UP Fire Train

[Tom L]

I came across these photos on Reuters today.

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Tom L
Wellington CO

[dem34]

Something really badass with the whole idea of a dedicated Fire Fighting car.

[C855B]

Carried forward from longstanding Southern Pacific practice. They maintained "fire trains" especially over Donner Pass for problems in the wood-lined tunnels and snow shed network.

https://californiarevealed.org/islandora/object/cavpp%3A112235

[nkalanaga]

Western logging railroads have had fire trains almost as long as they've been logging by rail.  Even today, it's a necessity in some of the remote places trains run.

BNSF, and BN before them, and probably the GN and NP, also have/had them, especially in the Cascades and Rockies, but they've also been used in eastern Washington.

These aren't just "fire fighting cars", they're entire trains, usually with multiple tank cars, often connected by piping, so they can keep spraying for a long time before running for water.

[MK]

That first photograph looks like a photo of someone's model layout.  The color of the background sky helps the effect.

[Maletrain]

Seems like dangerous work.  Even with an unlimited supply of water, some of those fires seem to move fast enough that they could over-run the track.

What has been the experience with that in these ultra-dry megafire scenarios?

[basementcalling]

Don't think the fire train would have stopped the Lava fire from killing this trestle.

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[sirenwerks]

Fire fighting trains were a requirement of law in western states.  In the day of sparking steamers and wooden trestles, it made sense to not want your ROW or the primary product you were shipping to burn.  Still, some roads tried to shirk their civic duty, and the SP was the leader of this corporate irresponsibility.  Oregon and California maintain laws on the books today, that require the trains.

[Jbub]

Although I haven't seen it in a while, I remember the rail grinding trains going up UP's line from Ogden to Evanston and seeing all the grass of the side off the tracks that had burned because of it. They did have fire fighting cars in the mix just for that reason, it was cool as a kid to see a train spraying water off the side.

[CRL]

But not as cool as watching all the sparks & smoke flying from the grinders.