[SN95HotRod]

Hi, I’m new to the forum. I was wondering about a story my grand father told me many years ago.. when he was a kid, he said he stole «*sound bombs*» that they used on the railway to alert the driver of a passing train of a danger or something of the kind. He said he detonated them in the center of the city... Do some of you know about those? I searched the internet and have not found anything. He obviously knew what he was talking about because he worked for the CN all his life and he stole the bombs from his fathers casing, (who also worked for the CN all his life). Thanks!

 

[D&J Railroad]

I think he might have been referring to an explosive device that would be taped or laid across the track and it would detonate when crushed by a rolling wheel. The detonation was to sound a warning for the train crew not to move the train, not destruction.

 

[SN95HotRod]

I think he might have been referring to an explosive device that would be taped or laid across the track and it would detonate when crushed by a rolling wheel. The detonation was to sound a warning for the train crew not to move the train, not destruction.

Yes, thats it! Do you know the name of the device? Thanks

 

[D&J Railroad]

Rail Torpedos.
Here is a short article about them.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3535158

 

[Krieglok]

We used torpedoes on a regional railroad, where we had all dark territory.

Most railroads that used them would require two be placed in advance of an obstruction. When the train hit them, they were required to slow down to restricted speed or 20mph, prepared to stop at a red flag or red fusee some distance ahead...

Tom

 

[DMASSO]

We were given a donation to our club of the containers. I had them at

home as one would not open. When i got it open, I realized I had torpedoes!
Bomb squad stopped by and took them. Containers are in photo. High on wall left of door.

 

[Krieglok]

They look like flagmans cases. They carried torpedoes, fusees and A red flag in them. The flag man of a train would take the case out with him when he had to get off the end of a stopped train and walk back a distance to warn any following trains that they were stopped ahead...

 

[SN95HotRod]

Very interesting, thanks!

 

[J.Albert1949]

You don't want to try fooling with torpedos "by hand".
Good way to get serious burns or something blown off.

 

[Krieglok]

You don't want to try fooling with torpedos "by hand".
Good way to get serious burns or something blown off.

Good advice!

The most use we got out of them before they discontinued issuing them, was to put bunches of them on the tracks on the Fourth of July and run them over with the yard engine...lol.

Tom

 

[Big Ed]

A picture of the inside of a caboose I found upstate NY.

(notice the box on the wall)

More pictures here starting at post #25,
https://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=3529

 

[CTValleyRR]

As an old railroad tradition, when an engineer was retiring, his coworkers would put one torpedo for each of his years of service on the rails as he pulled in from his last run, giving him kind of a 21 gun salute as he arrived at his final stop.