Auto train...where there's fire...

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Fire from the stack is just plain bad. It might be soot burning off, or unburned fuel cooking off. But flames out of stack is a bad thing. Now do you need to call Amtrak or CSXT? Well if its a engine fire in a few miles that engine will be give off a alarm bells as it shut off. The hogger will look back and go "Oh shxx" and fire service will be call out. If its a engine problem that not a fire, the next train that Amtrak pass will give a shout out, tell Amtrak they got a issue. So no worries, it not like the Concorde shooting flames out of its engine on take off.

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It's not "normal", but it also doesn't really hurt anything. The usual cause is a dying turbocharger on the engine. It can also be caused by a fuel injector that's stuck open. In either of those scenarios, the engine doesn't get enough air for the amount of fuel is being put in, so the fuel doesn't all get burned. Once the unburned fuel mixes with the hot exhaust gas, it ignites into a nice big flame out of the exhaust stack.

Here's an awesome example on a Conrail C40-8W, which is basically the same type of locomotive as the Amtrak Genesis. It looks really cool, in my opinion!

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=175497
 
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When I was on the eastbound Lake Shore Limited a few years ago we had a stack fire in the number 2 unit right after pulling out of Schenectady. Before all was said and done the unit burned to the frame and half the city along with all local media came to watch. Being in the dead of Winter didn't help much as we were held on the train but fortunately after about 2 hours we were able to get back underway with HEP and Air able to pass through the burned out unit. I was sure glad I had my Scanner with me!

There was a short piece and pic in the next day's USeless Today paper.
 
MetraUPWest said:
It's not "normal", but it also doesn't really hurt anything. The usual cause is a dying turbocharger on the engine. It can also be caused by a fuel injector that's stuck open. In either of those scenarios, the engine doesn't get enough air for the amount of fuel is being put in, so the fuel doesn't all get burned. Once the unburned fuel mixes with the hot exhaust gas, it ignites into a nice big flame out of the exhaust stack.

Here's an awesome example on a Conrail C40-8W, which is basically the same type of locomotive as the Amtrak Genesis. It looks really cool, in my opinion!

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=175497
Click to expand...
Conrail Quality indeed!!!

Awesome picture, thanks for sharing.
 
1902933_10152034223202939_1915036087_n.jpg
 
Probably getting rid of the now useless separate AT sleeper dinner menus.
 
Geez, what a wild picture, thanks for sharing, MetraUPWest! Could you imagine seeing that engine fire going through the forest at night especially with all the noise those engines make at higher RPM? I've seen a lot of sparks come out of the top of GE diesels (at night) but not a bleepin' 2-alarm house fire!
 
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