I saw a move of perhaps 3 miles, that took better than an hour the other day. A BNSF grain unit train pulled into Sioux Falls, S.D., hauling corn from Madison, S.D. When the train comes in from the northwest, off the Madison line, it pulls into the north storage yard in town. The 3 GE’s on the south end of the train then swap places with Fred on the north end of the train. After that, the train is backed down a hill to the south, through the main yard, accross 3 busy grade crossings. Then the switch is lined, and the train heads out of town to the northeast. Elapsed time: somewhere between an hour and an hour& a half, from entering town until leaving town. Total distance covered:about 4 miles. Moves like this must really drag on the clocks.
A couple of questions: How long does it take, to swap the locomotives and Fred end-for-end? I presume the crew gets help from the local yard, so no one has to carry Fred a mile. How do they cover the tail end movements of the train, when the engine is a mile away? There is a caboose used locally now, by the switching crew. I didn’t see it anywhere in sight. (Spray-painted on the side of it is “BN battering ram”. Who do you think wrote that?)
The run around may only take 10 minutes, but maybe there is a re-crew involved, the longest is probably the brakes test and possible inspection by local MofE Dept.
I used to work in Andrews Yard in Columbia, South Carolina which had a utility man whose job was to assist trains within yard limits by throwing switches, mounting EOT’s along with his helping the yard crews with such things as air bleeding, watching shove movements, retrieving paper work from the yard office. On rare ocassions I would catch this assignment off the extra board. It was actually fun! Perhaps the yard in your area has such a job.
The shoving move has to be protected by someone (see the “blind shove” thread of a couple of weeks ago). Absent anyone else, it’s probably the conductor or brakeman, riding the end of the shove, stopping it to get down and flag each of the three grade crossings, stopping it again to get on again (you can’t get on and off moving equipment any more), then, one assumes, walking the length of the train back to the cab. Fortunately, only an apply-and-release air test should be needed before they can take off. Any more than that will take more time, as would an unsuccessful test.
Got to tell you about one of the slickest moves I ever experienced, involving a road crew bringing a train into the terminal and taking out a fresh train back to the point of origin. I was only along for the ride on the outbound train, in this case. The inbound train came in and stopped. The yard engine picked off the caboose, the hind man (and I) got aboard and the yard engine kicked it hard enough to sail it the length of the yard (better than a mile)! At the other end of the yard the head end was waiting, not only to put the caboose on the hind end of the outbound train, but also for the brakeman to be down flagging the grade crossing that our still-rolling caboose had to cross at the far end of the yard. By the time I (always anxious to help out) had the hose made and the anglecock turned, the power was moving back down to the other end. There was a bit of a wait for an air test, but within about twenty minutes we were on the move–the conductor got on when the caboose passed the yard office (where the head-end had been), and we were off. This was the midpoint of a 280-mile round-trip over a secondary line, done in well under the (then) 14 hours permitted by the Hours of Service act.
What you saw was a simple move but each move does take time, the train pulls in sets the brakes, the conductor or brakie ( if they have one), ties hand brakes sufficent to hold the train, the engines are pulled off the train, then run to the other end, the brakie gets in a cab and pulls the ETD and heads to the other end. Stopping getting off and than tying hand brakes maybe 5 minutes from stop to getting the engines seperated, the engines traverse to the other end of the equipment lets say 10 mph at 1.5 miles so 10 minutes to move the engines, they swap ends on the engines, so they require a locomotive air brake test, say 5 minutes, depending on if they are in a yard or main, they may have to talk to the dispatcher to run around train say 5 minutes to get dispatcher on radio and give crew permission or authority as needed, re-arm the ETD test the ETD, get air in the train line, knock off hand brakes, another 5-10 minutes maybe longer if its cold, brakie gets on rides the shove back, probably around 10 -15 mph, depending on length of shove and conditions, another 10-15 minutes, cab takes brakie to the head end, crew calls dispatcher for authority to leave say 2-3 minutes.
To take an hour to make the whole move is pretty good speed for this move, given that there are a lot of safety factors involved. If the train only has a conductor than this move would take probably anohter 30 minutes, if there is no cab available to help with the move than the time can increase a great deal depending on walking conditions, and other factors. Also, this move is dependent on the crew and their experience wiht the move being made at this location, being unfamiliar, with the tracks involved can lead to a longer than normal time, as the persons involved must take more time, to understand how each move must be down safely and efficently. Each time someone works on this train, the movement has to stop and the trains brake set, the locomotive reverser centered, acknowledgment by radio or hand signals, set and release on the ai
Certainly. Even though our trains are usually only 3-4 cars long, and the siding is only a couple of thousand feet, we still have to go through almost all of the same steps as outlined above. We normally have at least three T&E folks on crew when I work, so one handles the EOT while another accompanies the engineer to do the runaround.
Faced with a shortage of T&E, ie, only the engineer and conductor, (and assuming I have some non-T&E volunteers on the train), and having a downpour to work in, I wouldn’t feel at all bad about using the locomotive as a taxi between ends to save me a lot of walking in the rain. It would obviously add a bit of time to the task, but I’d stay a little drier.