Is it true that Camelback engines designed for hump service?
Only the 0-8-8-0s[:-^]
More than one camelback engineer was humped by a flying siderod[#oops]
Chuck
Does anyone have any statistics on how often this happened? It must have happened enough that engineers did fear it, and even had an expression to describe it (“wiping the clock”).
Does anyone have enough camelback photos to post a different one each day into the indefinite future?
I don’t think “wiping the clock” referred to that situation. As I recall the clock in that expression was the brake line air pressure gauge and wiping it referred to the needle dropping to or near zero degrees pressure when the air was “dumped” in a full emergency brake application. Though I never heard it, “wiping the deck” might of been an expression used when an engineman dropped to the cab deck to try to escape a thrown side rod. I"d be interested in other’s comments on this expression.
Mark
All I can say is that the only time I ever encountered the term “wiping the clock”, was in reference to a thrown side rod. (The image seems to be of the rod whipping around in a circle, dispensing mayhem and death to anybody in the vicinity. I get the idea the rod would suddenly rip through the floor of the cab.) That’s not to say “wiping the clock” couldn’t have been used in the sense you mention at some time or in a particular place.
Still, I’d like to know how often this happened that engineers felt threatened by the possibility. I would suspect that this sort of mishap would have been more common with 19th century locomotives rather than more recent engines.