Talk:Detonator (railway)

Merger proposal
Shouldn't this be merged with Railroad torpedo? 72.208.61.246 (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, this is an obvious candidate for a merger. The only distinction is with UK vs. US terminology. I have added appropriate tags to both articles. – Signal head   &lt; T &gt;  14:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that the two articles should be merged. Especially since the torpedo page indicates that the U.S. usage is now obsolete (they have soundproof cabs), whereas I know that dets are still used extensively in the UK. -- MightyWarrior (talk) 12:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. – Signal head   &lt; T &gt;  20:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

"Aside to popular belief, they detonate upon pressure, rather than hitting or banging it. This then makes them safe to travel, as they cannot detonate in a bag, or storage container. Trying to explode them by hitting it with a hammer will not work."

I'm afraid, true to popular belief, you can detonate them by hitting them. I used to do it all the time as a kid- the son of a train driver, in fact.


 * Truth, hitting it with a hammer would be applying a pressure force to it, in the form of an impact.

true, a boy in australia had his hand blown off this morning by doing just that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mim37204 (talk • contribs) 03:52, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Runaway train warning
Am I right to add the use of detonators as a warning to maintenance/engineering crews should a runaway train be rolling silently towards them? RoyalBlueStuey (talk) 13:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)