i was looking thru some local railfan pictures, and came across one that was bit weird. it showed th Providence & Worcester railroad NR2 heading across the bridge over new london yard. everything semed normal, except the train was pushing a tank car in front of the lead locomotive. why would this be done? i cant imagine the engineer could see much of the track ahead.
Thanks
GEARHEAD426
GH426, Good question. One possible answer: it was delivering it to a local, maybe in-house, track such as the diesel shop or RIP track, with a facing point turnout. (Good observation, though!) jc5729
The most likely explanation would be that the car is to be spotted into a facing point spur. When I was working on the RR we would simply drop the car into the spur…leave one crew member at the switch, back up and get a roll on towards the switch, uncouple the car, have the man at the switch throw the switch for the spur after the engine passed and then the man riding the car (who had uncoupled it on the fly) would ride the car into the spur and use the hand brake to stop it. Since I retired 18 years ago there might have been changes in proceedures, especially since the tank car might have been loaded w/ dangerous cargo. As far as visibility, notice the similarity between a tank car ahead of the engine’s cab and the layout of the average steam engine. You’d be suprised at the visibility along a car narrower than the full width of the cab.
jimrice4449;
You know as well as I do that “Dutch Drops” or “Flying Switches” or whatever you want to call them is one of the quickest routes to the unemployment line.
What is Murphey’s first law? If something can go wrong it will go wrong.
It must have been in 1964 when I saw an Onion Specific SW something or other on the ties North of Idaho Falls, Idaho; somehow or another the switch had gotten thrown under the rear truck of the SW something or other; adding insult to injury the boxcar being dropped had then plowed into the derailed SW something or other. All they had were kibitzers present when I encountered this wreck on a Saturday afternoon. I can tell you this; it was quite obvious that this wreck wasn’t going to be cleared up with a rerailing frog. Don’t know when they finally got a hook to the site but it was the next morning before traffic started moving again on the line to Butte. Even my uncle who was still running a section crew out of St Anthony, Idaho on the West Yellowstone Line at that time heard about that one. He commented that those boys were probably going to consume a lot of Milk of Magnesia because their life had just become the you-know-what.
You’d be amazed how much vision you can have around a single car. Especially short cars, like gondolas, and narrow cars, like tanks. I’ve done it. There’s no sence riding a car, when you don’t have to.
The car was probably being shoved up to spot at a facing point turnout.
Flying switches are now banned. But it is still permissible to do a static drop. You set the brake on the car, cut away, duck the engine out if the way, and release the brake on the car. If everything works right, the car rolls by the engine. The engine then comes out, couples up, and you’re on your way again.
Nick