In the question about the lineside signs, ASK MR said they were signs to tell the crews when to “raise the blade of the plow”. Railroad plow blades don’t raise because they are above the top of the rail. What the signs are really for is for flangers, they are pieces of equipment that dig the snow and ice out of the flangeways, below the top of the rail. They do have to be raised prior to switches and crossings.
On the white flags question, they never actually mentioned the actual name of the flags, classification signals. A minor quibble about who sees them. Station agents are the business managers for the railroad, many of them at smaller stations were train order operators, but many of them at medium or larger stations didn’t really have anything to do with the movement of trains per se. What MR really meant to say instead of station agents was “train order operators”, they are actually the craft that keeps track of trains and their movement. Dispatchers also rarely see trains, they are at one location and may not even be near the tracks, even back in the 1800’s. Train crews, both opposing and in the same direction and MoW forces are the ones looking for the flags.
TT&TO operation doesn’t require everybody to know where every train is on the system. All they need to know is the schedule and extras need to know where they are going to meet opposing extras or what rights they have over other trains. They might not have a clue where the train actually is and aren’t required to track other trains. Also considering a railroad might have hundreds of trains on a system, train orders generally only deal with one subdivision.
Extras do NOT have “schedules” created by train orders. Extras do NOT have schedules. That is kinda the definition of an extra. Schedules grant trains specific superiority, calle
While I no longer receive the model magazines - MR, RMC, Mainline Modeler (and Trains) that I did at one time, they usually offered some good insight into real railroads for those of us who knew little about how things really worked in the full-size world of railroading.
Some years ago, I did a mostly-photo thread, with some narrative, on an Extra being detoured due to a derailment on its usual line, with rights over all regularly-scheduled trains on a line that wasn’t usually all that busy.
I’m glad to see that I wasn’t in error by giving it rights to the needed track, although I did forget to add the white flags to the lead loco. [banghead][(-D]
Quite correct, the operative word being “operators”. I think part of the confusion is model railroaders tend to lump all the clerical crafts together (much like they lump the whole train crew together) and don’t really understand what the different crafts actually do.
I agree. I heard the fireman’s seat in a F-7 called the conductor’s seat. The conductor rode in the caboose with the flagman or rear brakeman.
If a local was more then 30 cars then a extra brakeman would be added to help do the work and that would make a six man crew instead of the normal five. This was on the PRR. On the Chessie we used a four man crew. Engineer,two brakeman and the conductor or foreman as he was called on some roads. The head brakeman rode in the fireman’s seat and would repeat the signals when the engineer called them out.
I do notice that the ask MR colunm periodically leaves somethings to be desired with regards to lack of information, but the authors are only human and we should expect periodic mistakes!
I kind of don’t understand the precticality of writing a letter to Ask MR these days when you could simple post a question on these forums and get a quicker response with a wider bredth of infomation. I also think friends in the hobby could also offer more detailed advice! I’ve learned quite a bit about prototype railroading from prototype railroader friends who are also in the hobby.
One example I can think of Ask MR getting something wrong (actually I’d say incomplete) was a few years ago when they talked about slide fences and said they where there to stop rocks, when actually they simply trip an electrical circuit when a rock breaks a fence to allert oncoming trains of rocks on the track. This was one of the questions at the start of the collum that are in more detail and bolder too!
I have noticed that MR has been getting casual about researching the answers to Ask MR questions. I suspect the staff is spread too thin to hit the books much before penning an answer.
A fairly recent thread that I took part in also beefed about an Ask MR response.
My take is they are trying to make the answers less technical to make them more “accessible” and less intimidating to those who are asking the questions.
Dave, you are a pretty knowledgeable guy on this type of issue (i.e., operations). This is troublesome to learn that the Ask MR column in the May issue is littered with errors. Do you plan to contact the editor of MR magazine about this?
Great. Then they should give a correct answer that is simple.
Q: I have a Bachmann sign set that has a sign that is a triangle with a black border. Where would I use this?
A: That is a flanger sign. A flanger is a a piece of snow fighting equipment that digs ice and snow out of the flangeways of the track. It has to be raised at switches, crossing diamonds and road crossings. If you are modeling an area that gets a lot of snow, it should be placed in advance of a road crossing, crossing diamond or switch to warn the flanger crews to raise the blade.
Clear, concise and factually correct.
Q: I don’t understand the purpose of the white flags on locomotives pulling special trains?
A: White flag are classification signals, they can also be a white light. White signals indicate that the the train is an “extra” that is a train not listed in the time table. An extra is created by train orders instead of a timetable schedule. A special train would be one that doesn’t normally run, so it would not be a "regular’ or time table train. Therefore the railroad has to run it as an “extra” train. By displaying the white signals, it lets any other train or railroad employee that sees the train know it is an extra train and will know to refer to their train orders on how to proceed. A regular train that is in the timetable will have no classification signals displayed.
I’m pretty sure it does. Quite a long while ago (Andy Sperandeo was the editor), they published a DCC comparison article and had some information wrong. I posted about it here, and got a PM from Andy wanting to know if they could publish it as a letter to the editor.
So I say the answer is yes, they do pay attention to what is said in reference to published information.
