Does anyone happen to have a selection of photos or detailed drawings that show the steps to follow for changing a knuckle on a rail car along with photos of the different types of knuckles for the various rail cars? Looking for training material that covers this topic.
dont know of any actual manuls per say… just experiance from OTJ training… as far as the knuckles…there are only 2 types…an E and F…and they say so on the knuckle themselfs… \
csx engineer
I am not aware of any manual on knuckle change out ,like was stated earlier on the job training is how I learned .There 2 types of knuckles , type F and type E and they are not interchangeable .
The process is fairly simple .
- Remove the knuckle pin .
- lift the uncoupleing lever.
- remove the old knuckle .
- put in the new knuckle while holding the uncoupleing lever up.
- replace the knuckle pin .
- check the knuckle for proper movement
- bill the knuckle per AAR rules .
Sorry to be n00bish, but what does ‘bill the knuckle’ mean? You put some sort of tag on it or the car noting that the knuckle has been changed?
You forgot rule 1a - make sure your feet are out of the way…
what does ‘bill the knuckle’ mean?
Sorry about that !
When ever a repair is made to a car , the repair is billed to the car owner , the repair written up on a billing sheet per the AAR interchange rules manua lby the Car man and turned in.
The billing sheet list the car initials , number , the location on the car ( in the case of a knuckle the A end or B end of the car ) the job code and other information required by the AAR .
Hope this helps .
About how many pounds does a knuckle wheigh? They look like a pretty big chunk of cast steel.
Isn’t there usually some air hose related repair as well?
80 to 85 pounds.
Nick
I don’t know it might be different elsewhere, but on the UP the conductor or switchman doesn’t have anything to do with paperwork or billing to the car’s owner. The most that is done is the car number and which end is reported to the train dispatcher and usually a manager ends up coming to download tapes and find who is at fault, poor train handling by the engineer or an old defective knuckle. I guess I never really inquired, but probably the Mangager on duty or Dispatcher would I guess turn this over to the billing department when its found to be defective. Again, this could be different elsewhere, especially like a shortline.
I don’t think broken knuckles are billable , perhaps worn knuckles beyond the AAR limits are .
Batooski, the air hose probably would be more likely to deflect a falling knuckle fragment than be broken by it–it should escape most of these incidents unharmed.
In my neck of the woods, the worst problem in regard to knuckles is a missing knuckle pin. Don’t know why or by whom, but these pins apparently get swiped. Then when our crew uncouples the car, the knuckle opens wide, wider, and thump! They keep spare pins up on the hump, so after a couple of minutes to replace the knuckle, the car’s good to go.
Amazingly, spare knuckle pins are not carried by the car-knockers inspecting the trains in the receiving yard. We will get some “super-light” bad-order cars that have been put in that status because of a missing knuckle pin (as long as the coupler is closed, the pin affects nothing, by the way). So we put in a new pin, and the car is good to go–but still in bad-order status.
And, if you still don’t think a knuckle pin–or lack of one–can cause big problems, we had one once that didn’t fall out when the car was uncoupled–it waited until it got in front of my tower, vibrated out when the car crossed the diamond, then wedged itself in one of the frogs. Next car to go that way only “sort-of” went that way (until the retarder and the ride on the ties stopped it). I didn’t see the knuckle fall, but saw it afterwards, and suggested to the investigating officer that he check the first car on track such-and-such for a missing knuckle. Guess what he found–or didn’t find!
CShaveRR is right you don’t need a knuckle pin for the coupler to work they taught us this in school
Also some RR are using plastic knuckle pins now
If you pull a train apart, what happens to the brake line? Assuming the knuckle breaks while in transit.
The brake lines are designed (in theory) to part when the hoses are pulled straight from both ends. It has to do with the lugs that keep them together in service. When rotated to a certain amount the air blows them apart. there was a story in Trains years ago about a train that dumped the air an went into emergency so the crew reconnected the lines and went about their way only to find they were one car short when they got there. Turns out a car had derailed and put the train in emergency and then completely left the rails and down an embankment. the rest of the train caught up the car in front so when the crew arrived it just appeared that the hoses had come apart. Another story had a case where the end beam of the car was falling off and every time they started the train would dump air but nothing was disconnected. Finally they pulled the end beam out of the car unitentionally and found the brake line had been pulled apart. That would dump the air and then the beam would go back to its normal position. It would line the pipes up and have enough mass to allow them to pump air in the train but would separate every time they tried to move.
The brake hoses separate at the gladhands between the cars and releases air putting the train into emergency. They are designed to do this.