I have been watching yard crews work on and off for 20 years. Does anyone know when a crew is kicking cars is there a method that is followed? I saw a crew kick a group of 8 empty tank cars and the brakeman tied the first couple of cars prior to kicking them. It seemed the train got up to 15 mph at least and when they coupled they BANGED loud! It is great to watch and hear but is there any instruction or guideline for car kicking? Thanx
Railroaders have been kicking cars since before the knuckle couplers were installed though that invention made the kick so much easier.
Tieing handbrakes on a cut you are going to kick sort of defeats the who idea of the kick but I will admit it is useful in some circumstances.
A coupling speed of 15 mph is likely to cause damage to cars and lading. Never over 4 mph is the recommended maximum safe coupling speed.
There are few rules about kicking cars except the move must be made safely. You learn about the safe method on the job.
Every railroad has its own rules about how many, and how hard you can kick cars, but most follow what arfbe said, at 15 mph, you can tear them up pretty good.
Tri-level auto racks even have a sticker on the side telling you to let only two at a time go, and only at 4 mph or less.
And loaded auto racks have to be shoved to the joint to protect the contents.
Where I work, we are allowed to kick two cars at a time, loads or empties.
And, depending on the hazmat code, some tankcars we have to shove to a joint, (couple) and are not allowed to let them roll free at all, nor are we allowed to kick against them until a buffer car is coupled up to them.
As for tying a hand brake on the cars I am kicking, it would only be done with a light brake, so the car would roll a little, then stop…but we would have to come back to it and shove it later, so unless he was kicking towards a clear track, and didn’t want to spend time setting a good bumper till later, or the switchman was going to come back against them with a big cut for that track, and shove the whole thing into the clear, I imagine you could do just what was described.
Ed
Kicking cars is really an art. Realistically, you don’t want the cars to hit any faster then 4 mph. Although, the tracks profile, may call for you to let the cars go faster or slower then that. The trick is to give the cars enough speed to make it into the track and not crash into the standing cars, while stopping the remaining train short of the switch for the next track. You also don’t want the cars to stop short, where you have to couple up and re-kick them.
My general rule of thumb for letting cars fly:
4 empties
3 empties/loads
2 loads
Some cars are required to be shoved to the hook - loaded autoracks, loaded intermodal cars, passenger cars, and certain HAZMAT cars.
If you have a track that rolls fast, you might want to put a light brake, but otherwise, you really don’t want to be putting brakes on cars you are kicking.
Nick
Alot of Divisions have rules of how many loads and empties are allowed to be “kicked” at one time.And most yard speeds are 10 mph,so the engineer would not run up the cars any faster than that.Everthing also depends if the yard is “bowl” shaped,flat or downhill.Theres just alot of varaibles to kicking cars,as mentioned certain cars can’t be kicked at all like intermodal,haz-mat,and shiftable loads and loaded autoracks.Sometimes I’m sure these rules get broken,but it’s when you put one on the ground or push cars out the end of a track that you get caught.I’ve seen the results of such actions and it ain’t pretty [oops] !It’s also the only time I get to "gut’ an engine then slam the brakes on [:-,].
We recently had a very informative discussion on this. You might check this thread out.http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/838204/ShowPost.aspx
As others have related, kicking cars is an art. Kicking 8 tank cars however, is not kosher according to UP rules.
As far as how to kick, it all depends on the lay of the land. Our yard is on a hill, with both ends of the tracks rolling downward. This makes kicking cars harder than on flat or bowl shaped yards. Add to it, the lead is also downhill from the yard tracks, so the motive power gets a workout, especially with all loads.
We work from the north side of the yard along what is now an industrial lead. The first crossing is 40 cars away from the crossover. Originally both crossovers were the high stand type, and yard tracks were “rubber” or Racor #22E switch stands on #8 turnouts.
In order to switch with some ease, all hand brakes are set on the south end of the yard, so that cuts pulled north, will remain secured. Also when kicking, hand brakes on cars will drop a pin since slack is not constant. All knuckles on facing cars must be kept open in order for joints to be made on kicked cars. No impact may be made over 4 mph, and no kicking cars over 10 mph (other than main track rule). Impact over 4 mph results in damage to cars, track, and possible loss of commodity in cars (covered hoppers and scrap in gons).
Usually switch jobs will have two ground men, the Footboard Yardmaster, and Switchman or Utility man. The FBY usually calls the moves and holds the lists, and the Switchman or UT man is in the field catching cars. The FBY will tell the Hogger to “come ahead 3 to a pin” The hogger will keep uniform slack at 3 or 4 mph to where the FBY gets the pin, and calls for a kick. The cars are sent up to 10 mph with slack controlled by throttle modulation til the hogger gets a “that’ll do”. The field man will ensure cars
Forgot to mention, there are many restrictions as others have mentioned, on kicking cars such as heavy duty flats, scale test cars, and so forth. That said, we kick propane and the #1 commodity in this terminal, ethanol all the time. Of course we follow DOT guidelines at all times. Lots of sloshing going on.