Lights on trains front and back

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Since receiving the Trains e-mail this week two questions have occurred to me.

First, after seeing the Red Barn question about engine class lights, in the Locomotive section of the Trains forum, when did railroads start using letter codes to designate trains instead of calling them Number 1 or Number 902, or Extra 2860 South? This, of course, would have ended the use of white flags or white class lights as well, correct? And multiple sections of a scheduled train, First 82, Second 82 would simply have different codes, thus ending the need for green flags or green class lights? As well, do Amtrak trains have letter codes or numbers?

And my second question occurred to me after seeing the picture of the Observation car on President Obama’s Inauguration Train. I know the use of RED’s or FRED’s or SBU’s started at different times after railroads quit using cabooses, but what about passenger trains. Do they use some type of device to transmit the rear brake pipe pressure to the cab? And I saw that rear light on the roof of the car turned on. Did they turn it on because it was there, or do passenger trains still have to display some kind of rear marker light(s)?

After seeing the amount of printer’s ink spilled this week about whether President Obama could keep his Blackberry, I was surprised that his security people would let him roll up on Washington D.C. without some sort of RED thing on his train. Did I get that expression right? Thank you for any help.

AgentKid

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Mixed questions here. There are two different symbols, there is the name the train is marketed as and the name the train gets its main track authority under.

No 27 or Extra 2200 South or ABC 2000 South are the names that train get their authority under. They are still called in the manner for purposes of granting authority. When a train is given authority they still use that type of name.

CHDAZ-27 or ABLKAN-4 or AD-2 are symbols that are used to communicated what the train carries. They have been around since the 1920’s or 1930’s. They do not carry authority.

So a train in the 1930’s might be the AD-2 but the dispatcher would call it the Extra 1750 East and the same train today might be the AD-02 but eh dispatcher would call it NS 1750 East.

Obama’s train had red marker lights.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/promos/politics/blog/19blog-obama-train.jpg

http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/18/images/top02.jpg

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Obama’s train also had a section leading, and a section following the train that he was in.

The before and after sections had medical staff, security personelle, communications arrays, and other equipment in the event of a terrorist or other outside plot against the PoTUS

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Numbers fell most often to passenger trains. But smart marketing departments (and sharp operating departments) also saw that hot shot freights got numbers, too. Those numbers were used for time schedules which were divided into first, second, third class and extra trains for track authority and permission to occupy; schedules could be over turned, suplimented,or complitmented by train orders. As railroads grew, number systems were outgrown so that except for a few freight trains on a few roads, only passenger trains usually had numbers and freight trains became symboled (not a hard, fast rule, each railroad differed, there was also ovelap on some roads). Symbols at first indicated starting and ending terminals; later some roads added a type of service designation. Today each railroad is so different from the next that you actually need a timetable or employees timetable and books of rules, etc. to begin to sort things out. Marketing symbols and names also come into play on some roads while on others marketing names have no corrilation to the actual train symbols. The Lackawanna was a good example of everything. Passenger trains had numbers according to it’s general route and purpose. Thus mainline trains Hoboken to Buffalo usually got single digits, a second digit indicating terminal or type of train added like a 2 for a #26 or a 1 for #11 Scranton/ Hoboken, 4 for 44/47 Binghamton milk. Then each local commuter service had numerical designations from 3 digit electric operations ot 1000 and 1100 non electric commuter trains; 1300 Bloomsburg Div, 1700 Utica, 1900 Syracuse. At least those are the ones I remember from the '50s as there probably were 1200, 1400, 1500, 1600, and 1800 numbers in service at one time. And on the branches, like the Bloom, Sussex, Utica, and Syrause branches, there were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class schedules to boot. But there also was a number 20 eastbound Buffalo to H

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Most of the Amtrak trains I see at Utica have a backup hose on the tail end (and two red lights). I’ve never really looked to see if the backup hose has a guage, which would allow the crew to check brakeline pressure there.

Our backup hoses generally have a guage. Comes in handy for the initial terminal brake test (otherwise we use a "conductors guage). Once we’re clear of our backup move for the day, though, it generally comes off.

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The few active cabin cars (cabooses) I’ve been on have an air gauge built into them. But since they don’t have active markers, we throw on a EOT if it’s dark. I would imagine (but not assume) amtrak’s cars have built in gauges? I know some on here would know the answer.

The rules get pretty specific when you have to use a EOT capable of initiating an emergency application. Hour before sunset until an hour after sunrise, or when you can’t see the silhouette of a boxcar a mile away on flat, straight track is part of it. Then there’s length, tonnage, and grade requirements… when in doubt, toss one on. I’ve worked on locals that went on some passenger tracks - and we just threw a flag on the rear. Now there’s one move where we come off a side industry track, go through a passenger interlocking to get back to our yard. Sometimes we just crack open a fussee on the last knuckle. Only lasts 10 minutes but that is all we need to get back home again.

Short answer: on passenger territory, you definitely need something back there. Even Amtrak MOW hy-rail trucks have red marker lamps on them, front and rear (at least the large trucks). To report a Amtrak train by, you must get an eyeball on its markers. (i.e. “that westbound with engine 875 is by us with working markers… permission to open up?”)

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[quote user=“Kootenay Central”]

Another thing, lamentably, gone by the wayside, rotatable coal oil caboose markers with green and red lenses, the rules pertaining to their correct display on single and multiple track or when in the siding, and the employees within the caboose to tend to the lamps and to look at the air gauges.

The corner bracket mounting allowed the lamps to project a green aspect forward so the engineer or fireman could see the green of the caboose lamp at night, and therefore know the whole train was still attached.

Remember the old adage, what can go wrong, will.

In fairness a caboose was not a nice place to ride a lot of the time, a ‘ride’ you would NOT want to offer at a friendly theme park based on Thomas the Tank Engine or such.

Not that long ago a mid-train-robot loaded unit coal train had a defective FRED on the tail end in dark territory.

As there was no other FRED available, they proceeded as per Company instructions, no grades on this particular Sub.

As they were pulling up the main to the siding switch where a meet was to head in, the train had an undesired emergency back of the slave units.

As the meet was right there, he said he would look the other train over as he pulled in rather than have the loaded train’s conductor walk back a mile each way.

The meet found a broken knuckle, used a spare from his lead unit, backed the head end to a joint, coupled up the air, and pulled out of the siding, leaving the far switch Red as no cabooses.

Loaded train on the main, having no FRED, pumped up until he was satisfied the brakes were released, altho’ the leakage was highish. It was Cold.

He eased ahead, it rolled okay and they were off.

Meanwhile a second loaded coal train had met the empties at the terminal and was following along.

The first loaded train went by a talking scanner and the axle count was way LOW!

Hmmmmm! said everybody in radio range.

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And that reminded me of another tale. This was back when Conrail started using roadrailers. A crew was taking a roadrailer train down the line and for some reason they had to cut their engines away from the train. I think they had to go assist another train that stalled out or broke down ahead. For those that aren’t familiar with them, roadrailers don’t have any handbrakes. So when you cut away you allow them to dump to hold them still.

So you can probably guess what happens next. The crew cut away and went down the line. The dispatcher then noticed the track lights on his board moving where the train of roadrailers were. Luckily he realized what was happening right away and yelled for the crew to dump their marker (EOT) that was still on the now-moving cars. This got the cars stopped (luckily they were still in radio range). I don’t know if the conductor somehow mistakenly bottled the air, someone else did, or something mechanical broke on those POS things.

When you leave the yards here, the dispatcher will ask for the marker number. I was told they plug it into the computer and can remotely dump your train in case of emergency.

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That’s why, whenever pssible, it’s best to stop with the slack stretched.

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Not about lights…but since you guys started it. How many locations have had this story? An engineer friend told me this happened to him in the Grand Canyon of PA once. I have read other same, not similar but same, stories from the L&N Rat Hole Div. and other gradient lines. A train is parted and goes into emergency in the middle of the night someplace. Crew walks the train, finds the parting, replaces air hose if needed, couples up and goes. Arrive at terminal a car shy. Day reveals car topped over off the right of way at spot of emergency stop!

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Henry, I have known of the CNO&TP’s Rathole Division (which had the tunnels daylighted or bypassed more than forty years ago) for more than fifty years, but I never heard of the L&N’s. Where is it?

The variant on this story is that when the train was parted, the car toppled off, and the two sections came back together and coupled up, so all the train crew had to do was find the dangling hoses, rejoin the gladhands (so they thought) and go on. Amazing things are possible.

Johnny