While passing by on Thursday afternoon, I decided to take a few minutes to look around and grab some photos. Glad I did - some new and unusual things were seen - some of the “latest and greatest” in modern railroading, as follows:
First, a photo of the local resident ‘pet’, the hump pusher SD40-2 6199 ‘mother’ and attached RPU-6 ‘slug’ 862, spotted at the hump shack - not much going on - the road on the right is a public road:
And another, looking the other way:
But what’s that lit-up black electronic board with the red symbols back there alongside the slug ? Is the “Thoroughbred of Transportation” now running a ‘tote board’ of some kind on the trains, or the cars to be humped ? [swg] Here’s a closer look:
And another closer-up, of a similar board in the opposite direction, but facing the other way towards the hump:
From a quick glimpse when I first drove by, these appear to scroll down with car numbers and track destinations or similar, perhaps to better inform the Radio-Controlled Unit hump crew on the ground as to where to make the ‘cuts’ in the string of cars to be humped, etc. But by the time I could get back, that humping was done, and they were at rest. So maybe I’ll get a better photo another time . . .
And to try to keep the speeding motorists under control - the road is posted for 35 MPH - NS has installed an apparently permanent electronic speed monitoring and display screen by the entrance walkway to the yard tower, shown here:
M
I’ve never worked one of those fancy hump yards, but from what I understand, those boards tell the “pin puller” which, well, pins to pull.
Those SD40-2/slug sets are awesome, though. Both for moving cars and stopping them. Nice to see those photos - makes me miss the road a little.
Thanks, zugmann - glad you liked them. Sure is neat to hear that old gal wind 'em up - see below.
Here’s the rest of my photos. First, a kind of oblique view of the hump itself, again from the public road - this is one of the few yards where you can get this close to one. That’s the master retarder in the closest track behind the dark pole to the left, and to the left of that - where the metal plating is between the rails - appears to be a “weigh-in-motion” scale:
However, these appear to be new replacement retarder panels, stacked and awaiting installation:
The joggers in the background of the above photo are on the Lehigh Canal Towpath Trail, which parallels the yard closely from Allentown all the way to Bethlehem, about 3 - 4 miles. The canal itself is between the farthest track and the towpath, down the embankment which is why you can’t see it or its water. The water in the far background is the Lehigh River, flowing from right / west to left/ east. The view from the towpath of the yard varies from good to bad, depending on where trains are spotted on those farthest tracks and the foliage density during each season of the year. Although the canal has enough water and is legal for unpowered boats - canoes. kayaks, rowboats, pedalboats, etc. - the view isn’t any better from there.
Rack for EOTDs/ FREDs next to the hump shack:
'Is time to go to work" (from the “Julio and Audio” radio bits about 20 years ago). Notice the smoke plume as she starts up, the 2 crewmen on the end, the retarder panels at the lower left, and the warning sign at the right:
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Good job, Paul! Or should I call you “K.P. North”?
I’m with Zug…that sounds like a good use for such a board–giving the cut numbers and possibly a warning to stop when required by rules (for hazardous cars, etc.).
I’m wondering about those spare retarders…they don’t appear to be very heavy-duty, for use on the business end of the yard. Could they be inert, or skate retarders for use at the opposite end of the class tracks (I know–why would they be at the hump, then?)?
I wish we could have gotten over that way on this trip, but the destination was wrong, and we’re actually working our way back home now. We will be getting that way sometime, I assure you! I would like to park somewhere off the road, take a seat cushion or two, and just sit on that guard rail and watch for a while.
I had some spare time - and good weather - today, so I walked along the other/ south side of the Allentown Yard and shot some more photos, as follows:
“K.P. North” - I’ll accept that compliment ! In honor of that, below is a shot of the “box” for CP CANAL - above it is the hump shack, and the yellow structure is a platform to hold spare coupler knuckles.
More interestingly, you can see a message in red characters on that hump display board - it appears to be the time on the top line - “15 : 49 : 30”, then on the next line something like “7 R I U” (reminds me of an eye exam chart !), then on the bottom line clearly “Track 7”:
EDITED 28 April 2011: That next line is most likely “T R I M” - see a closer photo of it a few days later on, a few more posts and photos below. It is like an eye chart ! How’d I do ? - PDN.
Still want to get a better photo of that someday, though.
Carl, you may be more right than you knew about those retarders - they’re still loaded on flatcars ! (hidden from view in the photo in my original post)
Here’s a view of part of the “Repair-In-Place” or “RIP” track/ area on the north side of the yard, next to the public road. Note the yellow stanchions and the red or pink line between them - I believe it’s a “static line” to attach safety harnesses to for carmen who have to do work on the tops of cars - note the reel or ‘retriever’ at the left end:
Carl, to whet your appetite for when you do come - here’s a quick shot of the modernistic yard tower - note the high-level covered walkway to the road on the hillside - with the hump
More photos of the hump display board, in a sequence:
Note that the last 3 digit’s of the gon’s number - “863” - show up on the board in the 2nd photo, but have scrolled up and off by the time the front of the car gets opposite it - I believe as soon as the RFID ‘reader’ detects a car, that car’s number then scrolls off the screen. I’m not sure what the “<” symbol means - maybe those cars can be ‘cut off’ together ? But that’s not what they did - those two cars with that symbol in this photo were both cut-off and humped separately. They only humped a few before going down to ‘trim’ - see photo below - so I wasn’t able to establish any better correlation for that. The “E” and “L” mean “Empty” and “Load” of course, I believe, and the numbers at the right side of the board are the classification track numbers - at that time, they seemed to be using only 26, 3, 16, and 24.
Looking at the other board, on the eastern/ approach side of the hump, the covered hopper in the background - “351” - is on the 3rd line:
Overall view of this portion of the hump area - I believe there are RFID scanners in the 4 white posts, or similar:
Next the display board showed a message something like “TRIM MODE” for a few seconds, then this, after which the loco and the remaining few cars went over the hump - still all coupled together - and down into the ‘bowl’ to ‘trim’ Track 16, presumably.
Later shot
Paul, I wonder if the < symbol means where to make a cut/pull the pin. The symbol seems to come up on the last car going to a particular track. It also appears to restrict the number of loads in a cut being allowed to roll free going into the same track. Many places also have restrictions on how many empties can be allowed to roll free. The pictures of the board show only 5 numbers at a time, that might be consistent (see the picture with one to 16 and four to 24) with how many they allow to go over the hump together.
Jeff
Well, OK - but then I was observing that since all the < symbols seemed to be associated with cars for Track 16 - which is the same one that then had to be ‘trimmed’ - maybe the < related to the trimming process somehow . . .
But no. Look instead at the topmost photo in my most recent post above. The 1st < is for the lone car “811” for Track 26, which makes sense. The next 4 cars all appear to be “Loads” for Track 3. Whoever or whatever makes up the pin-pulling list apparently decided that the next car “126” would go by itself, then the next 2 - “167” and “690” - would go together, becasue the < is after the 690. The next - and last - car in the list, “173” (?), apparently would go with another car, which isn’t up on the display yet. All of that makes some sense - so yeah, Jeff, I think you got it figured out [tup] - but I’ll have to watch more closely next time I’m out that way to confirm that myself. In the meantime, thanks.
Fascinating pictures and descriptions of the operation Paul. Thanks for sharing them. Having only seen yards “kicking” cars the process you describe sounds similar in concept but I’d love to see a similar operation to appreciate its pace.
We might be able to arrange something, Dan…just get down this way.
Also noticed in one instance that a load and an empty destined for the same track were separated (assuming that Jeff’s theory is correct, which I think is plausible and likely). There are many times when I wished that that were a rule in our playground–if a load and empty are cut off together, you retard the cut based on the weight of the load. If the empty’s ahead of the load, it will ride up and bounce around a bit. Scary sometimes!
Interesting insight, Carl - next time I get over that way with some time to look and watch, I’ll have to look for that pattern, too. May be a while, though - a now-resumed major street and utility reconstruction project on the only major arterial street to get there - Hanover Ave. (Hamilton St. East) - has traffic really backed up most of the time . . . [:-^]
Meanwhile, here’s a lone photo from the west end of the yard/ terminal, taken from a portion of the City of Allentown’s Canal Park parking lot, at: N 40.59923 W 75.44986 This is where the locomotives for WB trains often stop during their “doubling” or 'tripling", and/ or to await clearance to proceed westward, etc. Decent scenery and no hassles that I know of or have experienced:
