Railway torpedo

A railway torpedo consists of a flat tin box, of about an ounce capacity, filled with a fulminating composition and having a strip of lead, soldered to it, which may be bent in order to hold it in place upon the railroad track. It explodes when the first wheel of the locomotive strikes it, and produces a signal which is audible to the engineer above the noise of the train. Railway tor-... 

Uses In primer compositions and in chlorate explosives. Also used to supply oxygen in aluminum and magnesium flares, smokes, stars, railway torpedoes. In combination with sulfur or antimony sulfide to produce a loud report (Maroons). As component of Per-missibles, Pu. 

By World War II, perchlorates were used mostly for solid rocket motors, which account for most of the emerging perchlorate problem in this country. Besides rocket fuel, perchlorates are used in 3-inch and 4.2-inch mortar shell illumination rounds, perimeter illumination booby traps, artillery simulators used in training, signal flares, smoke pots, artillery tracers, and railway torpedoes. 

Railway track signal syn. railway fusees or railway torpedo, warning signals placed on railway tracks that produce a loud report when crushed by the train. 

Fireworks are a part of die field of civilian pyrotechnics (Greek pyr, fire techne, art) the rest of the field is railway fusees and torpedoes. Military pyrotechnics includes lights for signals and illumination, noise makers for training, heat sources, smokes, and some minor rocket effects. Many of the same formulas and devices are used in both fields with the military devices more sturdily built... 

Signals, Railroad. See under Railway Fusee , Railroad Torpedo , etc, in this Vol... 

Uses In combination with potassium chlorate for detonating compositions 17 and for pyrotechnic purposes (Railway fuses and torpedoes). 

Transporting railway track torpedoes outside of flagging kits, in violation of DOT-E 7991. 171.2(b), (e) 8,700. 

---