The Lost Art of Switching

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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[soapbox]

I sat in the clear for another crew to switch in front of me the other day. While watching him take what seemed like an inordinate amount of time to make a simple move, I thought about how switching is increasingly a lost art.

I’m sure Houston Ed can sympathize with me here, but the new guys just don’t know how to switch like us old guys. I hate to use the word shortcut, because it sounds like cutting corners, but the truth is a lot of these guys (and girls) don’t know the shortcuts to allow them to do the same amount of work in fewer moves. Or make three extra moves, that cut an hour off the time needed.

When I hired, all our yard jobs and many locals had brakeman. I was lucky enough to brake for some amazing switchmen, that actually showed me the how and the why of the moves, instead of just telling me to stand at the switch. Sadly, we no longer have brakemen, and the new hires are lucky to get 3 months of training, before going out there solo. So, much of this knowledge is lost.

Conductors able to switch using tracklists and a yard check are rapidly vanishing. I’m proud to be one of the few. It is painful to watch someone switch out a track, putting each different class to seperate track, then bury dangerous, then double everything up, when by making strategic cuts and pulls on a track, I can block and bury everything up front.

Oh well rant over [8D]

Nick

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I wish it were just railroading that has lost its artistry. But so many business hire people for jobs rather than careers and so many hire out on jobs rather than seeking careers. There are so many reasons for this happening…someday we’ll wake up and realize that our workers are our best resource and not a commodity to be shipped off shore to save a penny in manufacture.

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I remember when I first hired out with IAIS and then CPRS after I graduated from the U of Iowa. As an Operator/Agent/Yard Clerk I was lucky enough in both instances to be able to work with train and yard crews who knew their jobs and knew them quite well. It was simply amazing to me how they skillfully switched out a yard or train and did it relatively quickly. You learned a lot from these guys and the knowledge they passed along was invaluable. Sadly, that knowledge and skill is rapidly disappearing.

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Another bad deal is watching a yard crew be told how to switch by the TM and YM.Sure out away from the yard do it like you want to but in the yard its make the cut here double there cut here back to that track. You shake your head at the lunacy of it but what do you do?You cant tell them anything. So I try to get every detail I can from the old heads before they are all gone!

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Especially if that yardmaster and/or trainmaster has never switched cars a day in their lives. The ones that think kicking a car is walking up to it and kicking it with your boot.

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Don’t get me started.

It is painful to watch some of the RCOs on a simple move such as moving a car from one track to another. If they can tie onto the subject car, they will…

  1. Walk to the other end of the engine.

  2. Get on the point and move up the hill.

  3. Bring the car all the way up.

  4. Stop–get out of the cab and get off the engine (no more getting off on the fly).

  5. Move up one engine length.

  6. Stop the engine and get on.

  7. Back further up and stop quickly to get the slack.

  8. Pull the pin.

  9. Go back into the intermediate retarder and pick the car up again, because they didn’t clear the switch presence detector.

  10. Repeat Steps 2 through 8.

Experienced switchmen can do it all, legally, in one fluid motion after tying on, even to the point of checking their lineups. Legally, the remote operator can ride an engine-length away from the point, if he knows his route is clear. So why not just walk through the unit to whichever end is appropriate?

As MC would say, [banghead][banghead][banghead]

[sigh]

As to the officers or foremen telling experienced folks how to do something (instead of just what to do), that’s how I get my breaks when I need them–when their moves don’t just make extra work for me. I had to use some gentle persuasion on my hump conductor just today, after he destroyed my lineup.

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There are no longer any ‘apprentice’ positions on the railroads

In the day, the firemen were able to observe and learn from the Engineer on a trip by trip day by day basis…and with the right engineer get some practical running time for themselves. Brakemen learned the ins and outs of switching by being with experienced Conductors day in and day out. Yardmasters progressed from either train & engine personnel or from Yard Clerks … all crafts being able to observe and get instruction from experienced Yardmasters on the why’s and wherefore’s of the Yardmaster’s craft. Dispatchers rose from the ranks of Tower and Train Order operators who got daily demonstrations of the tools, logic an decisions making process involved in manipulating traffic on a territory on a day in and day out basis.

All those learning positions are gone. A person hires in off the street, goes through a several week training curriculum to get the minimum basics of being a brakeman. A few more weeks of OJT training assignments on the territory where they will be marking up and WALA! we have the newest Conductor on the roster. Be a conductor for a year (or less) and then onto Engineers training…several months of ‘classroom’ instruction and then into the field as a Engineer Trainee for several more months and WALA! we have the newest Engineer on the roster.

While Yardmaster still routinely come to the position from train and engine service, by being out in the yard actively switching cars, they are not privy to all the influences and priorities that are handed down to Yardmaster which then affect their decision making. Decisions that can either make or minimize the overall handling of cars and trains. Additionally, the transition from inst

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As an experienced RRer once told me: “no one is born a railroader”. It is a skill that must be taught (a little critical thinking, common sense and imagination help, too). I love it when some old head comes in complaining that “this new so-and-so conductor doesn’t know his (butt) from a hole in the ground”.

I just chuckle to myself, becuase I bet a year’s salary that some old head said the exact same thing about them when they were new. I’m lucky to be at a terminal that still has a brakeman’s list. I had no clue how to shift when I started on the road. It was simple doubles and cuts. It wasn’t until I came to this small, local yard that I learned the finer points of shifting (switching). And that is ONLY because some of the older guys gave me tips and pointers. The training program is a joke - so you can either sit back and complain on a forum about it, or you can offer some advice and help to these newer guys. A shame, but too many take the easy way out and complain. Without the help from old heads previous, the current old heads wouldn’t know a lantern from a lollipop.

And with the managers hiding in the weeds and passing out discipline like there’s no tomorow, what is the incentive to get done faster? Many places won’t let you get a quit, and there will be hell to pay if you wreck something or get hurt. It’s their sandbox and they creaed the rules. So just follow them and take your time. Then we’ll play another game tomorow.

PS. Many RRers that think they are god’s gift to switching usually are the worst switchers in the yard.

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Another gem from the Treasury of Railroad Folklore: The TM began telling the conductor how to do the switching on a cut of 56 cars; the conductor told the TM, “Sounds very good, Mr. B. When you get through switching, I’ll be upstairs in the tower.” After the TM wanted to know why the conductor would be in the tower and not doing the work, the conductor replied, “Well, there’s only one conductor on the job. He’s got to make the moves.” The TM saw the light and went up into the tower. "

Johnny

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I actually did something close to just that.

TM was explaining how he wanted me to switch a cut to keep a “hot” car up front so it could get spotted first when the train got out there…he even went so far as to explain how the tracks in a plant I must have worked 100 times were laid out and how I would have to make the move to spot it up.

I let him finish, handed him my gloves, radio, and switch folder…told him “that’s sound great…I’ll be inside having coffee, holler at me when you’re ready to double up”.

Almost got in the door before he realized how dumb he was being.

And I was so looking forward to watching “a pro” switch.

I give up telling the new guys to “hang one and come against the next cut” or “footboard that cover car for a few cuts”…they have no clue, you literally have to explain it step by step by step, and they often don’t get it even then.

They will simply switch every thing the way the list shows, even if they have switched into the same tracks for months, and every day they have to make cover on the same end of the same track, because that’s the top track for the same outbound they have built up every single day.

Instead of holding them out or sloughing their cover cars into a empty track, they kick them in there anyway, then spend a half hour to an hour digging them back out at the end of the switching.

Ya try and help ‘em out, you go over and offer the hint, their head nods up and down…and then they continue to kick them in there anyway.

Every once in a while one hires on that realizes real quick all we are doing is moving “boxes” from one spot to another, and the trick is they have to line up in a particular order when your done…and they figure out that two moves here saves an hour and a lot of walking later on.

They do show up, but its few and far between.

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Another bad deal

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My story (here on the forum) about having to assembly my three car train at the beginning of the season this year garnered quite a few responses with how I could have done it better (which I’ll freely admit). Even then, most solutions were within 2-3 moves of what it took me.

It’s like any job, though. You get better from learning and watching.

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Operational railroading is about vision.

It is about seeing, really seeing, what the situtation is NOW.

Seeing, really seeing, what the situation needs to be at the designated END.

And the seeing the most effective moves to go from NOW to END.

Most neophites see NOW as a forest and the and END as city of houses with no idea of what is required to transform the forest of trees to the completed wood frame houses of the city. The PRO’s do!

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Yeah, but Larry, there is a difference.

You do what you do quite well, you take pride in doing a good job, not because it pays you any better, but because it is part and parcel of who and what you are.

Fighting fires or being a conductor on a tourist railroad, either one gets your full, undivided attention and all the skill you can bring to the job, because that is one of the things that determines your self worth.

You do a good job because you choose to, not have to.

And that one bit of self motivation is what makes the difference between simply being a warm body that showed up and being a railroader.

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Gee - Thanks, Ed!

After reading Balt’s post, it came to me that at the end of our day I often ask the trainmaster (more often than not also the engineer) what he wants the “end state” to be. We don’t always leave things the same, depending on a number of factors. In fact, how I found things may not be how we leave them.

Once I know that, we can set about doing it.

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Hear Hear!

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Well put, BaltACD and edblysard. This, of course, applies in any position, in any work.

And, zugmann, that also applies universally.

Johnny

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I try and pass on as much knowledge as possible. But as Ed said, you can talk till your blue in the face and they just don’t get it. Every once and a while one has the light go on. But after years of bad training and being set in they’re ways, most just nod, and keep plugging away.

The training mentor would always make sure I had the trainees for at least a week toward the end of training. The first night or two they watching me, and I explained what I was doing and why. Boy were the trainees mad when I made them run the job by the end of the week. More then one complained to the mentor, and were told to shut up, because they were suppose to do the work, not watch me.

Unfortunately, when I became a yardmaster, I wasn’t able to do that anymore. I tried to guide the new guys through better ways of switching. Some picked it up some didn’t. But having 20 people to watch instead of just 1, limited the amount of time I could devote to helping the new guys along.

It does take a certain type of “vision” to look at switchlists and see the better way. Not everyone can. I don’t claim to be the best switchman out there, but I do have a reputation for fast, accurate work.

Yeah, I sometimes do get annoyed with yardmasters or trainmasters that have never moved a car. Most will accept suggestions on better ways to do things. The rest, well, the best way to screw things up is to do things exactly as they tell you.

Nick

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I can tell you that the issue you speak of here is nothing new and was floating around 40 to 50 years ago. Perhaps less prevalent, but there have always been crews, and individuals within the crews that just didn’t get the knack of doing the job efficiently. As BaltACD has noted, there is no longer an apprenticeship period, but in the day, not every conductor, senior switchman or brakeman was capable of teaching even if they knew what they were doing. Nevertheless, that was how railroad management expected train crews to learn the job.

I did not work for railroads after the big reductions in crew sizes and I have no idea of exactly what is in the curriculum for railroad training programs. However if it does not include training and excercises on how to switch cars efficiently, I’d say they are looking at substantial drop in productivity. When I speak of training, I am not talking about a couple of days following someone around a yard. It seems to me that it would not be difficult to set up computer simulations for any number of switching situations, each with a solution for the most efficient way to accomplish the desired outcome. Given sound instructions on the process and time in front of the simulations, the student who can grasp the principles should be in reasonable shape to further develop and improve his efficiency with real on the job experience.

The student that doesn’t get it?

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When I’m working, if a trainmaster or ATM tries to tell me how to switch i usually do it the exact way he or she says so that way when it take four times as long as it would have and he or she is calling on the radio asking why it’s taking so long i simply say that its exactly how they told me to do it so they have no one to blame but themselves. It only takes once for them to try to tell me how to switch. [swg]

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[:D] Thats Telling them Carl LOL Larry