"Richard Brooks"

|
| Then again, he used to throw railway fog warning mines at brick walls
| and pick up the ones that were dented and threw them back at the wall.
| We didn't know such things existed until a police officer came to our
| school and described them with drawing on a blackboard to us as some
| other kids had knicked a consignment earlier.
|
| Richard.
|


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On this side of da pond RR fog signals are called RR torpedoes. Oh - by da there
were also explosive lighthouse fog signals.

He be a report on an accident involving a SL of fog signals/torpedoes ..........

Bureau Of Explosives. [Association of American Railroads.]
19-7119 ..... June 17, 1926
RAILWAY TORPEDOES

See - the - car. Was - the - car - in - a - del-rail-ment? It -was -not; try - again, -
chil-dren. Could - it - have- been - an -ex-plos-i-on? You're - right - it - could!

All this is by the way of being sure that the situation is fully understood, even
by those immediately responsible for the not-so-good practice that produced the
results shown in the picture. The day-coach illustrated was not being used as a
carrier of forbidden material packed in an unauthorized manner. On the
contrary, it was as we know, empty and just standing on a yard track minding
its own business. As the matter of fact, this car had nothing to do with what
happened, except in-so-far as it was on the receiving end of the excitement,
along with other cars and the windows of houses for some distance around.

In one end of a box car there were loaded 36,000 railway torpedoes and a
collection of fusees, properly packed, and carefully braced in the car. This care,
however, did not extend to putting "INFLAMMABLE" placards on the car, as
required by I.C.C. Regulations, nor did it prevent the loading in the other end
of the same car, of a collection of heavy castings, forgings, iron pipe, brake
shoes, and other trifling hardware, which, as is customary for that class of
material, was loaded in bulk and unbraced. The whole outfit, in sort, was
company supplies.

Well, then, this car, with others, was spotted on a track near the storehouse. In
the meantime, a switcher went after some more cars of material, to go in on the
same track. The switcher proceeded to kick the string consisting of two cars, in
along the stores track where the original car was. There happened to be a low
place in the track near the torpedo car, and that car, persuaded by gravity,
began to roll gently in the direction of the oncoming string. The foremost of the
two approaching cars was a steel gondola loaded with switch material. What
with the liberal weight of iron present, the gondola and the torpedo car came
together with something less then perfect gentleness. An umpteenth of a second
later there arose a large,[?] a very loud noise, and pieces of this and that began
sailing through the air thereabouts like a flock of pigeons. The steel end of the
gondola was neatly removed from its proper place, and flew two hundred feet
before it returned to earth. The passenger car in the picture [Photo of a railway
coach in sorry shape; windows blown out &c..] was 120 feet away
from the meeting place, but that didn't help much, as the picture demonstrates.
As already indicated, the echo of the blast was punctuated by the tinkering of
broken glass, as most of the windows in the vicinity bowed gracefully to the
inevitable. We need not explain why we show no picture of the torpedo car after
the bump.

It would seem that the cars didn't strike hard enough to explode the properly
packed torpedoes, but some of the not-exactly-feather-dusters loaded in the far
end of the torpedo car must have trespassed on forbidden territory as a result of
the bump. Railway torpedoes are made to explode; they aren't good for anything
else. The torpedoes in the shipment were not unduly sensitive; but the worm
will turn, and even properly packed torpedoes cannot be expected to regard
with indifference the impact of a few hundred pounds of iron in one chunk. Be
that as it may, these didn't! Aside form the mess that followed this fact, two
men were hit by flying pieces, one man being pretty badly hurt. This was, as
usual, NOT the man who loaded the iron works into the car with the torpedoes!


----------------
19-2221 ..... January 24, 1913.

RAILWAY TORPEDO. -- While a team was driving up to the freight platform
to discharge some freight, a railway torpedo, lying on the frozen ground, was
exploded either by the wagon wheel running over it or by the horses stamping
on it. A piece of the torpedo struck one of the horses in the left shank,
producing a serious injury, which resulted in blood poisoning, followed by the
death of the animal a few days later. Loss $300.

[Railway torpedoes contained a mixture of potassium chlorate, sulphur, sand,
binder and a neutralizer. (Ellern #155). They were placed on the track behind
parked trains and such. The weight of a following train crossing over a torpedo
would cause it to detonate warning the engineer to stop. /djh/]

[I can say from personal experience during my misspent youth with both the
real thing and one home-made device, they function well. Just remember one
thing if you are planning on replicating one of these devices; I have replaced
the luck of my youth with knowledge and experience plus not a few gray hairs.
Fireworks should be fun. Loss of your vision or sundry body parts from
using compositions/devices such as these is not fun with fireworks - n'est-ce
pas? [djh]




--
donald j haarmann
----------------------------
An explosion may be defined as a loud noise
accompanied by the sudden going away of
things from the places where they were before.
Joseph Needham