Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathbyteacup
There is surely a health and safety value?
Better to stop it quickly rather than letting it spread to the OHLE, station canopies, rolling stock etc.?
Cost cutting if you ask me!
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Yes its obviously cost cutting. Having said that, the loco's have been running about on the British railway network for over ten years and as far as I know, none of them have been on fire yet so the question of safety has never been raised. Obviously the powers that be are happy about the situation.
I remember in the late 70's, a Class 46 was on fire in Darlington station with a rake of coaches on. The traincrew couldn't get the engine room fire extinguishers to work and the loco was merrily smoldering away until the fire brigade arrived.. When they got to the train, a few of the firemen went into the engine room armed with extinguishers to tackle the blaze. While they were doing that, another fireman had a look at the loco's fire equipment lever to see what went wrong and pulled it and made it work. All the firemen suddenly came hurrying out of the engine room in a gushing cloud of CO2 vapour.
