preventing veld or lineside fires

[Dylan Knott]

How would someone modify a steam loco to prevent it from starting lineside fires?

Would trimming the rail reserve to what it represented in the steam days be sufficient or would the loco need to be fitted with spark arrestors etc?

Converting loco to oil at todays oil prices is suicidal and not worth the effort.

[John Ashworth]

I'm not a technical expert, but two of the measures that we use in FOTR are:

1. Ensure that the spark arrestors in the smokebox are complete, well-fitted and in good condition.

2. Fit spark arrestors in the gaps between the ashpan and the bottom of the firebox. We have these on our mechanically-stoked 3094 (and presumably will fit them to 3117 too) but haven't really found them necessary on hand-fired 3664 and 2650.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Which raises the question - how often does a steam loco start a line side fire? Why I am getting at here is myth as opposed to reality....... Ar e the numbers available anywhere?

[Dylan Knott]

Good point. George - Knysna had quite a few fires but other factors contributed to this and I think the train got the blame.

Type of vegetation also a factor and down here we have bluegum trees, fynbos but not long grass etc.

[John Ashworth]

Our experience at FOTR has been that well-maintained, well-driven, hand-fired locomotives rarely cause fires.

Of course, "rarely" is probably not good enough for a safety management system nor an insurance company, and one has to find a way of making sure that the "well-maintained" and "well-driven" aspects are taken very seriously.

[Dylan Knott]

How were the linesides or rail reserves maintained in regular steam days? Guidelines?

[Nathan Berelowitz]

In days of steam, there were regular weed spraying trains to sort out lineside vegetation, aswell as trimming of trees/branches so that they did not scrape on the train sides and cause injuries to staff or passengers. With steam traction being historical now, there is no longer a need for this and even though fires start from diesels stacks, when working hard and needy of a service ( watch tose exhaust sparks!), there is also a risk of sparks from brake blocks and even from electric units pantographs.

On the steam locomotives, the fire starters are usually the mechanical stoker locomotives as many a fine coal could go up the chimney. Good technical maitainence of spark arrestors and ashpans, will often solve the problem, but the risk is still there.
Today there is the added risk of passengers and their smoking habits and informal settlements.

[John Ashworth]

But informal settlements are not the responsibility of the train operator. We have enough to worry about with the fires which are started by our trains (which includes the nicotine addiction of our passengers and crews, as Nathan rightly points out). Let's leave informal settlements, insurance-hungry farmers, etc to other authorities.

[Dylan Knott]

So if the lineside is maintained as it was when regular steam operated, spark arrestors are in good order and a support vehicle is on hand to follow the train then we can assume steam can run all year round?

Coach marshalls are there to ensure pax do not light up or eject anything from the windows to start fires.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

I do see why not. But it is easy to shift fire blame to the engines.

In Zimbabwe in the 1970's there was no line side maintenance per se - but for security reasons the train crews were always trying to set the track side alight in the dry season. It was incredibly hard to do this, and the devices used included inflammable wads of cotton waste, matchbox "bombs", burning coals and flaming wads of newspaper! All of which spluttered out after a small blaxe!

[John Ashworth]

I think it's in David Wardale's book The Red Devil and other tales from the age of steam that he relates how they tested various spark arresting mechanisms by laying sheets of plastic along the reserve on both sides of the track and then working an engine hard along that stretch. They would then look for burn marks on the plastic.

[Kevin Wilson-Smith]

Interesting idea!

[Nathan Berelowitz]

Perhaps we could ask the local informal settlements to report back on any holes caused by sparks in their roofing? That would be a reasonable indication of how farsparks could fly1
There was also the "soot finger depth test", whereby by placing the forefinger into the soot by the line, up to the depth of the second joint, one could tell the amount of traffic, load of trains, single or double headers, wind direction, type of coal, but not the crews names!