As the statute of limitations is long past, I guess I can tell this tale.
My buddies and I used to hang out at the local railroad crossing, the guy used to let us crank down the gate and step on the pedal that rang the bell and worked the lights... Great fun for a group of 12 year olds.
Our day was made when one day the phone rang, it was a gate guy from up the line reporting a "hotbox" ( a smoking bearing on one of the wheels). We accompanied him as he set out a nifty thing called a "torpedo". It was a square pack of some explosive. It was held to the track with some lead straps and the explosion sequence alerted the train engineer he had a problem. (best I remember it was a series of three of them spaced about 100 feet apart - 55 years later I may be a bit hazy on the details)
Noting the location of the "torpedo" stash, we diverted the gate guys attention while one of them was purloined.
We headed down town and strapped it to the trolley track, failing to understand the physics of the difference between an 80 ton locomotive and a
2 ton trolley car.We hid in some bushes and awaited the trolley car, it went off with a bang... and man what a bang, it blew the wheel off the trolley car and through the window of a furniture store that fortunately closed.
We sweated for m> >