When passenger and freight transportation by rail reached its popularity, it became clear that it was necessary to ensure the safety of rolling stock along its entire route. Since the first trains initially worked on coal, and the waste slag was thrown out of hills along the way, this created the risk of fires in the adjacent territories. That is why, in 1921, by decree of the government, fire trains were created that used steam pumps and additional technical equipment.
But progress does not stand still, and therefore, with the development of industry, more advanced fire trains began to be produced using modern . From the scope of use, they are divided into categories:
• fire trains of the first category - high-tech special-purpose trains. They are able to eliminate the leakage of flammable liquid, pump the igniter liquid, and carry out any fire fighting and eliminate the consequences of the accident.
• the second category - less technologically advanced, but constructive enough to carry out the tasks and eliminate emergency situations that occurred during a fire.
Each train, depending on the category, includes the following components:
• train of the 1st category has special. a car where personnel, fire-fighting pumping stations, auxiliary power stations, special equipment and necessary equipment are located. As well as three or four water tanks with a total volume of 140 tons and a foaming agent with a volume of 6 tons.
• train of category 2 in addition to the above configuration has additional inclusions. These include a fully sealed tank, which is designed to pump flammable liquid when it is leaked from damaged tanks or other volumes.
Also, a specially equipped covered wagon, in which additional technical means and materials are collected to ensure the uninterrupted operation of all located equipment.
Recently, all fire trains have been equipped with the GLONASS satellite navigation system, as well as the latest communications equipment. This allows real-time monitoring of the movement of fire trains to emergency situations.
It is worth noting that the FGP VO ZhDT constantly carries out a set of measures to improve the technical potential of these trains. Fire extinguishing pumping stations are constantly being upgraded, which allow to increase the volume of outgoing fluid and increase the maximum fire extinguishing range. According to V.P. Aksyutin, director of the FSE VO ZhDT, that over the past five years, the technical equipment of all units has been brought up to established standards and is constantly maintained at the proper level.
To increase the professionalism of service employees, planned exercises are constantly held as close as possible to real fires. This allows you to constantly keep a highly professional staff.
In connection with the onset of the summer period, it was decided to put into operation an additional 20 tanks. They entered the fire brigade on May 15, 2012, and will be in service until September 16, 2012. According to Russian Railways, this will allow covering large areas when extinguishing foci that have arisen.
According to the director of the Federal State Budgetary Enterprise in the Russian Railways, in the last month alone, fire departments have been involved in extinguishing 3 times. Thanks to the high professionalism of employees, all fires were successfully extinguished in the shortest possible time and did not cause much damage.