January 9, 2008

Tumbleweeds Stop Freight Train

Russian Thistle in Montana is deep enough to swallow trains, let alone trainworkers. Swimming in the tumbleweeds next to an operating train is actually dangerous: a sudden ignition could be nearly explosive.
From Jay Cole and forwarded to various weed folks by Alan V Tasker/MD/APHIS/USDA on 12/07/2007.

On Monday morning, if someone would have told me that tumbleweeds could stop a coal train I would have said " No way". That was until yesterday morning, 12 miles west of Hardin, MT, we were pulling up Rowley hill, going 15 mph & the wind was blowing about 50 mph & we ran into thousand's of tumbleweeds [ Russian Thistle -- Salsola tragus ] and come to a dead stop in about 5 car length's; they blew under our drivers & we lost all our traction & were dead in the water We had 3 engines rated at 4400 hp a piece & got 2 more engines off another train but still couldn't move. We were stuck there for 5 hrs. & 35 min. & finally had to back down the hill & let another crew take over because we ran out of time to work, crazy huh? We had to hook up 3 more engines to help push up the hill.

Tumble weeds near Hardin, MT in Dec 2007.
It took 8 locomotives to push through these weeds. A spark from a wheel or hot brake, an explosive spread into the tumbleweeds, then into the coal...

Posted by The Naturalist at January 9, 2008 6:33 PM