I found the photo of the Illinois Central Gulf Geep hauling woodchip hoppers on page 57 of the current MRR mag. interesting. But curious as to why the caboose is coupled up between the hoppers and the locomotive?
Thanks and regards, Peter
I can’t speak as to why in this instance, but on some railroads back in the old days there was a second caboose behind the locomotive in addition to one on the end of the train to make things easier for crews on local freights and switch jobs. Saved the boys a long hike to the end of the train and made things a bit more efficient for car set-outs and pick-ups.
Goes without saying this was in the days when trains crews might consist of five or six crewmen.
It could be that it was a rather short haul and “not worth the effort” to switch the caboose to the end of train…
When I was a brakeman we did that a lot to save tie when we made a runaround and headed back to the yard. We placed a red flag on the last car as a marker.
Here’s another once common practice on urban locals…We would place the pickups behind the cabin with a red flag for a marker… Again this was to save time when we made our runaround and headed back to the yard.
BTW…Some old head conductors called the red flag a marker flag while others called it red flag protection.
If I may? There was no need to make that long hike since all we would need to do is swing off the cabin/caboose and stop the movement where we needed to make the cut.
If there was a need we would,make a stop,check coupler alinement,couple,connect the air hose,turn on the air line angle cocks,release the handbrakes and shove those cars back to where we needed to make the next cut.
Very interesting getting an education from hands-on guys. Assuming that an urban local would finish the setting out & picking up with time to return to the yard in one shift would hauling a caboose along be for crew shelter/comfort and safety?
Thanks again, regards, Peter
Yes,When I worked on the PRR/PC(66-69) the normal crew size was engineer,fireman,head brakeman,rear brakeman and conductor so,with a 5 man crew a cabin was needed. Some roads used a flagman as well which made a 6 man crew… Also depending on the various Company/Brotherhood work agreements a local over 30 cars in length could require a extra brakeman.
A engine cab had three seats,the fireman’s,engineer’s and a fold down seat for the head brakeman. If we had two units then the brakeman would ride the trailing unit looking back over the train for problems…
BTW.The cabin/caboose lacked creature comforts since the toilet bowl was used to store extra fusees,batteries for our Starlite lanterns or tools.
Some times those old N6B cabins would be out of coal or the N5 class cabins would have no fuel oil.
Oh no doubt of that. The reason I made the comment I did was because I’d seen some photos of Nickle Plate trains in the steam era with two cabooses and the author gave the reason for as what I said in my comment.
Different 'roads, different procedures.
On the PRR some times we would do the same a cabin on both ends,some times one in the middle so we wouldn’t need to drag a long local up a second industrial lead off the lead we was working.
Another oddity was to have the engine in the middle of the train we did that because of the facing and trailing point switches and the lead was stubbed end due to a damage bridge PRR elected not to fix because there was no customers beyond the bridge…The only tunaround was on the other side of the damage bridge.
Interesting! It’s a rare day I don’t learn something new and “railroady” on this and the other Kalmbach sites.
I’m not a real railroader but I’m interested in shortlines and branch lines.
That pic is probably showing what’s part of a switching move, maybe an extended run a few miles from the woodchip loader, and it was within rules to not rearrange the train for a short run. Its a short train. Its a GP10.
Its really not comparable to the two caboose example, which would more likely involve a much longer train over many miles.
Thing is, we’ve become so indocrinated to the idea that the ‘train’ is engine, a bunch of cars, and a caboose bringing up the rear that it just seems ‘wrong’ to have the caboose anywhere else. That’s fine for a nice through freight that gets made up in one yard and goes straight on to the next one. Those locals and small branch line jobs though - totally different. There just aren’t as many pictures of that work, so when one does show up it’s just odd looking.
Surprised they got away with no working toilet - although even if not used as extra fusee storage it may not have worked anyway in those days. On this end of the PRR, it was actually a state law in PA that caboose cars had to have working sanitary facilities. That law was of course opposed by the railroads because when it passed, they had to work out rebuilding schedules to add toilets to the caboose fleet. It’s mentioned in the book I have on Reading cabooses; I think it declared that any caboose operating with a crew in the Commonwealth had to have facilities. So even if it was a railroad that just briefly touched parts of PA, the caboose had to be equipped (like B&O south of Philadelphia or up towards Erie), not just railroads that operated in the state like PRR and Reading.
–Randy
Not if they wanted to comply with federal law and the railroad rules.
Any time they made a pick up or set out, before they departed they had to make sure that they had adequate air pressure on the rear car and then brakes set and released.
So technically anytime they set out or picked up a car they would have to either walk back a brakeman with a hand held guage or drop off a brakeman, pull the whole train by, make the set and release, then shove the train back to pick up the brakeman.
In reality its much quicker to do that with a caboose.
Plus if they were in any type of territory other than CTC, if they were meeting another train and didn’t hold the main, or coming out of any track onto another track, they would have to drop off a brakeman, pull out of the track, restore the switch to normal position, then shove back to pick up the brakeman, or wait til he walks up. If the train was longer, they wouldn’t be able to shove back because they would be making a blind shove.
And yet,we put the cabin behind the engine dozens of times with a red flag on the last car.We also placed our pickups behind the cabin several times over and was still in compliance.
Even today some short lines doesn’t use a FRED and they are still in compliance.
There has to be a rule exception/modification some where or those short lines wouldn’t be in compliance.
Interesting to know these things from a modeling perspective. On my model railroad (an ISL, as Brakie has coined the acronym), the “rule” is a requirement to have a caboose on the leading end of a train, as much of the operation is push-pull, and there are sharp turns on the main, in “dark” territory (i. e. no signals), allowing the crew better vision when rounding these turns.
And some times a poor chap has to ride the side of a car…The CF&E conductor does this when they make a reverse move from Whetstone Street to the NS in order to switch Transco. That’s a quarter of a mile from the signal at Whetstone then around the Northeast leg of the wye and onto the NS… They exit NS trackage by the Southeast leg of the wye with the conductor riding the last car. GWI now owns CF&E maybe they will get that conductor a caboose.
The Wye is NS trackage,and then NS has trackage rights over the CF&E.
Nope. Federal Power Brake Law. Note the portions that refer to the “rear car”. If there is an EOTD with a telemetry devce, the telemetry can be used to determine the pressures.
49.CFR 232.209 Class II brake inspection:
Relevant part:
(b) A Class II brake test shall consist of the following tasks and requirements:
(1) Brake pipe leakage shall not exceed 5 psi per minute, or air flow shall not exceed 60 cubic feet per minute (CFM). The brake pipe leakage test or
Back in the day, when I worked on a class 1 railroad we would have to go out and test the crews to make sure they were performing the required tests. I tested with one Road Foreman of Engines who had rigged up a head end device to operate off the cigarette lighter in a car. When we would go testing, we would have a trainmaster driving (me) and one or more road foremen, one RFE in the car running the head end device and the other (if there) in position to observe the off side of the cars, so we could see exactly what the crews were seeing when they did their brake tests.
The vast majority of crews complied with the rules and operated their trains safely.
Before all the “weed weasel” comments start, just remember Lac Megantic (which was a failure to comply with air brakeand train handling rules) happened on a railroad that had a lax testing program. I know managers on class 1 railroads that were fired for not performing their required rules tests.
Dave, You say nope but,then how does short lines manage to run 15 car trains with no FRED?
There’s gotta be a rule exception in the books or those short lines wouldn’t be in compliance…Then how about when we had the cabin behind the engine with no more then a red flag bringing up the rear?
I have no answer other then what we did on the PRR and observed while visiting short lines.
They do a brake test IAW the CFR. The rule does not say that a FRED is required, only that it is an option. The other option is an accurate guage installed for the brake test.
Possibly the CFRs have changed in the past 40years?
Well here is the first part of the rules that was excerpted, which may explain what you observed:
(a) At a location other than the initial terminal of a train, a Class II brake test shall be performed by a