"Small Fire" on Amtrak Locomotive

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It seems you already have the details. They were included in the article you linked:

No injuries were reported when the train was stopped at Kilbourn and Milwaukee in the Irving Park neighborhood, the fire department said.[b A battery on the train was believed to be the cause.[/b]
Siemens is on the case!
 
Siemens has ordered all Charger locos to be taken OOS until further notice. Looks like another 787-type debacle.
 
Speculation -- If battery case opened as posted on other sites. Then battery may have slid out stopped by battery cables. Battery may have hit something . Battery case breaks causing battery to short out and a small fire. May be an easy fix ?
 
Speculation -- If battery case opened as posted on other sites. Then battery may have slid out stopped by battery cables. Battery may have hit something . Battery case breaks causing battery to short out and a small fire. May be an easy fix ?
Hypothetically speaking, that sounds like a plausible description. That would also be a scenario that would explain damage to the adjacent coach. Easy fix likely, just a more robust method of securement.
 
Siemens has ordered all Charger locos to be taken OOS until further notice. Looks like another 787-type debacle.
Then, it is another LI battery issue?
If that's actually what happened then it's kind of surprising honestly. Lithium batteries contain massive amounts of chemical energy that is extremely dense and highly reactive. You'd think chemists and engineers worth their degrees would show more respect for these risks.
 
Siemens has ordered all Charger locos to be taken OOS until further notice. Looks like another 787-type debacle.
Then, it is another LI battery issue?
If that's actually what happened then it's kind of surprising honestly. Lithium batteries contain massive amounts of chemical energy that is extremely dense and highly reactive. You'd think chemists and engineers worth their degrees would show more respect for these risks.
It's not always the fault of the battery. Battery manufacturers may spec limits of safe operation. Sometimes unforseen transient conditions can occur during operation that might see these values exceeded. A locomotive is a very rough environment with huge swings in things like temperature, vibrations, sudden current and voltage surges etc etc. that are not always predicatble.

Lithium batteries in locomotives being quite a new thing, I think locomotive engineers maybe don't adequately understand batteries, and battery enginners maybe don't adequately understand locomotives.

I'm pretty confident that if the problem was systemic (rather than just a manufacturing flaw) that it will be sorted out. That's how learning curves work.
 
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