more train wrecks..

[Lester Perry]

From my truck driving past I would say that the flames from the exhaust are the result of carbon build up from to much low RPM use of the locomotive. Then getting it out and running it really hard and burning out the carbon. Which to my understanding is good as it is cleaning it out and should run better after wards. The danger is that there is usually a lot of unburnt fuel around the exhaust caused by low RPM running. The exhaust fire which will go out as it slows down can ignite that fuel causing a problem. Now I might be completely wrong here but they are both diesel engines.