Roman Candle Video: Watch What Happens When A Locomotive Suffers A Turbo Failure


Roman Candle Video: Watch What Happens When A Locomotive Suffers A Turbo Failure

(By Greg Rourke) – We’ve seen all manner of explosions on BangShift…engines, blowers, transmissions, but I don’t think we’ve had a diesel locomotive. Until now.

Here we have a couple of guys pacing a train on a road parallel to the tracks. We don’t know if they are train buffs who like to photograph or video everything  that runs down the rails, or if they are just civilians who noticed the orange spray coming out of the locomotive. In either case, they are not exactly wordsmiths and the audio is not safe for younger or more sensitive viewers.
We can assume there is a problem with the turbocharger. If the seals blow and lube oil gets into the housing it will start burning and the big diesel starts aspirating it’s own oil. It appears the train crew isn’t aware of the show, no attempt is made to slow down. Finally something goes even more wrong and we have the equivalent of a small volcano. One would think they have an oil  pressure gauge, or perhaps a low pressure shutdown, but we can hear the turbo spool down and the crew brings the mess to a stop.


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4 thoughts on “Roman Candle Video: Watch What Happens When A Locomotive Suffers A Turbo Failure

    1. Matt Cramer

      We can hope.

      The train crew was probably calling emergency services at the same time, but it’s good to see the camera guys setting a good example.

  1. Richard

    If you put a yard engine in neutral run 8 the carbon build up will send a shower of sparks out the stack in similar fashion. I’m sure alarms were going off when this happened. Must be on the Illinois Central division!

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