this goes on at Altoona every day. basically the train backs up at a certain speed but usually nothing too fast. i see the crewmember actually walking alongside the train rather than running. but they never go very fast that the crewmember has to run. i’m unsure as to whether this exact speed is accomplished because they use 2 geeps instead of 1 or that the engineer is just that good
Our car department inspects every inbound train for bad order cars, bleeding off the air as they go.
By the time I get to it, the track has been inspected, all BO cars tagged and in the computer, (on my switch list) and the air is gone…hand brakes are applied to the leading end only.
We have MK1500Ds, with dual clasp brakes, (two shoes per wheel), so they do stop pretty quickly, but most of that depends on your engineer.
Good ones can crack the whip at 5 mph, bad ones will wear you out in a hour.
I might jog along beside a car, for 50 feet or so, but that’s it…I don’t run, not in this heat.
Dragging this many cars around with no train brakes takes a little more skill than is often written about…timing and knowing how your train will react is part of it…getting a good engine foreman who makes intelligent cuts is the other part.
If the cut has a bunch of loads, or is just plain heavy, we will close the anglecock about 5 cars deep in the cut, and shoot some air to them, so the engineer has the brakes on those cars to work with also.
Trust me, I have to ride the end of the cuts around, so I have to trust my engineer completely, and he has to trust me too, as I am his eyes on the end of a 120 car shove.
Bet on me giving him every extra ounce of control over the cut as I can.
We drag a receiving yard track out, shove around and into a few holding tracks, and get to switching, depending on the best place to make a cut on the train.
Once the engineer starts the kick, and the slack bunches up, you can lift the pin lever, and then release it, and if everything works like it should, that’s pretty much it.
I might have to take a few quick steps holding the lever up, but not often.
The norm is lifting the lever while taking a step or two…sometimes you have to jiggle the pin to make it stay up, but you get to the point that you know the instant you lift if you’re going to have to hold it up, or if it will stay up on it
Flat switching can also tear the stuffing of the lading.
When I was in high school, I had a part time job at a grocery distribution company that recieved carloads of canned goods. I spent about half my time unloading boxcars and semis.
The company that prepared our private-label brands in Californina shipped by rail, and would use two different routes - ATSF-Streator-PC or ATSF-Kansas City-MP-St. Louis-PC. The Chicago cars were almost always in good shape when they arrived - they usually switched at Argentine, Elkhart, and Buckeye Yards, which were all humps. The Kansas City cars had shifted loads about a third of the time - some of them were real disasters, especially if the load contained glass jars. The traffic manager told the damage occured at St. Louis - I guess the boys at Dupo Yard may be been moving a little faster that 4 mph!
The worst mess I ever saw were four boxcars loaded with gallon jars of apple juice from Washington State - it normally shipped via truck, but there weren’t enough trucks available at the peak of the Arab oil crisis. Easily half of the contents of each car load was broken - there was a layer of “syrup” on the floor of each car.
It was fall, and the yellowjackets quickly found out about it the mess - they got so thick that we had to cable one of our semis to the cars and pull them about a quarter mile to the far end of the siding to keep the insects from attacking the guys on the loading dock. PC had to call a cleaning contractor and wa***he cars out on site - at night when the 'jackets were inactive.
The shipper later told us that all thirty cars he shipped that day had the same problem - apparent whichever crew switched the cars off the Yakima local that night must have been in a hurry to knock off.
How many cars can be kicked at one time?
You could kick 40 cars or more. The only issue with large cuts is their momentum. However,when a large cut of cars was going to one place, it would be shoved instead of kicked.
Each railroad makes that determination, and list the number of cars allowed to roll free in their timetable and general orders…
That said, there are FRA hazmat restriction all railroads must follow.
Flammable gas, two cars max.
Hydrocyanatic acid tanks may not be allowed to roll free at all…you shove them to a joint, and must have at least one buffer car on top of that before you can kick against the track with the cyanide car in it.
Loaded auto racks, two at a time under 4mph.
Shiftable loads have to be shoved…pipe above the gondola top, or pipe/ plate steel on a straight flat car is a shove move…bulkhead flats are treated like boxcars, let ‘em rip… Again, if you look at the car and the load is, say a boxcar full of beer bottles, or apple juice for that matter, maybe a load of lumber that might shift, you use the best tool you have, your brain.
Our switch list shows a lot of info, but not the exact contents of the cars beyond the normal hazmat info.
But after a week or two, you know what cars have what inside…the apple juice guys, if they worked the job before, knew the load was fragile, they just didn’t care.
We can’t afford to be that callous, as small as we are, tracing damage back to a switch crew is easy, and for us, each customer counts, enough so that we go a little farther than normal to take care of them…we can’t afford to lose the business.
There are other restrictions, about a page worth in the hazmat book, but common sense should prevail.
Think about it…
Who in their right mind would kick a car full of pressurized cyanide acid?
Up until a year ago, on the PTRA, the number of cars you could kick was totally up to the foreman…I have come around and got a pin on 14 loaded boxcars at once…but I have also been switching the same lead for ten years, and I trust my field man to tie handbrakes correctly, tight enough to hold the cars and absorb the impact from
No luck on the KLR, but the combines were easy to spot. They probably came from Waterloo, IA.
The KRL car is about 12 cars to the north of the combines on the track to the right. There are also a couple cars in the main yard that appear to have Cats on them.
The reason I remember when we left the day this was shot is because the combines had been vandalized en route…some one had shot all the windshields with a pretty big caliber rifle.
Our claims agent and the gumshoes got all grubby climbing across the other tracks to inspect them…this is one of the reasons the car department inspects the inbounds closely, had we handled the cars and then found the damage later, the PTRA would had had to pay for the repairs, as it was UP got the bill instead.
The KLR flat is going to look like a big red rectangle, the side of the car has “Red 'n Ready” painted on it.
Eric found some of the Cats…lets see, if you can find the Coke train, to the right about six tracks are a few more Cats on Flats…most of these are headed to Chile, but some go as far as Russia.
To the left of North Yard, and looking like it is part of it, is another yard, about ten tracks wide and running under an overpass…this is UPs Basin yard…Formerly HB&T.
Keep scrolling up, and follow the tracks out the north or top end of the yard, and you will end up at UP Englewood(SP) and the hump over Wayside drive, just a little past that is Settagast yard, also UP(HB&T and MoPac).
Englewood is a pretty big yard, has the hump and bowl, plus an intermodel ramp at the far left, or west end of the yard, looks like a seperate smaller yard.
All within three miles of each other, these are the three biggest yards in South Texas.
If you scroll down, or south, you will hit the turning basin of the ship channel, follow that to the right and you will see that it is almost solid refineries all the way back to Galveston Bay…our tracks run on both side of the channel.
Go left instead, and follow Buffalo Bayou to downtown Houston, still carries barge traffic.
When I was a kid, Houston had…
CB&Q, Santa Fe, MoPac, Katy, Rock Island, IGN, SP, PTRA and the HB&T all running trains into the city, with SP being the major pl
Ed, is that red car about a dozen or so cars north of the combines, on the track to the right, the KRL flatcar?
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=29.765858,-95.291572&spn=0.001274,0.002942&t=h&om=1
Yup,
That’s it, in track 59.
Any luck on the coke train?
Hint…if tracks 57 to 62 are called the H yards, and 40 thru 48 are the F yard, the coke train is in the B yard.
Most big yards are in fact several smaller yards bundled together.
North Yards is made up of:
From the far left, track 2, which is a run thru track.
(track 1 is the stub track, accessible only from the north end, for bad order light repairs)
A yard, tracks 3 thru 9 where inbounds from ship channel industries are yarded, and hold cars and weigh cars are stored.
B yards, 10 thru 18 where cars from the A yard are switched out into outbound trains for the member lines, BNSF, UP and TexMex.
Track 18, shared by both B yard and C yard, allows access from both yards to this track for member line out bounds from ship channel industries, and use as a run thru track.
C yard, 18 thru 24 where outbound trains to south side ship channel industries are built up and spotted for ground air and initial terminal air test.
Track 25, no longer there, removed to give access to center of yard for emergency response.
D yard, 26 thru 32 where outbound trains for north shore trains are built up.
E yard 33 thru 38 and F yard 40 thru 48. (my yards) where inbound trains from member lines are taken apart and switched / classified/blocked into cuts for the outbound industry trains.
All Shell cars go here, Tenneco and Fina go to track 44, Deer Park fuel cars to 46…then swung over to the C and D yards when full or ordered.
Bad order inbounds to track 47.
High wide shiftable, and high value loads to 48, does double duty as bad order track and a team track.
No track 49 to 56, those are no longer there, were engine service and caboose track, but no longer carry on the number system.
You can see where they used to run back into the yard behind the diesel shop.
H yard, inbound member line trains, where I get my swi
Is that it in Track 16? Looks like the SD40-2s on the north end…
I’ve watched them kick cars in numerous places, and it’s pretty interesting to watch when you can also listen on the radio. You can tell some guys are really good and have done it a long time… Some other guys, not so good.
The one I think would have been crazy, was the ‘pole’ moves… Back when they would move cars on the next track over, by jamming a pole between the car and loco. There seems to be some confusion on this practice… I was under the impression that it was common place in the old days, but I’ve heard some guys say it was always against the rules. Maybe it was up to the RR.
Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Featuring the TrainTenna Railroad Scanner Antennas -
Well,
It wasn’t a fair question…
I didn’t realize that the coke train had brought a few cars from Manchester Terminal with it…
The coke move is in track 13, with the power on the south (bottom) end…but it is a mixed train so to speak, the north end of track 13 has a bunch of tanks in it…they picked them up out of one of our other yards on the way in, and when the coke train leaves, those cars will stay in track 13…most likely UP’s.
Happens when the coke move is a small train. and a few cars at Manchester are “hot” and need to make an outbound train.
I will find a better thing to search for, one that doesn’t require the knowledge of our train operations to make sense.
Ok, item one to look for…
Two CN Dash 9s MUed tail to tail.
Item(s) 2, track maintenance equipment (mow)
And a track question…can you find the manual interlocker?
Hint on the interlocker…follow the coke trails…remember, old, leaky hoppers…
Think about what an interlocker is, and what it protects.
If you want a short virtual tour, let me know…if you find the interlocker, we can go from there and look at the docks where the steam engines came in, or head to the south side, and Manchester Terminal, in the Harrisburg area.
History note, Harrisburg was the first capital of Texas, held the first meeting of our state legislature, and was where Sam Houston was elected to be the General of the Army of the Texas Republic…and not that far from where he defeated Santa Anna…we even have a siding beside the creek where Santa Anna was captured, named Santa Anna pass, and a yard next to the San Jacinto Battle Ground, where Houston won independence for Texas.
Remember the Alamo!
If you want, I can scan a copy of the entire Houston area railroads, it is a UP AEI map, with the location of all the AEI scanners, and send it to you…might help you make sense of the many, many miles of track inside Houston and Harris county.
Email
Ed: Presumably, the car department can only inspect the exterior of the cars. In the case of the broken apple juice jars,for example, unless it was dripping juice out in the yard,could they tell anything was wrong inside? Wouldn’t such a car, after it’s been switched a couple of times, be hard to trace back to the culprit?
Who in the hell runs while kicking cars. For one thing BNSF will not let you do that. If you are caught running or anything over a fast walk you will get in trouble. Besides running is to much work that is why the switch man will tell the engineer to bring the train back then when the slack gets bunched he pulls the pin tells the engineer to kick and stand there and wait for the right speed he needs and says stop and watch the car go away. Running is just way to much work.
The Job gets a little easier when the yard is on the side of a hill…
I worked for the Wisconsin and Southern for about three years, and the two yards i worked in were drasticly different. In Madison, we were usually working uphill, I only very rarely kicked cars, if they started rolling the other way you were in trouble.
Janesville was a different matter, as we were working on the top end of things. All I needed to ask for was a little pin, and that was enough to keep the cars rolling down to the desired track. Having good handbrakes was a necessity, as it was a continous grade down to the roundhouse. That yard was switched with air on the cars, made it easier and safer to stop the cut.
I usually never let more than one load go at a time here, especially after the Old Main was raised and resurfaced. I once let two loads go into a track on top of a bunch of empty covered hoppers, as soon as they went through the first switch they took off and smacked the empties pretty good, I think the UP yard across town heard that bang.[:-^]
Murphy,
No, they don’t inspect the inside.
But every yards car department inspects every car at least once, usually when it arrives in train, and every time it is leaving.
So, if it arrived here on our property dripping, we would bad order it, and bill the sending railroad for repairs…in this case, the person who owned the apple juice would file a claim against the forwarding railroad.
And back tracking the movement isn’t hard, just check the billing and waybill system.
If it arrived here ok, but got to the customer dripping juice, well, I handle every inbound that comes in North Yard, and some of those cars get switched again a little later on their way to the customer, backtracking again isn’t a problem.
If on Monday, I switched it out of a inbound, and it was not leaking when it left here, but Thursday, it was, and the switch crew at Penn City yard who reswitched it handled the car Wednesday night…
The car department are not the only folks who can bad order cars…if I find one beat up, or anyone else here for that matter finds a car leaking, damaged, maybe with flat spots on the wheels or a bent handrail…that person can call the yardmaster at North Yard and BO the car right then.
Covers all of our butts, and keeps someone from getting hurt if the damage is to a safety appliance.
This is why inspecting every inbound train carefully is so important, keeps us from having to pay for damage we did not do.
And it is cheaper for each railroad to repair its own damage.
The AAR has a repair billing system that has set billing charges for almost everything you can break on a car, and these charges are always most than actual cost.
Say BN sends us a car with a broken handrail.
The handrail might cost $75.00 and take a 1/2 hour to repair…but our rip track and car department will have to charge BN by the AAR manual…$300.00 for the hand rail and 2 hours labor for repair.
Much cheaper if BN had just fi
also, the coupling speed isnt supost to be more then 4 mph…but you can kick a car as hard as needed…basicly if you need to get it to the other end of a track that is long and there are cars to stop it…you can kick it at 10mph if you realy wanted too…just as long as it is down to about 4mph speed when and if it couples up to another car…
csx engineer
This is really a great thread. Ed … thanks for all of your input and discussion.
In my previous half life, I worked for an LTL trucking company. It is amazing how similar LTL trucking and railroading are. Same principals for the most part “partial loads” that must be assembled into a full trailer (train) at a terminal (yard) and then line hauled (manifest train) to another terminal and then put on a peddle run (local) for delivery.
We had the same issues with damaged freight. The freight bill or manifest needed to be noted with appropriate damage to place liability with the correct party. One of my responisiblities was a Claim Agent. Not a really pleasant job.
Ed, I assume you keep working during nasty weather, but what do you do when there is a thunderstorm? I dont think I would want to be out in the lightning with all that metal.
ed