Fire Fighters and train tracks

[Notch 8]

Firefighters fighting a house fire had to place the hose across the track came up with an idea to protect the fire hose.. A 1/2 hour later the 5:15 came through and was derailed....

[AARR]

Seems they would have called the railroad and notified them about the hose over the tracks because clearly that set-up is not going to work. It looks more like something used to allow vehicle traffic to cross without affecting the hose.

[Norm]

Best laid plans of mice and men..................................................

Where's the smiley for facepalm?

[PerRock]

Best laid plans of mice and men..................................................

Where's the smiley for facepalm?

Here use this one:

peter

[Firemedic Mike]

The best solution is to dig out ballast between ties and run the hose under the rails, allowing normal rail traffic. Barring that, the best bet for firefighters is to notify the railroad of the need to stop rail traffic. CSX and Amtrak have both said that they will work with fire department to figure out a solution.

As an aside, a five inch fire hose getting hit by a locomotive will do quite a bit of damage. I have seen video of a fire department getting a supply line torn up by a train, damaging the fire engine and nearly killing several people. Could have been tragic for anyone in the burning building suddenly losing a water supply, too...

Even worse than leaving a critical hose on the tracks would be what Detroit did to Amtrak a few years back ( and has happened to others as well) is leaving a fire engine or truck on the tracks..

[hoborich]

Digging away enough hard ballast to pass a five inch supply line under the rails might take a while. Do you want to get water on the fire now or an hour from now? Notifying the railroad and stopping traffic should be the first option.

[Firemedic Mike]

According to CSX, if we run a line over the rails and they need to get a train through badly enough, they will come and dig it out for us. Not sure how accurate that is, though. Although if you use tankers to shuttle water, you may not have to worry about it at all!

[Raildudes dad]

1st couple trucks work off a line across the tracks making the initial attack. Two guys dig second line in under the tracks, should only be a brief interruption to switch lines. Most important item, call the RR and stop the trains!!!!