07-01-2010, 12:03 AM
Back in the day when I worked for the Frankfort & Cincinnati Railroad - switching without air on the cars was the norm. And an air test? The only time we ever did anything resembling an air test was before we took the train up the hill out of Frankfort. We had a little air gauge that we attached to the air hose on the rear car - opened the angle cock and if you had 70 psi you were good to go.
We did a lot of flying switches and gravity switches to save time too. One SOP that was done on the F&C for years was doing a gravity switch to get our engine(s) on the right end of the train when we came out of the Old Granddad Distillery. Management did not want us to do it, but we did any way - if you use hand signals and lanterns management doesn't know what you're doing late at night
Coming out of the distillery, the engines were on the east end of the train which varied from 10 to 20 cars and the siding at Elsinore (3/4 mile further east) was always about half full of SHPX covered hoppers that the distillery used. Needless to say, you didn't want to spend almost another hour trying to switch cars around there just to run around the train. So with no air on the train, we'd pull past the main line switch - give the train a big shove up toward Bridge 5 which was on a grade - run the engines back onto the distillery spur and let the train roll back past us. Then we came out on the main and caught the train as it slowed down on the slight grade in the opposite direction. We'd tie in the air and off we'd go. Saving ourselves 45 minutes to an hour or more.
Coming down the hill back into Frankfort, we'd usually stop and set retainers on HP on a couple of cars to keep the train under control going down that 2.5 percent grade.
We had radios, but tended to use hand or lantern signals a good deal of the time, as it can be a pain in the patooty to hang on the side of a car with one hand and key that radio with the other. We always knew were every one was at all times and would of course never move the train until the three of us could see each other.
These days, I watch crews "working strictly by the rules" and wonder how they ever get anything done. As far as getting on or off a moving train, did that all the time too. Why walk when you can ride? Now days, I probably couldn't get my foot up on the stirrup! But I was young and full of (fill in the blank) and thought nothing of it.
We did a lot of flying switches and gravity switches to save time too. One SOP that was done on the F&C for years was doing a gravity switch to get our engine(s) on the right end of the train when we came out of the Old Granddad Distillery. Management did not want us to do it, but we did any way - if you use hand signals and lanterns management doesn't know what you're doing late at night
Coming out of the distillery, the engines were on the east end of the train which varied from 10 to 20 cars and the siding at Elsinore (3/4 mile further east) was always about half full of SHPX covered hoppers that the distillery used. Needless to say, you didn't want to spend almost another hour trying to switch cars around there just to run around the train. So with no air on the train, we'd pull past the main line switch - give the train a big shove up toward Bridge 5 which was on a grade - run the engines back onto the distillery spur and let the train roll back past us. Then we came out on the main and caught the train as it slowed down on the slight grade in the opposite direction. We'd tie in the air and off we'd go. Saving ourselves 45 minutes to an hour or more.
Coming down the hill back into Frankfort, we'd usually stop and set retainers on HP on a couple of cars to keep the train under control going down that 2.5 percent grade.
We had radios, but tended to use hand or lantern signals a good deal of the time, as it can be a pain in the patooty to hang on the side of a car with one hand and key that radio with the other. We always knew were every one was at all times and would of course never move the train until the three of us could see each other.
These days, I watch crews "working strictly by the rules" and wonder how they ever get anything done. As far as getting on or off a moving train, did that all the time too. Why walk when you can ride? Now days, I probably couldn't get my foot up on the stirrup! But I was young and full of (fill in the blank) and thought nothing of it.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"