In 1964 while in college my professor had a grant to study cotton fires, we
found that during shipping the movement of 'loosely" packed cotton caused
static electricity which gathered on the metal bands and caused a spark. We
recommenced tighter packing and to stop using metal bands.
Rich Shook
-----Original Message-----
From: PSHedgpeth@a... [SMTP:PSHedgpeth@a...]
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2000 10:08 AM
To: BRHSlist@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Spontaneous Combustion
No one has yet mentioned the ever mysterious cotton fire syndrome.
During my
days as Manager of Freight Claims for the Rock Island one of the
more
expensive ongoing damage matters was the cotton fire.
For many years the AAR Freight Claim Division had a committee on
Cotton Fire
Prevention, but to my knowledge no one ever came up with a real
solution to
the problem.
The handling of a cotton fire was one which required real knowledge
and
expertise. What you didn't do is open the car door and pour water
on the
fire. This only made matters worse. The fires would smolder for a
long time
before generating enough smoke to call someone's attention to the
problem.
If the car was set out at a small down the usual thing to happen was
that the
local FD would open the door and begin to water down the car. This,
first of
all, increased the fire because of the additional oxygen introduced
and
secondly the huge amounts of water sprayed into the car would damage
the rest
of the load.
There were several firms around the South and southeast who
specialized in
the extinguishing of cotton fires and the reworking of the damaged
cotton.
The name Memphis Cotton Sales of Memphis Tennessee comes to mine.
Proprietor
of the firm was a true southern gentlemen named Pat Crawford. He
and
several others made lots of money "helping" the railroads with their
cotton
fire problems.
I don't know whether cotton is still handled in boxcars or whether
anyone
ever came up with a real or probable cause for the fire problem.
One of the
theories was that the metal bands on the cotton bales rubbed
together causing
sparks which created the fire.
Remember all of my stuff is 30+ years old.
Pete Hedgpeth
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