OT London train tracks on fire

[whisky-dave]

It is blood 'ot , but 'otter yesterday

[Andy Burns]

I though wood's ignition temperature was closer to 230°C than 30°C

[Mark Carver]

It's clearly in a very low crime area, so presumably arson can be ruled out ?

[NY]

Arcing from third rail? Sunlight focussed onto sleeper by broken glass (bottle etc)?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not sleeper, rubbish thrown from trains etc.

[Mark Carver]

 I read elsewhere it was noticed at 4:30am, (sunrise in London yesterday was 04:56)

[Harry Bloomfield Esq]

Andy Burns submitted this idea :

Do they still use wood? It will be the oil soaked ballast which is burning.

[Jeff Gaines]

The report in the Daily Mail said the "wooden beams" were on fire, their correspondent clearly never heard of "sleepers".

[Colin Bignell]

From the pictures, it looks as though the fire involves walkways laid between the tracks.

[Jim Stewart ...]

bloody freezing up here...

[Owain Lastname]

SNP constituency, brilliant sunshine now.

Owain

[Theo]

Third rail fires aren't uncommon. Some piece of conductive rubbish (drinks can etc) gets between the live rail and the running rail. It causes a short, but not enough to trip the substation (trains take thousands of amps in normal operation). Rubbish catches fire. Normally it burns itself out, there being nothing sufficiently flammable to catch light (sleepers are mostly concrete, but even wooden ones take a lot to burn). In this case there's some kind of flat surface between the rails - it's that which is burning. I'm not sure exactly what the material is, possibly to prevent anything dropping on the lines below (in the days of toilets that would flush on the tracks).

I don't think there are any trains with openable windows left on that line, so I'm not sure where the object might have some from. Could have been blown, I suppose.

Theo

[Brian Gaff]

Really, The usual problem is crap in the lines set fire to by the sparking on the third rail if its one of those sort of trains. There are also brush fires that can affect train tracks as the fire spreads from undergrowth. Iyt used to be far more in time of steam of course. The trains were blamed for a lot of fires. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

It is, but if its treated it can be lower, but not that low. It needs a spark. Brian

[NY]

Yes, the lines through Wandsworth Road to London Victoria are third-rail. The general rule is "north of the Thames, overhead lines; south of the Thames, third rail", with the proviso that Victoria, Charing Cross, Blackfriars and Cannon Street are north of the Thames but exclusively serve lines to the south.

[Robin]

Thameslink services to the North from Blackfriars started in 1988.

[Andrew]

Not rubbish thrown from trains (*) but axle grease, plus residues of points grease and winter 3rd rail de-icing oily stuff being ignited by a spark from the pick up shoes.

(*) Turnip doesn't go by train so he has missed the fact that modern trains have air-con and do not have windows that can be opened.

[Andrew]

On parts of railways that that are overhead, crossing over roads etc then yes, some tracks do run on massive timber substructures. Quite a few of these in London as tracks approach Cannon St and Blackfriars via London Bridge and or East Croydon.

[Andrew]

Has Nicola just taken a dump ?

[Andrew]

But uses 3rd rail as far as Farringdon where the changeover to 25Kv overhead occurs.