On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 13:53:21 +0100, Ross
wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 01:15:08 +0100, Tom Anderson wrote in
i, seen in
uk.railway:
snip
I am curious as to what this "bomb without explosive", nail or otherwise,
is. It seems to me that explosive is a rather important, perhaps even the
defining, characteristic of a bomb. Are we perhaps dealing with some sort
of zen buddhist or dadaist terror faction?

Buggered if I know, I'm only reporting what the BBC were telling us.

Although I'm told by someone who used to play with such things that a
detonator alone is quite capable of taking your hand off, so perhaps,
had there been an intent to frighten rather than kill/injure huge
numbers, a detonator only option would be quite good from a terrorists
POV. Big perhaps as I don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking
about!

A railway detonator is somewhat larger than the usual explosives
detonator as exhibited occasionally in public. It's some time since I
was near a diagram for one but ISTR that an explosives detonator is
basically a tube with relatively non-secure ends unlike a railway
detonator which is a sealed unit which isn't going to "let go" until
rather more energy has been built up internally.