In the “The Switchback” section of this article between Frame 2 and Frame 3 a lot of steps weren’t mentioned. I’ve thought this through in my mind, and here’s what I came up with, but is this correct:
1.) engine backs out of the siding to the start of the passing siding,
2.) couples the last 4 cars using the 3 already on the front of the engine,
3.) backs out all 7 cars,
4.) leaves the 4 just picked up on the mainline,
5.) places the remaining 3 on the end of the train on the passing siding,
6.) backs out of the siding to the mainline and couples the 4 left on the mainline,
7.) delivers those 4 to the facing points of the siding.
So I can see this working, but I thought cars couldn’t be left on the mainline? Am I missing something?
On the prototype, it’s typical for a way freight to leave the whole train sitting on the main outside of town while the engine cuts off the cars to be delivered. This is done so that the local switching can be done with the siding and main track clear to facilitate run around moves etc… Once local switching is done, the engine backs down the main and couples up to his train with the cars he’s picked up. He may then draw the train into “town” so that he can use the main and siding to put the cars he just picked up out of the way in the centre of the train or he may just continue on his way to the next location.
Modellers generally bring the whole train into town as we usually don’t have enough room out on the main to leave the train plus we run more trains in a shorter time period than the prototype so we don’t have time to tie up the main with our train while the engine switches the town.
Depends on a lot of things…When I worked as a brakeman We would take our train with us instead of making a extra reverse move across crossings which would need to be flagged and plus a man would need to ride the last car protecting the shove.Now if we left our train outside of town that may be a very long time to hang on the side of a car plus,if there is a block signal permission must be recieved before we can pass the stop.We would leave our train below any major road or street crossing.
Think of this…If our train was short we may be ask to clear up in a industrial siding or industrial lead so the dispatcher can run trains.
As far as run around moves if at all possible we would avoid them by switching the industry on the return trip this saved time,extra moves and unnecessary work…Also note if there wasn’t a pick up we would make a flying switch instead of a runaround move…One man would ride the car and set the hand brake shortly after clearing the switch.