Posted by Sam Davey on July 5, 2007  All I can say is WOW!! Posted by David Tuttle on July 5, 2007  Unbelievable... What a sight! Posted by Loyd Lowry on July 5, 2007  WOW! what a fantastic photo! Posted by James Gardiner on July 5, 2007  WOW great shot Paul ! Posted by Ian M. Contreras on July 6, 2007  Beyond any word in my vocabulary.... Posted by Andrew Hamblyn on July 6, 2007  Outstanding! Posted by Stephen Dance on July 6, 2007  In the UK, the Deltics were well known for pyrotechnics if too much unburnt oil built up in the collector drums and exhausts, but nothing like that - well done, thats a spectacular shot Posted by BNSF SAMMY on July 6, 2007  Now THERE's an interesting shot! Posted by Nick Kraynak on July 6, 2007  WOW! That is crazy! Posted by Janet Cottrell on July 11, 2007  The best description for this is the UK railfan expression "hellfire!". Posted by Matthew S. Roberts on July 11, 2007  Guess they mounted the rocket motors in the wrong direction! Posted by TJ Mahan on July 17, 2007  I saw this picture in a 1970's Trains mag once. Was awesome then, and is still cool now! Posted by Mick Smith on July 20, 2007  Wow, great shot. Could someone please explain in a little more detail what is going on (ok, carbon clean out). I'd be interested in knowing the how's and why's. Is this something that is done regularly? HB. Posted by Paul Strang on July 24, 2007  These units were used on a branch on which they little more than idled. Since they weren't in top shape, they built up a lot of carbon. When the crew began noticing sparks coming through the spark arrestors, the shop would do this proceedure to keep wildfires down. They didn't clean them out very often--I think three times. We were told that they were going to blow them out on this night. The normal operation was to open to Run 8 and the sparks would fly! Three of us parked our cars so the headlights would light the trucks on both units and when we were ready, we gave the shop crew the okay. This night they only opened them up to about Run 4 and then moved the units on us. At first dust started puffing out like a steam engine. Then fire puffed out. Most of the action was in the front stack of #71, the other stacks were clean. Once the production got going well, about all that was coming out were sparks. It is at this point that this photo was taken. You will note the diesel fuel on the ground starting to burn. The entire proceedure lasted less than 15 minutes. I don't think it was repeated. The line was upgraded to 45mph and the Fs were replaced. Posted by Emmet Ferwerda on September 18, 2007  Who needs fireworks when you have an F7? It must be incredible to actually do that.

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