oh boys, just because it's my first post doesn't mean I am a noob to the world. ;) let's try to stay on subject and not build a strawman out of things.

From Wikipedia:



As for fusees/flares, I, too, have managed to "cut holes" in sheet metal with fusees/flares. They WILL heat thin metal (car fenders, buckets, tubs, etc.) enough to melt. For that reason, you REALLY want to watch where you set a burning one.

Just watched a Herron Railroad Video titled "Boston & Maine in the four seasons, Vol 1". One portion of it showed rail work being done and a flagman placing two torpedoes on the rail to signal an approaching steam passenger engine that he had to stop before the next flagman. The whole video is excellent and worth the purchase.

On the TVRM, we would use torpedoes when performing MOW work on the line. They were required as part of the Operating Rules and also provided an audible alert from any approaching train. If they were not detonated by the time we completed the work, we'd pick them up.

Periodically, we would dispose of expiring torpedoes by running them over with the train. All trainmen and enginemen were instructed to stand a good distance away from them to avoid being hit by the metal straps-they can fly a good distance when the torpedo detonates.

This is more for amusement than to supply any useful information.

One of the interurban trolleys I regularly operate at a railway museum has a compartment labelled "torpedoes, fusees". The label is very obvious to passengers in the car. So I often get questions about the "torpedoes". My normal response is:

1. The torpedoes are in case we run into enemy shipping.

2. After that, I give a reasonable accurate description (to a point) of what torpedoes were used for. I mention how the operating crew of a disabled train would walk back on the line to strap the torpedoes to the track in case a following train came along. But then I tell them that, if a following train came along, it would set off the torpedoes and blow the following train off the tracks. You would be surprised at how many people seem to actually believe this (but then they also seem to believe me when I tell them that they have to turn off their cell phones because they could interfere with our GPS navigation system and we could get lost).

3. After that, I give them the right information about how RR rules required a following train to respond when it hit track torpedoes.

There's a certain streak of madness in my family.

A friend of mine is an Army veteran and trained how to neutralize things that could potentially explode. He had Gulf War experience so he does know what he is talking about.
He says to put the charge in a container and then soak it in motor oil. The oil will seap into the case and make the explosives inert.
I saw him do it to a WW I RG charge that we came across. It worked because after soaking for a long while he drilled a hole in it and...nothing happened. (In case you are curious...he turned it into a beer tap handle...don't try this at home).

T7

Old thread, but good reason to renew. Did anyone see this video from 4 August showing a torpedo demonstration?

https://youtu.be/SWDnjRee5Z0

Thanks for posting that for the curious. They're a little frisky with the throttle & brakes. Did you catch the slide at 1:35? I cringed a little.

I think the idea was to portray an actual emergency situation as much as possible. It would really be interesting for some group to demonstrate a "Banner test". Perhaps that may be a little too complicated for a casual observer to understand, but it's something even the vast majority of trackside fans never get to see, only hear about.

I cringed even more watching it happen in person. The Engineer was bailing off even before plugging her but as she was still sliding they decided to not go into emergency later, and make the stops a little more controlled after that. The runs in that video are the only ones where he put her into emergency.

It had rained that morning and the rails were quite slippery. No damage was done to the locomotive or car.

The torpedo demonstrations were announced both onboard the train and on our outdoor PA system, and other volunteers made sure that any visitors in the immediate area knew what was about to happen. The demonstrations were a big hit with everyone, just like firecrackers at a party.

How were torpedoes used?

Back in the day, I was riding the dutch door of a trip returning from Brattleboro VT to New London CT on the CV with CNR 6218. It was night and we were running along the Connecticut River. Suddenly BAM...BAM. The engineer blew two shorts and set the brakes. We came to a fusee and a man with a lantern. We stopped and he boarded the engine. We moved slowly and came upon a freight in a siding. We stopped again and the man with the lantern climbed down. Then we started slowly and soon the freight started the other way.

This line was single track, timetable and train order territory. We were an extra and both trains had a train order creating the meet. We presumed the freight was too long for the siding and they had to flag us.

Peter Josserand (author of the textbook Rights of Trains) would be proud. The torpedoes were an advance signal that there was a flagman ahead. The two short whistle toots were an acknowledgement we had received the signal; when we stopped at the fusee, the flagman verbally briefed our head end and everybody did their job.

Phil Mulligan

There was a story from the old Shelburne Falls & Coleraine Street railway of a little miscreant who you got his hands on a torpedo. He put it on the trolley track in this course when the car came along at set it off. The person telling the story was the one was the perpetrator, he said the sound alone was loud enough to lift a car. He said he learned at an impressible age that a motorman will leave his car in the middle of a run give Chase for a city block and and used his gloved hand on a part of the body ware it would stings the most.