I watched a cab ride video of Amtrak’s southbound Vermonter. The train was stopped at a red signal, while a s/b freight also waited on an adjacent siding with a red signal also. The dispatcher via the 2-way radio asked the engineer of the Vermonter to back up, which he did, after which he was given a green signal to proceed down the single track main line. I don’t quite understand why the Vermonter had to back up, but that is not my question.
I was under the impression that backing up a train is an involved process and something to be avoided. It is not like backing up an automobile, or so I thought. Yet the engineer of the Vermonter seems to have done just that – he threw the train into reverse and backed up a hundred yards, just like I might do in an automobile.
Why was I told long ago that backing up a passenger train is very involved, but in the case of the Vermonter, it was no big deal at all?
You saw right–backing up a train is no sweat. I’ve seen backup moves that were equal in speed to the forward motion, done with decent-sized freights.
Where it becomes sticky and tricky is in protecting the backup moves–making sure the hind end isn’t backed into something that it shouldn’t be. I’m assuming that the dispatcher not only told the train to back up, but also gave him permission to back the distance involved. The train was short, so there probably was no problem with signal protection. But what do you suppose could happen if the train were to back into another block? A following train that had had a clear signal in one block would find the next signal to be read, missing the approach indication that would give it time to slow down and avoid a collision.
Any idea of why the Vermonter had to back up before proceeding on the green? Before it was told to back up, it had not passed the signal, but it was close to it.
I thought maybe the dispatacher could not throw the signal to green because of some interlock issue given that the Vermonter was too close to the signal. It had to back up to clear the interlock so that the dispatcher could flash the green. Pending some additional insight, that is all merely speculation on my part!
Any back-up move I’ve ever been involved with has included “eyes” at the rear of the train, usually the conductor. One local trip on the Adirondack involves a six mile backup move - there is no passing siding at the ‘end’ of the trip, so we push out and pull back.
I’d guess that was the case with the back-up move you cite, even if the details weren’t shown in the video.
The only thing I can think of is that he came too close to the signal. Not knowing where the block ends in relation to the signal, it would be hard to say. But I suspect that he couldn’t be given a clear signal because he was already in the block. I was on a train that had this happen once (Zardoz, we were southbound at Waxdale when there was a diamond there). Came up to a red signal, it wouldn’t clear, I operated the time-release and still couldn’t get it, then had to flag the crossing as we went across. Fireman told me later that the engineer didn’t know which side of the signal to stop on. (Opinion of this engineer was already “high” from the number of times his train stalled in front of ours on the way up to Butler.)
The Wisconsin and Southern has to do a lengthy backup move on the CP between Cragin and tower A-5, a distance of about one mile, in order to access the Belt Railway of Chicago trackage. When I worked there, the conductor dropped off at the south signal at A-5, got on the rear of the train, then called out signals during the backup move. After shoving back to Cragin, the conductor had to walk to the headend, usually a distance of up to a mile.
One reason that cabooses aren’t completely extinct is the need for human eyeballs at the end of the train moving forward in places where it’s necessary to back the entire train to reach the mine, mill or whatever at the end of a lengthy branch with no runaround facility at the end.
IMHO, your train was probably on rails protected by that signal. Sometimes the signal is a little way down the track from the end of the protected block, so the engineer can see it without getting a crick in his neck. Think about vehicular traffic signals, some of which are not easy to keep an eye on when you’re waiting for them to change.
Amtrak makes quite a number of backing moves as part of normal operation as they back trains into stub-ended stations. If you look carefully, the last car on the Texas Eagle has an extension from the air brake gladhand up to the door of the last car. The conductor opens the door, grabs that extension, which has a valve on it - thus giving him some control over the brakes. Then, calling signals and instructions over the radio, the Texas Eagle backs about a mile into the Ft. Worth station. Thus, it is a bit more involved than a forward move - but Amtrak equips for it.
A couple of years ago I was personally on a reverse move of almost 20 miles on the Amtrak’s eastbound Empire Builder. If any of you recall, as it made the national news, the Builder hit a snow bank in a blizzard east of Williston and annulled at Minot. The rest of the story was that after hitting the snow bank we were instructed by the dispatcher to back up all the way to Williston. The conductor with a flashlight stood at an open door of the rear car and directed the movement. With basically whiteout conditions, he couldn’t see much, but traffic at crossings was not a problem since no one was out in these extreme conditions. After sitting at Williston for over 2 hours the BNSF snow removal crew arrived from Minot. Members of the crew boarded our train to deadhead back to Minot. They told us that the drift was over a 1000 ft long and as high as 20 feet. With the strong winds a cut had been filled quickly with the blowing snow. After arriving in Minot, the train was annulled and Amtrak put us up in motels for the night.
Another reverse move I was involved with was at the Sacremento convention of the National Railway Historical Society. Our feather river trip that was supposed to be pulled by 3985 but had been substituted with a lone UP diesel. On our return trip vandals had stacked rocks between the rails at a grade crossing and the fuel tank of our locomotive was ruptured. A crew member was able to drive a wood block into the hole stopping the large leak. We were then instructed to reverse move to a yard about 3 miles back to exchange engines for the remainder of the trip
Under GCOR rules, a train may make a reverse movement within its own authority limits without requesting or requiring permission or authority from the control operator, so long as it remains within the same signaled block (6.4 and 6.4.1). You don’t even need anyone on the rear end to do this so long as you are not shoving across a grade-crossing or into something like a station platform track or into yard limits, interlockings, Form Bs, etc. (6.6)
Going back to the original post on this topic, I would guess that there was a short in a track circuit or some other malfunction that caused the system to see the the train as being in the block governed by the signal even though the train was in the block in front of the signal. Perhaps the backup took the train one block further back. That would let the system see the block governed by the signal as unoccupied allowing switches to be put in the desired allignment and the signal to be cleared.
It seem to me that setting a signal some distance behind the entry to the block it controls could cause a problem. A train approaching the signal enters the block controled by the signal and the signal goes to the aspect stop or stop and proceed at restricted speed (for example). The engineer really has no way of knowing for certain that his train caused the change in the signal. You wouldn’t want to think “OK, my train did that, so I am actually clear to go.”
I suspect that in normal circumstances an engineer will stop his train far enough in front of the signal so he doesn’t have to move to watch the signal.
Carl, were you operating in Wisconsin around the time the wreck of a southbound at Waxdale?
It happened in 1969. The cause? It happened because a (soon to be former) official pulled an “efficiency” test at Waxdale: The train was southbound approaching Waxdale on a ‘clear’ indication. After the trainmaster heard the train whistle for the Old Spring Street crossing, he dropped the absolute signal to ‘stop’. The engineer came around the Hwy20 curve at 50mph, saw the red absolute, and put the train in emergency. Slack run-in around the curve caused the derailment.
Iowa Interstate uses some ex-ATSF cabooses on its trains to and from Chicago because of a lengthy back-up move involved in delivering interchange to IHB at Blue Island. Several grade crossings are involved.
There is a potential problem with back-up moves with respect to forward moves - if the motive power is at the nominal front of the train, the train will be in compression during the back-up (think buckling) - where the train is in tension under a forward move. Probably a minor point.
Years ago the northbound Sarasota section of the ACL’s West Coast Champion daily backed up into the stub ended Tampa Union Station. The train would stop at the Uceta Yard where the brakeman placed a folding metal gate across the rear vestibule of the last car on which he hung a small air whistle that he had attached to the brake line. I liked to stand next to him as he blew the requisite two longs, a short and a long on that “peanut” whistle as we approached each of the dozen or so grade crosssings in that 3 or 4 mile back up move from Uceta. He also slowed and stopped the train at the proper point in the station by means of a brake line air reduction from the rear vestibule.
If you are in Track Warrant Control territory, and you have a work between warrant, you may make as many forward and reverse movements as you need. However, if your warrant is any other than a Work Between you must call the dispatcher for permission to make a reverse movement.