Why are the Train Tracks on Fire?

Question

I was riding the metra train home late one night at 11:30. From the windows of the train I saw all the rails on the train tracks on fire. I questioned the conductor. He said it was normal. Why does this happen?

Answer 1

Everyone seemed to cover the MoW departments' rail expanding technique pretty well, however the answer that first popped into my head was Metra's switch heaters.

Here is a picture:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.ph...

Metra has gas-fired heaters under many remote switches to keep them from freezing up. This keeps trains from being delayed, and having to send maintainers out to shovel, pick, and burn the ice and snow out manually.

Answer 2

It is a maintenance of way procedure, called "burning a rope."

When repairing a break in continuous welded rail (CWR) aka "ribbon rail", the rail must be heated to a certain temperature before the splice is made.  That temperature is a variable depending on weight of rail and ambient temperature when the rail is laid.

It is merely a rope that has been soaked in kerosene and then lighted to heat the section of rail being worked on.  That work happens day or night, but the flames are most visible after dark, naturally.

More important, you noticed something out of the ordinary and asked about it.  In the current climate, anyone who sees anything that appears as unusual should report it immediately.  It will probably turn out to be much ado about nothing, but better safe than sorry.  There are people who would use a freight train as a terror weapon.

Well done, and thanks for noticing.

Answer 3

the conductor's throw flares from the trains. they do it all the time. that's were most all of the brush fire's are started from conductor's tossing a flare from the train

Answer 4

You know the sign that says "Do not flush while in station"?  somebody did...   Yes, it causes the whole railroad to catch fire...

Seriously, they're burning some wicks against the rail for the purpose of heating up the rail to make it expand (linearly).  That's done to fix a rail break.  Metal stretches and contracts in hot and cold, and railroad rail is no exception.  On a cold day it's meant to be stretched like a guitar string... that's great, but if it breaks in that state, they have to heat it up to let the slack out so they can fix it.

LOL Railfan2006, copying Hoghead's previous answer and posting it AFTER his new answer!

Answer 5

I don't know this for sure, but I was told that sometimes in the winter they do this at the switches, to change from one track to another, to keep them from freezing up.

Answer 6

This is a normal procedure. Read the explanation below:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...

It is called "burning a rope".

A rope, serving as a wick, is soaked with Kerosene and ignited. This is done by maintenance of way crews when working with CWR (Continuous Welded Rail), aka ribbon rail.

The rope is burned to heat the rail to a specific temperature for purposes of rejoining separated rail, most often done in colder temperatures, but used whenever needed.

Heating the rail is necessary, since there are no expansion joints, and the rail must be joined in a fashion that lets it expand, though the expansion is minimal along the horizontal plane.

Specific rail weights require different temperatures. If walking on the tracks, sometimes you will see writing with a chalk like material, denoting the temperature needed or that was used on the joint.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~...

Answer 7

it's call burning a rope MoW (track crew)  fixing a cont, weld in track    or at worst  the sign  of a slid flat wheel

Answer 8

My guess is because the train is going so fast and they are metal to metal, and metal is a heat conductor.  It just got so hot that it produced flames on the tracks