My fishin' buddy caught these shots by accident, but not sure what happened. He ran to his car to tell the head end crew. It looks like an engine or something caught fire in route. By the time he caught up to warn them, the fire was out. We guess some one forgot to check the oil, or maybe a hobo was burning some waste to keep warm. No one was talking, and the train was starting to roll again when he got the second shot. I wonder what happened?
Watash, a while back there was a topic (forgot which forum) that discussed diesel exhaust stack fires, especially with older GE units. Although it looks like an EMD unit in your photo. These stack fires caused a lot of damage to grasslands and sructures near the ROW. The stack fires were thought to be the result of imperfect combustion building up a layer of carbon in the stack, that was flashed during high power situations. [ 06 February 2002, 02:03: Message edited by: Hank Coolidge ]
Hank, You are correct, as it is an EMD unit. It is a GP38-2 to be exact, a non-turbo charged unit. Besides an exhaust fire, it could be an electrical fire in the dynamic brake housing. Harold
the gp38-2's have been known to burn up the dynamic a time or two. i think i've done it 3 or 4 times myself. btw on the c36-7's those are cool to get flames out of the stack, when you drop from notch 8 down to 4 or 5 then notch back up and let it catch up and watch the SHOW!!!!!!!!!! somewhere i have some pics of this going on i'll try to get em up soon. also the emd sd70 series (2500's) like to hang up in transition and give a little fireworks show at times.
I remember when the first DASH-9s came out it seemed like everyone had a pic of one of those spewing fire after the turbocharger conked out. I know I've seen a lot of them come through Interbay with charred roofs! I have to admit thats what I expected to see after the first pic, a DASH-9, not a Geep! Oh well, we all know what happens when we assume.
Got it figured out? (Now for the rest of the story!) They are two different engines! Sorry about that. The first engine blowing flames is a Conrail GE C40-8W with a blown turbocharger. You were correct on the second engine, an NS unit. The fire was started in the dynamic brake grids when they overheated coming down Keating Summit in Pennsylvania. The unit was dead in tow when the photo was taken.
