Track Torpedo Signal Gun

[gmerkt]

I don't know if these have been mentioned here before. Railroad torpedos were explosive charges placed on rails to go off as warning signals to workers of moving rail equipment. Typically, they were placed over rails by hand.

See this, go to 12.28 for the specific comments re. a track torpedo signal gun:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G4rGxx7Fx0


The idea of these guns being workers could install track torpedoes without having to dismount to do it. So there was an explosive charge in the gun to propel the explosive torpedo to its desired location. Unless it bounced off a rail or some ballast and went amiss.

If you watch any of the rest of this video, you can see that working the railroad in those days was for real men. Especially track work.

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[foxmeadow]

My grandfather and uncle both worked for the railroad. I remember seeing the torpedoes on my grandfather's dresser and wondered why they were called torpedoes. At age 12 or so, my uncle Buck asked my mom if I could spend the night and go fishing the next day. She agreed and he picked me up and we went to the rail yard in Cincinnati. We were actually going to work. I was aboard a switch engine for a full shift. I got to drive after learning all the controls, and I was instructed to give the whistle a short and a long toot (maybe it was a long and a short, don't remember) and wave at passing engineers. Got a lot of big open-mouthed double takes. At one point I think I was the only sober person on the train, but I think the engineer was pretending to snooze while I pulled to 105 cars from Cinci to Cleves. It seemed like 100 miles but was only 8 miles or so.
When my mom found out, she never spoke to my uncle again...

Years later, the Navy made me a torpedoman...