Office of the General Manager
100 Railroad Avenue
Monetesano, Washington
CIRCULAR NUMBER: 8.11 DATE: January 1, 1955
BY AUTHORITY OF:
S.B.Clinard
President and General Manager ___________________________________________________________________________________
Prototype Information
The fire laws of the particular
State or Province must be carefully observed at all times, and noxious
weeds must be exterminated. The fire laws of Massachusetts require
sectionmen or other employees of a railway to act as fire-wardens in
extinguishing fires burning on lands adjacent to the right-of-way.
The
foreman should select the most intelligent man of his crew to act as
track-walker. The track-walker must be familiar with the rules for track
work and flagging. He should examine every switch, switch-stand, frog,
and guard-rail each day; should tighten any loose bolts; drive down any
loose spikes; reset or remove any crossing planks heaved by frost;
temporarily repair any broken fences; close farm gates which he finds
open; watch the track for spreading; be on the lookout for trespassers,
especially around wooden bridges, and continually watch for abnormal
conditions of the railway property and private property adjacent
thereto.
A third type of work train is a fire train. I would think that at a minimum, they would probably need a pilot (an engineer who knows the division) if the weed sprayer was actually to be run by a member of the weed spraying company and not an engineer from the division. It also probably needed a conductor who knew the ropes.
Equipment consisted only of a tank car of water, the tank car being equipped with a four inch, perforated pipe mounted beneath the running board at the rear of the car. A pipe led from the step valve underneath the center of the car to the four inch pipe, the water moving by gravity to the dispensing pipe. The size of the perforations in the pipe and the speed of the train pulling the car, the number of miles that could be wetted, was extremely small.
Air from the compressor mounted on the railroad engine, used for braking of trains, was directed into the tank car which forced the water through the pipe and the nozzles. A pressure gauge was mounted on the manifold to indicate the operating pressure on the pipe line. In addition a whistle was also mounted on the car for safety sake, this arrangement was the original spray system in its entirety.
Since 1913, many new innovations have been added to this primitive sprayer. Gasoline pumps were installed to replace the use of air from the engine compressors. Pipe sizes were increased to carry larger volumes of material.
Just prior to 1950, the WWSL began fire suppression using Bean guns, mounted in series, and fastened to the floor of the spray car. It was soon learned that additional height was required to see the brush to be sprayed and to adequately cover the vegetation. The gun turrets were eventually mounted on a brush control deck on the roof of the spray car. To extend the spray of along the right-of-way, additional pressure was required which necessitated increasing pipe sizes, heavier-duty pumps, and new improved nozzles capable of adjustment to change spray patterns. Fire nozzles were inaugerated, designed to produce a solid stream of fogging, as was required. Today, operating at 150 - 200 p.s.i. railroad spray equipments are capable of spraying for a distance of 100 feet each side of track, simultaneously, for a total of 500 or more acres per day,
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