 |
Re: Cal Zepher incident at Elko last night?
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 05-22-2011 - 11:23
>Even my 1982 Buick diesel had a moisture trap on it, to protect the injectors and pump. They at least had a trap I hope!
Well, they don't have the moisture sensors but they do have filers. No doubt what happened was that whatever the contamination was clogged the filters. From what my source described, it sounded like both engines started starving for fuel, and they didn't quite make it over Pequop summit (they intended to coast down the other side into Wells).
As Juppo has said, the lack of moisture sensors has to do with cost. Where I worked at the SP, the SP had a direct pipeline to the refinery. One day the roof of the holding tank at the roundhouse rusted through, and they had a bunch of engines die. The foreman said they tested some fuel out of a nozzle by dribbling some on the element of the office coffe pot's electric hot plate, and sure enough sizzle sizzle, water in the fuel. But tank repairs couldn't start until the engineering types from the head office came by and ran extensive tests with fancy apparatus and came to the same conclusion. Then there's the time they had to weld up a fuel tank on one of the commute locomotives, which had gotten ripped open by some debris, and when done welding forgot to take out the water and fill it with fuel. No mositure sensors then either, the locomotive just died out on the main line.
Well, they don't have the moisture sensors but they do have filers. No doubt what happened was that whatever the contamination was clogged the filters. From what my source described, it sounded like both engines started starving for fuel, and they didn't quite make it over Pequop summit (they intended to coast down the other side into Wells).
As Juppo has said, the lack of moisture sensors has to do with cost. Where I worked at the SP, the SP had a direct pipeline to the refinery. One day the roof of the holding tank at the roundhouse rusted through, and they had a bunch of engines die. The foreman said they tested some fuel out of a nozzle by dribbling some on the element of the office coffe pot's electric hot plate, and sure enough sizzle sizzle, water in the fuel. But tank repairs couldn't start until the engineering types from the head office came by and ran extensive tests with fancy apparatus and came to the same conclusion. Then there's the time they had to weld up a fuel tank on one of the commute locomotives, which had gotten ripped open by some debris, and when done welding forgot to take out the water and fill it with fuel. No mositure sensors then either, the locomotive just died out on the main line.
