This evening, the weather is perfect for once, so I walked downtown to the trainyard. Our city has two long viaducts that go over the top of the BNSF yard, providing a good seat to watch the yard operations. The crew was using their normal power, an SW1000, and an SW1500 to re-arrange darn near every car in the yard. There was an engineer, and two switchmen on the ground. Is this a standard crew for a yard switcher? How about, when they move around town, doing some industry switching?
On a side note, I found it interesting that both switchers had 2 seats on the side opposite the engineer. (Closed circuit to BNSF:How to pad your bottom line this quarter-I’d pay good money to ride in one of those seats for a couple of hours[:P])
I can show you some pretty productive crews that are made up of one RCO. Occasionally he gets to use one of the seats. His choice.
(Murph, those are the same three seats that were in a switcher cab when I was growing up. I sometimes had to resort to sitting on a fusee box, when the engineer, fireman, and head brakeman all were occupying the cab.)
the termial i work out of has 2 people regulery assigned to the yard jobs… and the local switchers… there is a untility man that works with the yard crews as an extra set of hands and eyes when spoting tracks and making couplings and pulling tracks to make sure all the cars are coupled together when getting ready to spot or double a track that was just switched…as well as helping to line switches for the yard crews… the utility man also helps out with the road trains do there work in the terminal to get them in and out faster…
as far as the 3rd seat… sometimes we have riders…such as trainees and bosses…
It is very nice to have a 3rd guy on a switch job. He can be in the field, getting cars laced up, watching shoves, lining switches, etc. Helps take some of the pressure off the conductor. Last night we didn’t have a 3rd guy, and the cndr was forced to the job, low man on the board. Took a while.
It depends on how much money the MTO wants to pay (It comes out of his budget) and what the local agreements call for. For some of our TSE’s they have a Hogger, Conductor, and a Brakeman. It really depends on how many places they have to switch. The yard jobs at centinnial have either a RTO crew (2 men and a box) or a standard crew ((3 man) there’s one per shift so that trains that hog out within the terminal limits can be drug in).
When I hired out, the standard yard crew was a foreman and two helpers. Some crews had one foreman, one helper, and a radio handset. Utility men that could attach themselves to any crew helped reduce the ranks, once the agreements allowed them.
Now, with most yard crews being RCOs, we have either two-man crews or one-man crews. U-men still exist, but are not allowed to attach themselves to a remote crew–they’re more to help with yarding road trains.
Never heard of a floating U man. Most BNSF crews in what would be a roustabout or RS/local has three. Engineer Conductor and brakeman or in yard service Foreman and helper.
Most BNSF yard jobs have just a foreman and helper both with RCO packs.We do have “pusher jobs” that start stalled cars in the bowl.They have an engineer,foreman and helper.
Then you have the best jobs in the yard where its a hostler and a pilot or better termed " Yard Engine Herder"
Our U man just skates tracks and sets out bad orders. He may also attach to a crew where the crew has no experience in the job.
a utility man is a switchman that works in the yards and is “attached” to a crew as an extra set of hands to help out crews with there work… he can be attached to more then one crew in the corse of his shift… working with yard jobs and or road trains… but can only work with one crew at a time…