The coupling process?

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
21

Mark,I will say this…A “crash” coupling is frowned on and can get the crew in hot water that will result in standing before the man in order to give account.

As far as modelers…This won’t be popular but,I have also watch switching videos and watched in person and with the number of operating and safety rules they break they would be fired. I won’t get into the Union work rule violations.

Why is it thus? For the majority their knowledge about operations come from a book on operation written by author that never work on the road.These books don’t cover the operation and safety rules like a railroader must learn and follow.

The sadder part some of these “operators” are the first to cry “Its my railroad and I don’t need any rules”.Little do they know to the knowledgeable they are not prototypically operating their layout.

You mention momentum.Maybe this will help?

I use braking and momentum and one needs to learn the correct momentum setting and amount of braking needed for making a smooth stop at a switch,making a smooth complete stop before or at a coupling.

Successful switching operation with momentum and braking requires slow speed switching as well…

22

Brakie, I was wondering if you were ever going to Chime-in on this subject.

23

Over the years I have read Larry’s posting on how the 1:1 runs things and how he does it on his layout. It has changed the way I operate. Though I never really di the speed track thing.

And with a industrial switching layout, I now couple slower, run engines slower, take time for the crews to do their jobs. Such as, throwing switches, walking pass the rail cars, climbing onto cars or engines, etcetera.
It adds a lot more fun then, slam, bam, and speed off. [:D]

24

Those you tube videos are great, I remember seeing them a couple years ago. There are a bunch of other railroad safety films to be found there too. They show the safe way for ground crews to work, which makes me think about how my imaginary model crews will act and where they will be. Watching 1:1 switching activities is rare (at an industry, not necessarily at a yard), depending on your location, but it’s very insightful to help get that ‘railroady’ feeling in my 1:87 world by slowing down the operations and thinking about the ground crew.

I always stop 5 feet from the car (or so there is at least 3 ties visible between the cars) before I couple to it, then I try to couple so the car to be picked up doesn’t roll at all (usually in speed step 1), or only a scale foot or two…of course this means couplers have to be tweaked and the new super free rolling cars make this difficult to achieve as they’d rather roll than couple together. I lubricate couplers with regular #2 pencil lead made by rubbing it against fine sandpaper to make fine dust and dropping it in the coupler pocket (put in more than necessary, work the coupler all around, then blow out the extra dust (be careful not to spit in it.lol) so only a thin coating remains inside).

Something else that helps is to file the parting line on the knuckle of KD’s…use a fine file or emory board to make a smooth, almost polished surface, so the knuckles slide with as little force as possible (and paint won’t stick very well to the faces). I paint my couplers and after a few couplings, the paint wears off in only the right places so couplers work really well and look nice too. It takes time but it gives me a nice change of pace from other railroad activities (I only have about 100 cars and a small 2’x25’ layout so it’s not a monumental task to work on one or three cars every once in a while if they don’t behave like I want them to).

25

Lance Mindheim has given clinics on the subject of prototypical switching operations. If you have a chance to see one of these presentations, it is highly recommended. Stop your train at appropriate locations to let the brakeman get off the cars to throw a switch. Don’t move again until he has a chance to get back aboard. If you’re using the air brakes, be sure to allow enough time to recharge the air line before moving. Things like that can put you in the mindset of a railroader, as opposed to the mindset of a guy running model trains.

26

I have cut most of the knuckle springs so they just fit between the two prongs with no tension on the spring (2 or 3 loops). This makes the coupler open with less force. I also graphite the heck out of the whole coupler mechanism. I also weight my cars on the heavy side and also don’t mind the non-free rolling cars, (as someone else said, all the more reason to hook up more power!).

27

Just a short hour drive up the road from my house is the Strasburg Railroad, a steam powered short line offering excursion passenger runs most of the year on a regular published sachedule - trains every hour, and sometimes every half hour, every day, seven days a week, during the warmer months, for some 55 years now.

Their operation consists of a point to point run which requires the loco to run around the train and recouple to it at each end of the run - so twice per scheduled train.

This operation is played out in plain view of those standing on the platform on the “station” end of the line. And having visited this Railroad problably some 30-40 times in my lifetime, I have watched this process of them coupling a steam loco to a string of passenger cars that are being unloaded and loaded at the same time many times - maybe as many as 100 times.

And every time it is the same, the loco engineer stops the loco about 5 feet from the cars, the conductor makes sure the couplers are in line and fully open, then he directs the engineer to move toward the cars, indicating the closing distance with his hands.

As the couplers meet the conductor closes his fist, then waves his hand, the cars are coupled, and the train did not move an inch. The conductor then connects the air hose and opens the angle cocks.

In all my many visits to Strasburg, I can only remember once or twice feeling even the slightest “bump” as they coupled at either end of the line.

http://www.strasburgrailroad.com/

Sheldon

28

Now a few thoughts on model coupling in HO scale.

I use only regular head genuine Kadee couplers for more consistant operation.

The newer semi scale couplers may look a little better, but they actually have the same, or slightly more, train length slack, plus they require more coupling force, especially when coupling to a regular head coupler.

Side note - my other reason for not using semi scale couplers is side to side position, commonly called gathering range. The gathering range of the regular Kadee is larger than the tolerances of wheel guage and track width with regular NMRA track standards. The semi scale couplers have a gathering range smaller than these tolerances, making the chance of coupler miss-alignment greater.

Personally, I think the trip pins look just fine as air hoses in a coupled train - our hobby is full of compromises, this one is reasonable. That said, they must be correctly adjusted. That does not mean bent upwards like a “J” hook the way so many of the generic couplers on RTR cars are these days.

Correctly adjusted means adjusted per the Kadee instructions, with the bottom end parallel to the rail - period.

Correctly adjusted they don’t hit anything, don’t catch anything (except maybe a loco pilot or two - more on that later) and cause no problems - and if you chose to use magnets - it makes them work correctly.

Now I should also mention that I am a big fan of close coupling - that is reducing the distance between cars to as close to a scale distance as possible - especially on MU diesel lashups and passenger cars. This can casue issues on some diesel pilots - but I find if you just shave a little off the bottom of the pilot, so the correctly, not “J” hooked, trip pin can slide under it, you are generally OK.

Car weight and rolling resistance - I like free rolling cars, I have done a lot of work in that area to pull longer trains. But my methods also prefer cars

29

Just a few thoughts, huh?

30

The Architect and Designer Mies van der Rohe said “God is in the details”, sorry the details are so much trouble.

I will just go away now.

Sheldon

31

BUCK UP Sheldon! Just funnin’ with you!

32

As for the real railroads, I have a DVD with an old railroad training film from the '40’s or '50’s (can’t think of the railroad that made it - perhaps New York Central) that the ‘breaking point’ (no pun intended) was 5 MPH. Any coupling above that speed risked damaging the lading inside the freight car.

When coupling to occupied passenger cars, many railroads required an engine to stop 10-15 feet short, and then crawl in for a soft coupling. For many years, when open-frame motors meant model engines didn’t roll as smoothly as they do now, many model railroaders did that too.

I’ve seen many layout videos (even of the “Great Model Railroads” series) that shows rough coupling with the cars moving a lot after coupling. I think part of it is speed - modellers on a big layout with other many other people in an operating session maybe feel compelled to just “get er done” as quick as possible, and forget about making it realistic.

It could also be just that some people aren’t that good at running engines / trains, or don’t practice. I know when I couple onto a car, I try to make the car move as little as possible. In some cases if it moves too much (like a scale 10-15 feet or more) I’ll uncouple and try it again until I get it right.

I like to set the speed and momentum of my engines so they all are as close to identical as possible. Once you get used to that, it’s not that hard to do switching realistically. An engine like a BLI NW-2 will crawl along at 6-8 MPH is no problem, and you can learn just when to cut power to allow the engine’s momentum to glide it into a soft coupling.

33

Just as a reference from personal experience, i say this…

Back when i wore a younger mans clothes, my railfanning career was alot brighter than it is by todays standards. Once upon a time, there were rail crews out there that were actually not bothered at all by a railfan hanging around.

I was lucky that i came across one such crew. I wont give details as to where and when or crew names (so no trouble comes unto them for being friendly), but the scene is a large paper factory with a modest yard serving it.

The crew was, to me, very professional. The ground crew were hardened looking men fashioned by long hours of hard work in all sorts of weather. The engineer a grissled old man who narry spoke a word and very much resembled the actor Alan Hale (captain from Gilligan’s Island). He would still answer my youthful questions.

As for his coupling prowess, to this day i have never seen any better. He had obviously mastered the technique of throttle/brake control. So much so that on more than one occasion, while in the cab, the “jostle” of coupling could NOT, i repeat, NOT be felt. He was that good! I asked quite a few times “did we just couple up?”… he would glance over the control stand and just smile.

I know now, being older, this was experience at work. Yet being naive, i thought this was how it was done by everyone. Certainly now being older i realize this is something that most only strive for.

Sure there are training videos, and rules and regs that will state you dont couple to cars doing 60mph. So i think it is safely said, engineers mean to do it with kid gloves. However, as we know… it doesnt always work out like we wish things would.

If i ever, EVER, get the chance to sit in the god seat… you better believe i would do my best to recreate that old engineers habits. Not only is that how its spose to be done, but i think a fitting tribute to the rail crew who gave me the opportunity

34

Before Alan Hale was the Skipper, he was Casey Jones. Seems appropriate to mention that.

35

[quote user=“PM Railfan”]

Just as a reference from personal experience, i say this…

Back when i wore a younger mans clothes, my railfanning career was alot brighter than it is by todays standards. Once upon a time, there were rail crews out there that were actually not bothered at all by a railfan hanging around.

I was lucky that i came across one such crew. I wont give details as to where and when or crew names (so no trouble comes unto them for being friendly), but the scene is a large paper factory with a modest yard serving it.

The crew was, to me, very professional. The ground crew were hardened looking men fashioned by long hours of hard work in all sorts of weather. The engineer a grissled old man who narry spoke a word and very much resembled the actor Alan Hale (captain from Gilligan’s Island). He would still answer my youthful questions.

As for his coupling prowess, to this day i have never seen any better. He had obviously mastered the technique of throttle/brake control. So much so that on more than one occasion, while in the cab, the “jostle” of coupling could NOT, i repeat, NOT be felt. He was that good! I asked quite a few times “did we just couple up?”… he would glance over the control stand and just smile.

I know now, being older, this was experience at work. Yet being naive, i thought this was how it was done by everyone. Certainly now being older i realize this is something that most only strive for.

Sure there are training videos, and rules and regs that will state you dont couple to cars doing 60mph. So i think it is safely said, engineers mean to do it with kid gloves. However, as we know… it doesnt always work out like we wish things would.

If i ever, EVER, get the chance to sit in the god seat… you better believe i would do my best to recreate that old engineers habits. Not only is that how its spose to be done, but i think a fitting tribute

36

Im quite glad you did mention this. This is my learned fact for the day. I was totally unaware Alan Hale was Casey Jones. Thanks!

Douglas

37

"Much the same as what I described above - that happens at Strasburg a dozen or more times a day, most every day, for a good part of the the year, for the last 40-50 years now.

Sheldon"

I was just adding to the heap. Paying a little tribute to that long ago crew.

Douglas

38

Was this Casey Jones in a movie? I would like to see that.

39

While the engineer handles the throttle and brakes, it’s really up to the trainman/switchman at the joint on how hard it’s made. Good, consistent car counts and the “that’ll do” signal at the right moment is the difference between a soft or hard coupling.

Crews that work together on a regular basis in the same general area, such as in a yard or on a local freight, get a feel for one another. The groundman knows how his engineer will handle the train/engine when he gives (either by radio or hand signal), “5 cars.” The engineer knows 5 cars today means 5 - 50 foot cars, the same as it did yesterday and the day before. Not 5 - 50 foot box cars yesterday and 5 - 89 foot auto racks today.

Also, once you’ve made the joint, don’t forget to stretch it to ensure the pin dropped and it’s secure. Many rules today call for that. Nothing more funny (or exasperating depending on your point of view) than coupling up, making the air and once you start moving have the train go into emergency. All because it looked like the coupling made, but really hadn’t.

Jeff

40

Alan Hale’s version of Casey Jones was a TV series that lasted about 1 or 2 years in the mid 1950’s. His engine was Sierra no. 3, and Casey got transplanted from the I.C. in Mississippi to some (unnamed?) railroad in the Wild West. It was NOT a documentary, but it was fun.