Hi! I usually spend all my time on the MR forum but figured this was a better place for this question.
Are There any trainmen who work on locals or any type of switching? I dont know about many modern practices and was looking for some help. Thankz !!! [;)]
Ed Bylsyard sp on last name works for the Port RR in Houstan and can tell you alot. He checks in every now and then. CSXrules 4Ever is a Conductor for them. We have a few around here that are Real Word Employees for the RR’s.
Ed Blysard does it every day, has authored a couple articles in Trains, and has posted some detailed explanations here - some in response to my questions. So do nbrodar and zugmann - among others - perhaps coborn35/ Max comes to mind. No ‘slight’ or disrespect intended to anyone else who I can’t remember right now.
What questions did you have?
One of us will try to figure it out…
I have some questions about like, do you blow the horn when you are street running, and anything else commonly done when switching industries.
It depends on the railroad, with “street running” under normal circumstances, we ring the bell constantly and sound the horn at any location the crew feels it is needed, like “blind” or sight restricted curves and intersections.
Make a specific list of your questions, in detail if you would and post it here, you will get more detailed answers that way.
Here’s one I’ve been wondering about for a while and have been meaning to post, so this is a good opportunity. It’s been said that “Railroading is a game of basics, done well” so let’s start with the most basic switching maneuver of all:
What is the ‘best’ - simplest, fastest, safest, etc. - procedure to perform a simple set-out and pick-up from a single-track main line, to a trailing-point industry spur ? (No grade crossings or other restrictions anywhere nearby on the main, it’s pretty flat, good walking surface alongside, etc. Same is true of the industry spur - no track restrictions, so the locomotives can go as far into it as they need to without a ‘handle’ of extra cars to reach back further than they could otherwise go, etc.)
Let’s assume a 40-car train (no caboose, no haz-mats or flammables, etc.) with a couple locomotives on the front. (The assignment is to set-out 2 cars that are now about in the middle of the train - 20 cars back - into the spur, and pick-up the 2 cars that are now there, and put them in the train wherever the crew thinks best.)
Here are the specific questions: Obviously, the pick-up needs to be done before the set-out can be completed - but what do you do with each group of cars in the meantime while the other maneuver is being performed ? Do you make the first ‘cut’ behind the 2 cars that are to be set-out and leave them on the end of the cars that reach in to connect to the pick-ups ? Then place the pick-ups onto the train, go back in and spot the set-outs, and then return and re-couple ? Or - Do you leave the set-outs where they are until the pick-up is made ?
Likewise for the pick-ups - Do you grab them first with the locomotives only, or cut the train in front of the set-outs, and use that string of cars to grab the pick-ups ?
[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]
Here’s one I’ve been wondering about for a while and have been meaning to post, so this is a good opportunity. It’s been said that “Railroading is a game of basics, done well” so let’s start with the most basic switching maneuver of all:
What is the ‘best’ - simplest, fastest, safest, etc. - procedure to perform a simple set-out and pick-up from a single-track main line, to a trailing-point industry spur ? (No grade crossings or other restrictions anywhere nearby on the main, it’s pretty flat, good walking surface alongside, etc. Same is true of the industry spur - no track restrictions, so the locomotives can go as far into it as they need to without a ‘handle’ of extra cars to reach back further than they could otherwise go, etc.)
Let’s assume a 40-car train (no caboose, no haz-mats or flammables, etc.) with a couple locomotives on the front. (The assignment is to set-out 2 cars that are now about in the middle of the train - 20 cars back - into the spur, and pick-up the 2 cars that are now there, and put them in the train wherever the crew thinks best.)
Here are the specific questions: Obviously, the pick-up needs to be done before the set-out can be completed - but what do you do with each group of cars in the meantime while the other maneuver is being performed ? Do you make the first ‘cut’ behind the 2 cars that are to be set-out and leave them on the end of the cars that reach in to connect to the pick-ups ? Then place the pick-ups onto the train, go back in and spot the set-outs, and then return and re-couple ? Or - Do you leave the set-outs where they are until the pick-up is made ?
Likewise for the pick-ups - Do you grab them first with the locomotives only, or cut the train in front of the set-outs, and use that string of cars
Ask 100 railroads how to switch, and you’ll get 100 answers.
Paul, making a set out/pick up from the middle…I wouldn’t do it. I switch the cars to the head end before leaving the yard. You never want to hold on to more cars then absolutely necessary when servicing a customer.
Cut off lite, grab the pulls, out for the spots, in with the spots, and back to the train with the pulls and out we go.
Nick
Question: If you have to put cars into a siding where the cars are behind the locomotive which is facing the switch, where you uncouple, throw the switch and let the cut coast into the siding (Is this a Dutch drop?), and for some reason the cut fails to clear the switch, what do you do?
What’s wrong with 40 or 100-car trains ? OK, the local near here usually runs only 20 - 30 cars, but I was trying to see if length makes a difference - as in the amount of walking back-and-forth required - which it apparently does in some instances, but not in that way - instead, it’s the slack action that you and Nick alluded to . . .
Your assumption is good - I meant to state that above, just to complete ‘setting the stage’ - thanks !
Exactly ! That’s why I set it up and stated it that way. We can go on and get more complicated, elaborate, and sophisticated from there . . .
As noted above, I had read - a long time ago - that switching was governed by and went at essentially the speed a man could walk. But I see your point - you can walk several car lengths in the time to wind up/ unwind the brakes, so that is probabaly a better parameter or input factor to the time required, so that’s anew insight for me. (Also why I specified level track, so as not to complicate the discussion with that any more than necessary.)
Another something I’d read - so much for theory or what’s stated in the books or railfa
Nick - OK, thanks for the reply and insights, and it’s all fair and reasonable enough, but: What happens when the industry you’re at is the 5th place that day with a pick-up ? As I understand your explanation, you’ll be accumulating the ‘pulls’ on the head-end - meanwhile, your set-up of the ‘spots’ is getting further and further back into the train. Do you just live with that, or do something else or am I missing something ?
Next time I catch the local switching up the street at lunchtime, I’ll have to try to stay blong enough to watch the entire process. They’re all plastic pellet covered hoppers - the siding holds 10 cars, I think - and they do seem to rotate them to some degree as zugmann mentions, but I’ve never seen the new inbound loads placed all the way to the read/ closest to the plant. Realize, though, that I’m going to have to write down the reporting marks as they go to keep accurate track of the action, because the pulls, spots, and other similar cars ‘in transit’ that stay in the train, pretty much all look the same gray color to me . . .
Thanks again, Nick.
Up to the early 90’s there was a UTU Arbitrary that was payable to crews that did not receive their Local Freight/Road Switcher in station standing order. After that arbitrary was negotiated away the terminals stopped even trying to have trains lined up. I have seen this ‘lousy switching’ carried into line of road ‘block swap’ set offs. Nothing like expecting a train to spend 30 minutes setting out 10 cars for a block swap take 2’30" to switch the 10 cars out of the 150 car train, all the while occupying single main track.
Based on your example, I would do the move pretty much as Zug said…unless the industry had a few other tracks, then I would take the spots down there with me and set the pulls out on a empty track, make the spot, pick up the empties and get back against my train.
The goal is to make as few moves as possible, line the least number of switches and tie the least number hand brakes.
Now, I work for a terminal/switching railroad, our Class 1 members bring us their trains with cars bound for the heavy industrial area along both side of the Houston Ship Channel.
These trains are rarely blocked out beyond the yard destination, so a train bound for say, North Yard, where I work, may have Shell or Cargil cars scattered through the train.
The Class 1 only worries about the car being blocked to that yard, not how it will be delivered to the final customer.
Because all we do is industrial switching, our yard crews, when we break down or switch out the inbounds have to arrange the car as Zug put it, in “station order”
To accomplish this it is almost a requirement to have worked the industry jobs yourself before you end up working a switching lead job, so you know what order to switch the cars into any given track based on how they will spot up in any given industry…
The goal of course is to eliminate any extra moves the “road” crew have to make when working the industries.
Any train that leaves out of my yard bound for our customers will only have cars destined for those industries that particular train (job) works, in the order that train works those industries, although we may also have that train take a cut or two out on the rear and leave those cuts in a siding for another crew to work…the idea is to move the cars closer to the industry as quickly and efficiently as we can, with the least number of movements.
One of our jobs has to go all the way to the end of our railroad, run around their train and then work their way back in towards the yard
Leave a couple of 'S’s out, and this sentence becomes REALLY funny…
Well that is a horse of a different color. In your original example I was making one set out and one pick up. But yes, as you work, your spot get deeper. Some may do it differently, but when I first hired the conductor I worked with did it that way.
He told me “Son, never take one customers spots into another customer if you can help it. You don’t want to have to tell him you derailed his car in someone else’s siding.” We almost spotted loads and pulled empties, so we arranged the work to avoid taking one guys loads into another’s siding.
If you work in both directions, and all the locals I work did, you make the pulls and spots from each end, so the spots never really go that “deep”. Those spots that were on rear, are suddenly on the head end again. Sometimes, though it was still necessary to side track the previous pulls to handle the current spots.
It’s all about knowing the territory and work.
Nick
We have an industry that has a siding leading to a pit, then another switch with two “storage” tracks for new loads. But this switch has a real sharp frog on it. So if you try to shove a load in with an empty, and that empty goes through that diverging switch, you will pop the empty right off the rail. Happened several times before, and will happen again, I’m sure. So that means you have to hold onto enough extra loads (or steal some from the other storage track there) to be able to safely navigate that switch. You also cant take the engine past the switch at all.
It’s like a puzzle sometimes out here.
I’ve never been afraid to take another customer’s cars into someone’s siding, though. I have enough puzzles to handle without throwing that “rule” into the mix… track is track.
Now that I look at it, you right, that’s kinda funny!
[}:)]