My CSX 366 "Heritage Unit" Caught fire in a tunnel!

[@Thunderbolt_1000_Siren]

Typical GE engines blowing themselves up. Closest thing I've had to a train fire is a SEPTA Silverliner IV with smoking dynamics (one car smoked right in front of me) glad you got out ok. Before you ask burning dynamics smells like an egg burning in a frying pan so yeah it stinks!

[@domstrains3984]

Maybe you could make a video on this fire.

[@CentralPennRailProductions]

I just discovered your channel. Good story! I've spent a lot of time watching trains between Connellsville and Cumberland, no explosions but PTC did throw a few trains into suppression on the down grade...no fun when you have to set hand brakes while the air restores so the train doesn't roll away!

[@djstrains]

yup, I go Connellsville west, and we had some issues that way too. Luckily its flat.

[@Trainman42]

Don’t hate him for burning it up, cause he didn’t. The unit did that to itself. It was unhappy because it only had a sticker. 1 Like = 1 Repainted Locomotive Also, glad you’re okay! Before I make any humor out of any situation I always make sure nobody got hurt.

[@Trainman42]

Silence bots

[@jlwii2000]

Well, glad you were ok at least. The hobby would be a dimmer place without DJ and subsequently DJ's trains.

[@ItsRailfanAmelia]

6:21 Well, 911 and 1776 (Finally! Fully repainted CSX locomotives!) are a start toward full heritage paint xD

[@superagent1161]

Uhh

[@kingoflovetrain6426]

Repaint with Chessie System logo

[@nathanielbolden5053]

Yes!...someone agrees with me!

[@Xander_Zimmermann]

Petition it.

[@alcopower5710]

King of Love Train .......sorry Burlington Northern

[@bignate6664]

What about seaboard system

[@wrrail]

no foamer

[@locoburro6215]

I am glad you were both safe! Many years ago while I was a volunteer firefighter near Muskogee OK, I had a fire call that we spent 14 hours putting out brush fires for almost 20 miles caused by a coal hopper wheel dragging and sparking. Now one would think that the railroad since it caused it they would stop the trains while we put out the fires. Nope. At least the train crews slowed down and were and were LOUD so we could hear over radio traffic and sirens. In that rural area there are crossings about every mile. Thanks for the rewind!

[@RWSBaden]

DJ, You're funny. GE designations are easy. AC = AC Traction motors. 44 = 4,400 horsepower "C" means it's a 6 axle locomotive. "W" is wide cab, which is funny because all cabs are the same width. It should be wide short hood, but everyone calls it a wide cab. Yes it was just one of those days when something broke. As we say at the engine house, "You'll have this in heavy industry" Cheers, Rich S.

[@Tigerskunk]

All that is correct. But the wide-body designation was made because when the wide-body locomotives were coming out they were still selling the standard body which is what you think of on the older GP 9s and all the way up to even the SD60. Nowadays the wide bodies are required for safety reasons.

[@Kevin-ev7hw]

@PS 400 DFR means Diesel Fuel or Distillates

[@HuntOfficial1776]

I was mad at you for a little bit. But you have a good point. CSX was being cheap but thankfully they are rolling out a line of actual heritage units.

[@scottpool4777]

Yes thank gosh you're all right you in the brakeman. Thank you and thank you for all that you do on the railroad.

[@BobbyFocus2008]

No hate from me , and I'm a Railfan . My Grandfather use to be an Engineer for chessie system railway (Virginia division) he told me a zillion stories of how it is to have a huge responsibility of being an engineer who is mainly the fault man when something dosent go right . I'm glad you and the conductor of 366 are alright and no one was hurt.

[@cowperson4763]

Glad you guys are ok. Great story. I think CSX should do a Chessie System HU in the orange yellow and blue paint. It would look so cool.

[@carstrainsandcrossings8639]

Little did you know

[@Kevin-ev7hw]

Hey Thank You DJ for a Railroad Story that you will never Forget! Glad that both of you guys were safe.

[@jolliemark6294]

Good story, thank goodness you two were ok, thanks for sharing....Jack

[@kgirl4078]

Love your story about the fire, so happy you guys made it out safely. I’ll have to check out more on your channel. Thanks for sharing your awesome story :-))

[@LucIn724]

Would be a cool unit to model, scorched paint and all

[@maxshelltrack9720]

If you took a lighter you could probably do your own little torch job.

[@Houston2dash1]

@@maxshelltrack9720 Either that or unintentionally set the whole thing on fire

[@beeble2003]

@@maxshelltrack9720 That'll just melt the plastic. The base colour of models that you buy isn't painted -- it's blended into the plastic. So, if you buy a CSX loco, it'll be made out of blue plastic with the details painted on.

[@jerrysinclair3771]

Great story...with a happy and safe ending

[@JessicaKasumi1990]

Thank goodness you're alive. Definitely a scary situation indeed.

[@93greenstrat]

Glad you guys are okay, but in this instance it was probably a good thing that this was NOT a full Chessie System heritage unit.

[@xxthestorm49xx66]

I agree CSX doesn't really know how to make a real heritage paint design like Norfolk Southern can. Slapping a sticker and calling it a heritage don't really do it justice. Glad everyone got out 👍

[@ironmatic1]

They do it to maintain copyright on the old logos.

[@beeble2003]

@@ironmatic1 Perhaps you mean trademarking? Copyright has an automatic duration, regardless of whether you use it, but trademarks lapse if they're not being used. Having said that, I doubt very much that a court would accept this as use of the trademark. The point of trademarks is to prevent consumers confusing different products. If I started a railroad called "Chessie", it would be very hard for CSX to argue that consumers would be confused between my railroad and CSX just because CSX put the logo and the name on the side of a couple of locomotives. If they actually marketed services under the Chessie name, it would be a different matter.

[@robertcampbelljr.3195]

Accidents happen. This could have happened to anyone. I'm just glad to see nobody got hurt.

[@brianhester1996]

Glad you got it out of the tunnel okay. No, diesel won't explode, but it will burn like nobody's business, and really hot!

[@davidmuse7004]

DJ great story and glad you and your co-worker got out safe!! I'm sure the language was very colorful to say the least, LOL Thanks for sharing Muse

[@JetSetDiva]

Every railfan is an ambassador for the railroad industry. In our everyday conversations with whomever we meet, we extol the virtues of shipping and travelling by rail. Is it asking too much for CSX to throw us a bone and give us a true heritage unit or three? A purple/silver ACL engine, a green/yellow SAL engine and a black/yellow SCL engine, that's all it would take to warm this woman's heart.

[@ATSFVentaSpurNscaler]

Awesome story, DJ. You kept your cool and did what you needed to do. Your guardian angel did the rest and kept you safe. Thanks for sharing! -from Tom Pilling

[@creolepritch9865]

Great story DJ thanks for sharing. Glad you guys got out to tell the tale.

[@alabamarailfan]

Great story, DJ! So glad you and your conductor made it out safely. Could have certainly been worse if you couldn't get out of the tunnel! Locomotives, no matter how "special" can be replaced, crews cannot!

[@ottorosborough7589]

Great video. Main thing is you and your conductor got out safe and it sounds to me that you were able to think on your feet fast and get the engines out of the tunnel or there could have been trouble. Keep up the great work and stay safe. Thank you for the great informative videos, I really enjoy them especially being a n scaler. Otto

[@JJRicks]

An insane story, I can't imagine! Glad you got out of there! :D

[@Crookedriverandeasternrr]

Cool story. Glad you guys are ok. It’s a shame they won’t do a true heritage line. They paint new locos anyway I can’t imagine it’d cost that much more. And while I’m a csx fan, it would help their image. Lol

[@patmeaden]

The Crooked River & Eastern RR they won’t do it because they want to put money into improving their operations, not what railfans think of them

[@oxolotleman7226]

The only other money i would be man hours for a designer to design the paintscheme.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

Out of all railroads CSX seems most like a stock operation. Does any single entity even own a majority?

[@Landaux]

Good work my friend I’m glad you didn’t get Smothered by the smoke

[@ralfie8801]

Normally when a C 4400 catches fire in that area, it’s because a high pressure injection pump has come loose from a power assembly and broken either a high pressure injector line or a low pressure fuel hose attached to that high pressure pump. Then it catches fire and burns more of the low pressure supply hoses until you have what was seen here. If the fire goes unnoticed, the low pressure fuel pump continues to run and pump fuel on the fire making it even bigger. Some railroads have added thermocouple switches to the low pressure fuel pump wiring so that if a fire starts the switch heats up and turns off the pump.

[@matthewbaumann6236]

Great Story, Glad you got it out of the tunnel and got away safe. I know you didn't have to worry about it blowing up but that doesn't matter with fire, fire is just dangerous, I still remember my fire fighting school in the Navy and that gave me a lot of respect for fire. Stay Safe.

[@ChadAmI80]

WOW! Now that is quite the story. I just found your channel tonight. I live in Pittsburgh. I look forward to watching more of your real-life engineer videos.

[@cg7494]

Great story DJ. Glad you and the conductor were not harmed in this incident. I would suggest that you write this down for posterity, if you haven't already. All of your stories like this will be very important, for your daughter if no one else, years from now.

[@JoeG-firehousewhiskey]

wow, greta job staying as calm as you did, and doing what you had to do to get to safety!

[@ralphgreenwood5857]

Hey DJ, I remember you talking about this in a video in 2016 right after it happened. Thanks for telling the whole story! Glad You are safe and live to tell the tale-Thank You.

[@BrianSmith-kb8uw]

Great story close friend of mine who worked for pm and then c& I always had some good stories

[@mrdreaded8865]

Awesome story ! Thank you for sharing and glad you all come out safe.

[@natecofga4679]

Never a dull moment on the RR. Glad y'all were ok and no one was injured there DJ. I didn't even know about CSX doing any heritage units like NS but really a simple decal. No big loss on that one to me especially if they can't even do the full up paint scheme. To bad really because the chessie system is one of the railroads that I model. I don't blame you because S!#t happens just like in the military ---OOPS SNAFU (Situation Normal All F'ed Up)

[@djstrains]

Exactly!!

[@ronwells6608]

Keep up the prayer and thanks for your great videos.

[@stevek2871]

Great story and great Video. Glad that you and your fellow crewmember got out okay.

[@549BR]

Dynamic braking results from switching the fields in the motors, turning them into generators, and sending the electric to resister boxes on or near the roof. The resistance puts a drag on the generators thus acting like a brake. It would be similar to down shifting a truck or car, where the engine presents resistance to the drive train.

[@terrywallace1327]

Your life is just as important as that locomotive you were in . This unit can be replaced,but your life can't. Anything can happen with these locomotives! The Lord was there to keep you from getting killed that day!give him praise and glory for stepping in to protect you and your crew from dying that day! Amen!

[@fredstuckmann]

Good job keeping a cool head sir.

[@kens.3729]

Hate to hear about any Fires on the Railroad. Glad you weren’t hurt. 👍

[@jimmiller7095]

My grandfather did Connelsville area for 50 years. Steam and diesel. Retired around 1950.

[@DruSteel69]

What a story, DJ. Thanks for sharing. - Drew

[@1tombensky]

Yikes!!! Glad you got out OK. I enjoyed the story. Thanks!

[@jhoodfysh]

Hey DJ, great story. Thanks for sharing.

[@SteamingPriest]

Wow! Glad you guys were safe. Nothing as scary as a fire in a tunnel.

[@chazco]

Scary story. Glad you guys are safe Chuck

[@N3RPB]

Interesting story. My Father worked at that Mill. It was a busy place back in the day.

[@eagleriverandkankakeerailr6042]

“I hate fire”, I have to admit that cracked me up. :-)

[@likesanddislikesetc]

So glad you got out of there. I agree about each day on the railroad is different. I was a conductor and survived the head on train wreck at Hoxie, AR on August 17, 2014. You can google it and read about it. It’s like I lived the movie unstoppable, but it stopped. Lot more details I won’t put on here.

[@djstrains]

WOW!!!!

[@likesanddislikesetc]

djstrains exactly

[@trainfan1206]

Dang dude, you are lucky to be alive from that. Sad that the wreck was fatal though.

[@ambersignal]

I had caught this unit in Tampa FL just 6 days prior to the fire

[@michaelchartres]

That's some story. Glad it wasn't me. Someone was looking after you. God Bless. Regards Michael

[@N-Scale]

Thanks for the story DJ. Mike

[@charleskesner1302]

Wow what a story. Thanks for sharing.

[@ShampootheSpider2019]

This video makes me wanna play “we didn’t start the fire” song

[@sparky107107]

end cards work. I came back to watch and hear the story for a second time.

[@michaelmcdougall4527]

Thanks for Your Honestly 👍🏻

[@joek6381]

Wow! Glad for miracles that you were smart enough with common sense and did not panic. Good job by both of you and for the miracle of the Angels to bring you out of harms way so you could tell this story.

[@RaccoonsOnTheGarbageTrain]

The engine self destructed out of anger over not getting a full on Chessie paint job! All joking aside glad everyone was safe!

[@phillipsakalik4877]

Wow so glad you were ok!

[@railbuilderdhd]

Maybe the can repaint it as a heritage loco for real. That would be so cool. Mostly I’m glad you guys are ok! I’m sure it was one of those things you’ll never forget. Thanks for sharing.

[@LectronCircuits]

You are very well trained. Cheers!

[@jeffreyg3831]

Did it take a long time to repair / repaint 366?

[@trainmaster1548]

Hey, just a question. When I get out of college I want to become an Amtrak engineer. Is it hard becoming a locomotive engineer?

[@djstrains]

see my video "how to model a post office / how to get a railroad job"

[@02chef]

Wow just discovered your channel and I love it I love everything about trains this is fun and educational thank you!

[@djstrains]

Welcome aboard!

[@ericcallender1575]

Exciting, thanks for sharing. Of course we know what a C44-9W is, that's why we are here.

[@newenglandrailfanproductio5350]

Its a CW44AC

[@ericcallender1575]

@@newenglandrailfanproductio5350 train nerd :)

[@danieldowling7421]

Glad you guys are ok!

[@bobbyjhonda5829]

Great video I a rail fan I am glad you guys made it out of the tunnel and you are both safe I do not hate anyone

[@jeffreymcfadden9403]

here is a thought for anyone out there. when in a tunnel, and you have a fire, most of the time, exit toward the lower grade.,,,smoke rises so the fire goes up grade. this happened in europe where a bunch of cars were trapped in a steep tunnel,with a fire. those who exited downgrade lived, those who exited up grade died.(smoke)

[@Metalrails]

Very interesting story. I've only ever photographed 366 in YN2 paint, back in 2011 in Newell, PA.

[@Leland45028]

German tanks were diesel engined. our shermans were gasoline engined. the germans called them cigeratte lighters. always lighted up.

[@johnnyallen843]

That's a myth. Most German tanks had a Maybach water cooled gasoline engine. The Soviets are the ones that had diesel engines in their tanks.

[@stevenrobinson1379]

Glad you made it out Ok!

[@pqhkr2002]

Glad that you are safe, thank god that the engine was still running and foundational, make it possible to get out of the tunnel . I guess this also saved the other trailing units , cars near the engine, and the tunnel. If it was left in the tunnel, it would take much more time to put out fire, and other engines and cars would also catch fire during that time.

[@kamala2111]

Good story glad you are ok

[@Tracksidebench]

Glad you guys are safe! Who cares about the chassie logo ! Your life is important

[@revealingfacts4all]

Someone upstairs was looking out for you DJ... cool story, love these kind of videos too. Curious to see some updates on your roundhouse. I remember an old video of yours where you kindof advised against roundhouse due to space it takes up, curious to see how it's coming along.

[@djstrains]

Lol, unless the turntable was a focal point of the prototype area like mine (disclaimer,lol)

[@arnaldocruz4058]

Glad you guys were ok

[@FrehleyFan3988]

That is CSX's sorry excuse of a heirtege unit? Go look at norfolk southern and let them show you how its done😎

[@notarotomwithhair5637]

😤😤the new ones look ok

[@alphonsotate2982]

GLAD YOU GUYS ARE SAFE A ENGINE CAN BE REPLACED ITS INSURED THANK YOU FOR THE STORY.

[@ThePontiacmann]

Glad you got it out of the tunnel okay.

[@robertcampbelljr.3195]

I'm glad to see you are OK 😀

[@scottsmith7051]

Wild story DJ. WOW.

[@shiftintohigh5564]

Wow!!! Quite a story. Glad it ended well👍👍👍😎😎😎

[@ryanflames8602]

can you do a video on weathering modern diesel locomotives. nobody has any videos on locos.

[@djstrains]

I suck at it, lol. So many better people. Check out monster railroad, I think he may have done one.

[@ryanflames8602]

@@djstrains thanks. I'll make sure to check out.

[@JoshRidestheRails]

Glad you and the conductor were safe. Quick thinking getting it out of the tunnel.

[@bulgingbattery2050]

The engine overheated? Did the radiator have enough antifreeze?

[@eliabraham6918]

That's great that the both of you got out safe. Are those engines rebuild after they catch fire or are they sent to the scrap heap?

[@djstrains]

I think it was rebuilt

[@unionpacific8330]

More of these stories please and a how to on the desert scenery and how wide are your roads?

[@djstrains]

want kickass dessert scenery? Google Pelle Soeberg. He is THE MASTER!! No one better in history.

[@jasonbooth5141]

Been railroading for 8 years good story

[@philiphickman5085]

This is the second time I've watched this video. You should tell more of your on the job story's.

[@djstrains]

I have a whole playlist called LIFE AS AN ENGINEER. Lots of great videos for ya.

[@railfanjose2381]

Holy crap DJ glad your alive

[@jjsgarage3634]

Great story! Like your channel! 👍🏻

[@djstrains]

Thank you!! See more videos. Lots of stories about life as an engineer.

[@douglasherr4725]

At the beginning I thought you were talking about a model train burning

[@robertgift]

Thank you. Would it have been possible to uncouple your locomotives, shut your unit off and have others push to a grade crossing for the fire department to get to? Cause? Recall of all locomotives of same design? Thank you.

[@djstrains]

we weren't going past the engine to get to the cars due to the tight space and extreme heat of the fire. I believe road foreman said traction motor caught fuel line. No recalls that we know of.

[@robertgift]

Oh. Thank you. Thought you could have gotten to a more open area.If traction motor can catch the fueline, I'd expect it possible in other locomotives of the same design.

[@jimwatson2110]

Great story DJ

[@buddyclem7328]

Great story, and glad there were no injuries! Did they ever repair CSX 366?

[@djstrains]

no idea