Bad order cars

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Today, I saw a BNSF switch crew dragging a small cut of cars through town. I was pacing them on foot, so the speed was maybe 2mph tops. It took forever to drag 6-8 cars about 2 blocks. The reason for the slowness seemed to be the last couple of cars. One was emitting a kind of screeching/singing sound,like metal on metal would make. After getting the cars into the yard, the last few were isolated on siding by themselves. I presume one or more of these cars was "bad ordered* by the crew that was looking them over pretty closely.

What happens now to these cars?

2

Depends on what is wrong with them.

Bearings bad means the car has to be lifted some…bad brake shoes are a ten minute fix where its at…bad brake beam cam be fixed in place…

If you can get near them, look for a bad order card somewhere about eye level.

Most likely there is a mechanical crew that will come out and fix them in place, or determine if they need to be limped to a rip track or major repair facility.

Ed

3

They sit by themselves until they can learn to behave themselves.[;)]

4

Do the railroads have mechanical crews that just travel around to fix bad order cars where they sit?

5

If the cars are bad order and cant be moved most locations with carmen,

do have road crews that will come and repair the cars or make them safe to travel

to a location where they can be fixed.

To me it sounds like the road crew left the hand brakes on and just dragged the cars.

Seen this many times. If they pull them to far they will skid the wheels.

Ed to replace a brake beam the car needs to jacked up and the wheel removed, you

maybe able to sneek it out but its a very tight fit.Should be done on a rip track so you can adjust the brakes as needed for piston travel.

6

By skidding the wheels, are you saying it will ruin them, and require replacing them? Is a rip track something special? Or, is it just an out of the way siding to work on cars?

7

Skidding the wheels will create flat spots on them. The brakes will also heat up, which causes them to smell horrible (as long as they are hot) and cracks them. I carman once show some brakes to me that this had happed to.

RIP stands for repair in place. My guess is that they have equipment and parts in the vacinity of the RIP track, the local train yard does. That RIP track is also by the mechanical department office.

8

Why drag brakes on a small cut of cars?

I could see it if it was a big yard cut, say 40 cars or so, you drag the brakes on the end up to you…but on a small cut, 10 or so, why risk geting fired dragging flat spots on the wheels?

And skidding wheels dont screech much…all the ones I have heard sound like frying bacon, a sizzling sound.(seriously)

Murphy, dragging locked up wheels makes flat spots, along with building up spall, or melted metal built up on the edge of the flat spot, part of the thumping sound you sometimes hear coming from a trains wheels.

Bigger than two inches, or two or more within two inches of each other makes the wheel set condemnable…and if the trainmaster is in a bad mood, gets you fired.

So you try not to drag a locked up brake if you can.

Yes, most class 1s have mobile repair units that go out and do some of the minor repairs, brakes, small stuff like that.

All of them have a big moblie repair truck(s).

Major repairs, if the car is movable, are best done at yard shops; most yards have a RIP facility for light duty repair and a car shop, to do the big stuff.

Say you corner a car, or find one that has been whacked pretty good…the car body isn’t leaking, but the side or end ladder is pretty busted up…or the brakes have lost a shoe or two.

As long as the car can move safely, you stick it on the end of the train and take it with you to the next yard, or assigned RIP track and drop it there.

What if you find a burned out bearing…you do what it sounds like these guy did…limp it off the main to the nearest siding, and leave it for the mechanical department…who will come out and fix it there.

9

Who has the authority to bad order a car? The crew operating it?

10

Pretty much any employee that notices a problem can bad order the car.

Most of the time it is the car dept. who finds the bad order when inspecting inbound trains, followed by the crew who work the trains.

I bad order at least one car a day, everything from safety appliances to bent cut levers to really bad flat spots.

Had one today where a crew kicked against a flat cat with the long, cushion drawbar…it was flopped over to the side, so the car they kicked against it bypassed the coupling, and the long drawbar tore the angelcock and train line hose off…

I could have left it for the carmen to find, but why waste the time when I can cut it out right then and there.

Ed

11

The crews operating trains make the initial determination on line of road if the car is repairable with the tools and equipment that is on the engine or if the defects observed will require the car to be set off. The secondary consideration in setting off a bad order is, how far is it to the set off location and will the defective car be able to go that far.

Train crews need to have a level of mechanical understand to be able to diagnose the defects on the cars and what is required to fix it and if the car is safe to move to a set off location.

When the crews decide that a car is unsafe to move, the Dispatcher is notified and the defects the prevent movement of the car are identified and then communicated to the Mechanical (Car) Department so the ‘Over the Road Truck’ and personnel can be dispatched to the train. In the meantime the train stays where it is and delays to it and all other affected trains begin to accrew.

In the case of some ‘severe’ hot boxes, the car will be rewheeled right where it sets as trying to make a set off track with the car would cause the journal to wring off (catastrophic failure).

Each bad order situation has a life of it’s own. On cars that do make it to set off locations, the ‘Over the Road Truck’ during it normal daily rounds will schedule a trip to where bad orders have been set off and effect repairs.

12

The one time I had the unfortunate occasion to be around cars that were being moved with the hand brakes set, and thus small it, was at an industry. It was about three cars if I remember. I guess the guy moving them just did not care, after all nothing would probably happen to him.

That brings up a question. If the local crew observes that there are flat spots on the wheels of cars that they pickup that requires the wheels to be changed, will the railroad bill the industry for the repairs?

13

Cant speak for other railroads, but we do.

If the car has condemnable flat spots when we go to pull it, we bad order the car right there on the spot, in the industry, and call our trainmaster to make the decision whether to move the car or not.

Actually, he can’t make us move it if we think it is too bad, and calling him in lets him make the decision “official” to the plant managers.

Worst one I have found was where they used a piece of chain as a wheel chock, then drug the car around with the chain still under the car, brakes applied.

Ended up welding one of the chain links to the wheel.

If the wheels are so bad the car can not be moved to a siding, the mobile repair truck, at our convenience, comes out and fixes the car.

This adds a lot pressure to the industry crews, as now not only do their bosses have to pay for the repair, not so cheap, but the plant is shut down, until such time as our guys feel like coming out and fixing the car.

That is expensive to them.

In the yards, if we make the flat spot, it is our responsibility to repair the car.

Flat spots on inbound transfers are common, and we do a lot of wheel sets, it is all billable.

14

What type of tools and equipment are usually carried in the locomotive to repair cars? What type of problems can a typical road crew(all 2 of them) fix out on the line?

15

Ed PM’d me some photos of the repair truck, and parts stockpile on his railroad used to repair cars.Hopefully, he’ll post them here as well, as I’m not smart enough to transfer them.([D)]). It appears that bad order cars are a lot more prevalent than I ever imagined.

16

Murphy,

Wish I had taken a shot of the rip tracks empty…week ends our car repair department is off, except for the mobile unit.

I would have taken a shot this morning, to compare the difference.

As of this morning, there were 26 cars in the rip, spotted up by the night crews.

Yesterday, there was one lone UP hopper, waiting on parts.

If you think about the sheer number of cars running around the system, and realize that a certain percentage will have some mechanical problem, ranging from small, like a need for brake shoes, to a gasket on the manway dome of a tank, to a major repair, like a brake beam or a bearing, then the numbers are not all that surprising.

Bad bearing as getting rarer, the hotbox detectors are showing up in a lot more places, and the bearings themselves are built pretty tough and pretty precise.

And, at work this morning, as we dragged a cut out, I realized there might be a different answer to your original question.

When a brake is tied correctly, you can move the car, the wheels will turn, but they will screech and squeal like mad, and make a very high pitched, sharp noise that does sound like metal on metal.

Could be the crew was just too lazy to knock the brakes off, and were killing time as they headed home.

I am so used

17

Elementary tools, hammer, adjustable wrench, chisel and prybar. Most common situations that the crew can handler are air hose parting, broken knuckles, releasing stuck brakes, closing car doors and similar ‘light duty’ fixes. Defect situations such as pulled drawheads, brake riggings down etc. will require shop truck attention and assistance.

18

In addition most roads also carry two spare knuckles (1 typeE, 1 typeF), a couple of air hoses, and a knuckle pin. CP for example also has a "Train’ chain or cable and a roll of wire. Most unit train coal roads will also have an extra long brake pipe hose and/or a dummy hose, which is a very short brake pipe hose with a gladhand on each end.

The chain or cable has two uses to a train crew. It can be used to pull a car with a drawbar out of the dutch end to a set out track or when attached to a coupler knuckle pin can be used to straigthen out a bypassed drawbar so you can couple up to it. A third use is sometimes the chain can be used to straighten out the bars on a run thru switch, especially if your crew did it. Then you report it as hard to throw.

19

Ok,

Now your giving away trade secrets…[:D]

20

Heard that screching many a time, the crew must have left the handbrake on, or were pulling it with the airbrakes on. This is bad on the wheels, it will cause flat spots on the them, have you ever heard a set of cars “walking” (thumping on the tracks) in a moving train? This is caused by flat spots. But a flat spot has to 2 inches across,or several spots around the wheel to condemn it. A bad brakebeam is caused by letting the brakeshoes wear out wearing pass the shoe into the beam, or a derailment.

These can be corrected in the Riptrack or on the “line of road” if they have the correct equipment, sometimes “scab” shops will fix them on the line of road as well.