Bad Order is correct in the stability aspect of torpedoes. Consider how they were expected to be used. Typically tossed in a can on a caboose or engine, ignored until needed, set by railroad employees with no specialized or ordnance training. They are a tough commodity which detonate when run over by a heavy piece of equipment.

That said I wouldn't display one. They are a hazardous material and can give the wrong person the idea of playing with them if found. And no, the crystals are not nitroglycerin.

CCdW

A torpedo is not going to contain Dynamite (the trade name for Alfred Nobel's mixture of nitroglycerine and diatomaceous earth) It has always been too unstable. Its shelf life under perfect conditions is a year.

The older lead strap torpedoes we're accustomed to probably contain a tablespoon or so of trinitrotoluene, aka TNT. This is far more stable than Dynamite but still less than perfect. It is still enough to destroy your eardrums and send the sledge hammer back up over your head if you are dumb enough to try that. Remember that these contain a large enough charge to be heard clearly in the cab of a steam locomotive when run over by the pilot truck. TNT still degrades over time. We've generally destroyed them by the simple expedient of running them over with a train. (Think Civil War and train robbery reenactments.)

The modern ones are a much more stable powder mixture similar to what is used for the report charge in a fireworks display. It is still an explosive.

I'll grant (and so will Grandfather) that as explosive devices go railroad torpedoes are among the most stable, but the problem is that we're still modifying the noun 'explosive' with the adjective 'stable'.

Since I don't want to have to defend a museum or a tourist line on something like this I'd suggest displaying a dummy. Removing the charge doesn't seem to practical without destroying the fabric so this could be a simple as a carved wooden block painted and lettered to resemble the original (but with DUMMY or TRAINING AID on the underside) and with straps made out of something less toxic than lead. A good model maker should be able to make these up (along with some dummy fusees).

Years ago when I worked in a Seattle scrapyard I found about 100 torpedoes in the cab of a locomotive. Since it was close to the 4th of July we strapped them to our track and ran over them with a crane. It was great fun! After the smoke cleared we all went back to work.

I sliced a torpedo open for show and tell here.

I cut it open with a stanley knife... the paper covering didn't hold it's shape, so be aware.

The "charge" is wrapped in paper, then masking tape around that...

I've seen them before, and those were solid... this one here was falling apart.. kinda soft. It didn't hold it's shape when I took the paper apart. Different composition than the old ones.

I took it outside and lit it with the flame of a propane torch. Video at the end here...

Took right off.. burnt for about 5 seconds and was consumed. I guess a torpedo's biggest drawback is flammability.... just like having fireworks laying around...

https://youtu.be/S7wvdYZ-Ogo

A few years ago I went o work for another short line and as the folks were showing me around my new location they opened a big wooden door where there shelves of boxes of torpedoes...probably a couple thousand.They told me they weren't using them anymore but didn't know how to safely, dispose of them.

I was mildy, shocked but suggested we call the city fire chief to get his take on disposal. We didn't need to call him as the next day he was visiting our railroad as part of his "fare well" time prior to retirement.
As he was visiting and chatting with several people there was a pause in conversation and I asked him what we should do about getting rid of the torpedoes? He asked how many we had and someone opened up the cabinet to display our large supply. He was spechless and in shock as to the potential for explosion if the place ever caught fire.

Once he regained his composure he immediately called the bomb sqaud who showed up with sirens and lights instantaneously, to cart off our treausre trove of torpedoes. So what started as one of my first, new, challenges at the new road...pretty well cleaned itself up fast.

Torpedoes are bad stuff... very loud and very dangerous. I used a lot of them for train tests and have run over them as an engineer and I never liked them or being around them.

Okay, first, there is a vast difference between setting an explosive afire and detonating it. There are any number of substances where I could show you a dramatic difference between simply igniting it and creating the conditions for a massive explosion, including but not limited to black powder, gasoline, coal, and flour. And just because I can open up an M-80 firecracker and set its contents alight with a satisfying sizzle doesn't mean it can't still blow off my fingers or hand if misused.

Having said that, I do have to wonder if the seemingly routine reaction to "call in the bomb squad" isn't a bit of overkill, much like calling in the scrappers and men in "space suits" when a bit of asbestos is found on a steam locomotive. Fear of the unknown, and all that.

So has anyone been able to come up with ANY confirmed incidents of accidental detonation/explosion of aged torpedoes, causing non-trivial injury or property damage, that DID NOT involve intentional misuse or abuse???

And for the record, I am old enough to have once have had an outer zippered compartment on my railroad camera bag that, at one point in the 1980s, held three regulation fusees and one never-used torpedo....... All I can hope is that the SOB that broke into my car and stole that bag blew some appendage off with the torpedo.....

Considering the rough service environment and storage conditions, especially in steam days, these torpedoes should be relatively stable and durable. That is why I asked earlier about known accidents.

p.s. in case you are curious, yes, we used torpedoes in Denmark too.

Several years ago I found 3 in a box at work- if you can't tell by my user name, I run an Air Force Railroad. Knowing exactly the kind of response I would get if I revealed their existence to anyone on base, I quietly took them with me when I made a run to our interchange. Luckily it is a 5 mile run off post in the woods. I stopped the locos in the middle of nowhere, with a puzzled look from my conductor. Went out and placed them alternating on the track. Got back on and told my conductor, you didn't see or hear anything, and proceeded to run them over. Sounded like a shotgun. Problem solved.

My friend runs the Fort Eustis railroad. He had a new instructor hired by the Army find a little can of torpedoes inside a boxcar- not just any boxcar, but an armored 89ft used for the never implemented nuclear missle train. He called security forces, saying he found torpedoes. The bomb squad called him back in a panic, asking where. He said, in the nuclear weapon boxcar!!! As he hung up the phone, the monthly Surrey nuclear power plant test sirens start going off. His face goes pale and askes my friend, what's that? He tells him, you idiot, they are evacuating the base because you told them you found torpedoes in a nuclear boxcar!!! He calls security forces back to say please don't evacuate the base to which they go what is going on?

They did evacuate the warehouses surrounding the railyard, and came out in full bomb gear.

Hence why I did what I did.

If you lay a fusee out long ways and tape it down, when you run over it quickly, it sounds just like a torpedo.

Not exactly an accident, but many years ago at a railway museum that shall remain nameless, we decided to dispose of a bunch of torpedoes on July 4th. The detonating rig consisted of an old REA baggage cart with a brake shoe wired to the tongue, with another brake shoe strategically placed to serve as an anvil. Use was simplicity in itself; raise the tongue, place the victim on the anvil, and drop the tongue. BANG! What we found is that the explosion had enough force to send the lead straps flying, so there was some hazard from shrapnel. I suspect, when properly affixed to the rail, the wheel kept the straps pinned down until after the explosive event, whereupon they just fell to the ground.

I wonder what the explosive mixture is soluble in? It seems for a display torpedo, a couple small holes could be cut into the underside of the packet, and a soaking would dissolve the explosive material out, whereupon the empty case could be injected with something like epoxy so it would keep its shape, and the result would be an inert display that would still have its original fabric on the side that shows.

I'm glad to hear these things actually don't sweat nitro. My mother-in-law gave me an Illinois Central brakeman's box (?) many years ago. It's a long metal container with a handle; it holds several fusees, a flag, and it has a small compartment with several torpedoes in it.

Since we're telling torpedo stories... When I first went to work for CSX torpedoes were still being used. One day I was talking to a former engineer then working as a yard master. He was telling me about the time he found a full case of them in the nose of the lead unit he had. They were sitting in a siding waiting for an opposing train to pass, he knew the crew and decided it was fun time. So he fastened the entire box of them to the rails on the main to enjoy scaring the poop out of the approaching crew. Shortly before the train got to them he heard the voice of the subdivision Road Foreman on the radio. He was giving the engineer of the approaching train his annual check ride. Needless to say the crew that had applied the torpedoes to the main moved faster than they ever had before to get them all off before the other train arrived.

I tend to agree that calling the bomb squad over some old torpedoes is an over-reaction. Those things spent YEARS sitting in metal containers in the noses of locomotives in hot weather in the South that probably reached well over 120 degrees during the Summer, and I'm sure there was never a report of them spontaneously either combusting or exploding. Also, most locomotive containers for them were a combined container for both torpedoes and fusees, so apparently the railroads themselves were never overly concerned about the spontaneous explosion danger.

And I am guessing you tried this because you ran out of torpedoes?

Reading an old periodical that outlined the history of the Shelburne Falls and colrain Street Railway. Somebody being interviewed reminisced about how when they were a youngster they had gotten their hands on a torpedo and placed it on the trolley tracks. He said the sound was loud enough to lift a car. Yes it said he learned it at an impressionable age that a motor man will leave his car in the middle of the street and give chase for a city block and then used his gloved hand on the youngsters back side where would stings the most.

To be of any use, they HAD to be loud. They had to be heard in the cab of a working steam locomotive at speed, and that is NOT a quiet place.

I wonder if they thought the "torpedo" was actually the naval weapon, with a very large explosive charge in it!!

It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case; think of how many people don't know a lot of our terminology.