bare patches all over where the moles are feasting on the grass roots. I hate the damn things.

Trainhand Wrote:
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> Also yellow jacket nest in the ground. Fusees in
> the hole kills them, you don't get stung. They
> usually have a second hole also.
>
> Sam

Have sometimes had problems with them too, especially when it gets hot and dry in midsummer. Lots of folks here in southwestern Michigan had terrible infestations of them last year. Another much appreciated piece of advice. Thanks!

MC