Fire damage to a vintage railway carriage
Customer: Railway Rolling Stock Engineers
Location: Derbyshire
Contamination Profiling
Background:The customer was in the early stages of refurbishing a vintage Country Pullman restaurant carriage when a small fire occurred behind the service counter, believed to have started in the water boiler. The carriage sustained localised thermal damage and smoke contamination throughout.
Issues:
Although the customer was more than capable of dealing with the physical repairs, they required advice on:
· What impact the contamination was likely to have on the railway carriage.· Which cleaning methodology to use to remove the contamination.
· How to successfully eliminate the associated smoke odours.
DFA Activity:
DFA carried out a visual inspection, finding no evidence of PVC having been burnt. Even the damaged cabling for the lighting system was found to be the old rubber type. Chemical swab analysis confirmed the absence of harmful chloride contamination, thus allowing the customer to be reassured that no further deterioration would occur as a result of the fire. Advice was given on the use of suitable cleaning agents and different methods to be used for dealing with the persisting smoke odour.Benefits of using DFA:
With the advice provided by DFA the customer was able to move the refurbishment forward in a cost effective manner, reassured that appropriate steps had being taken that would ensure that the end-user would be happy with the final restoration results.
