Pumping up the air!

[Charlie B]

Tom, those Alcos are the only engine for kicking. Our S1 was great, by the time you got the GP7 up to speed to kick you were already into the siding. I was told that the load regulator could be set for switching, but no one seemed to know how to do it. A lot of the old time mechanics have already passed away.
There is nothing better than watching a good crew do flat switching.
Charlie

[Tom]

Very true. We were an old school railroad, but nowadays, you can't get ANYTHING done, and have to get permission and ask on the radio to wipe your butt. I HATE radios, I prefer to do EVERYTHING I CAN via hand signals. Reason? That way management isn't evesdropping you and shadowing your work.

[Tom]

Tom, those Alcos are the only engine for kicking. Our S1 was great, by the time you got the GP7 up to speed to kick you were already into the siding. I was told that the load regulator could be set for switching, but no one seemed to know how to do it. A lot of the old time mechanics have already passed away.
There is nothing better than watching a good crew do flat switching.
Charlie

There was no "switch" switch on the control stand or back bulkhead on that GP? Wierd. There is on WP's GP7's, 9's, and 20's.

[Charlie B]

No Tom, no switch. It was a former WSOR road unit, ex CNW.
As for the rules, Yes, the class 1's have taken railroading out of railroading. I used to talk to the CR STO. He is a good friend, no longer a railroader, retired.
He always argued that we were going to get hurt getting on and off moving equipment. My old time FRA man that had 30 years with the PRR-PC and 45 days with CR used to laugh , because he said if you couldn't get on a 10 MPH train when he was hired, you didn't get the job.
Using radios when the engineer can see you is stupid. Hand signals are faster then the reaction time to key the mike, and sometimes with gloves, mikes are hard to key.
I do however like the three step protection and we always used it. It gives you an extra second to think.
As for riding cars, it is harder to run over yourself if you are on the car instead of walking with your back to a moving train. There have been several crewmen killed because they aligned a switch and were walking the gauge (a NO-NO) when they got run over, because they had thrown the switch to the track they were on.
You can't think about anything but railroading when you are railroading, or you will get hurt or killed.
I only had 14 years running a railroad, but I had to know how to do everything, from cutting weeds to maintaining track and rolling stock.
The year before we bought the line the FRA track inspector found 680 violations in 3.4 miles. We were running passenger trains on legit class one track the following year, most of the work done by volunteers. He found 4 violations when he inspected, 2 were what he said was wide gauge, but when I checked the next day they were 57 1/2, not 58 1/2 like he read, and the other 2 were because there was standing water in a couple of ditches. He couldn't believe what we had done. The only other time he got me for a defect was I had forgot to sign one track inspection report. He never fined us, but would have written up any defect.
Charlie

[Gary S]

Love to listen in on some real railroaders' conversation. I pick up little things here and there and enjoy the knowledge gained.

[FCIN]

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.

[Tom]

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.

I tell students all the time while we dink around at 2mph while they preceede the move "Wheels are round, feet are flat. Why are you walking??" You can't get ran over by your train if you're safely riding the end of the cut.

[Charlie B]

I tell students all the time while we dink around at 2mph while they preceede the move "Wheels are round, feet are flat. Why are you walking??" You can't get ran over by your train if you're safely riding the end of the cut.[/quote]
Occasionally I would fill in for an engineer at another short line, and their conductor was notorious for walking, and just messing around. He was just plain slow.
I finally told him one day that today was the day he got retrained. He rode, we kicked cars, we got done 4 hours early. He didn't like it, but I was salary , he was hourly. You would think he worked safely with all this slow motion stuff...He didn't

Another thing a lot of guys here probably are not aware of is that when you see a trainman reach in to open a knuckle that the car is defective. All knuckles should open with the cut lever, just pull it up, and the knuckle kicker will do its job.
Charlie

[NJ Devils Fan]

I just had to cut in here guys. As a "former" rail with 18 years, all this talk is "bringing back that urge again". It's all coming back to me now: kicks, cuts, bleed, drops (these are not injuries I'm talking about folks).

My two cents here - while I remember "the way it was". You see, working for a railroad is a truly unique way of life. You are taught and trained by people who understand what it takes to do the job. It takes a certain individual to perform these duties, day in and day out. And they knew who was going to make it and who was going to "skate". It's not just riding on trains and waving to people at the crossings from the locomotive - that's "Fantasy Land". If you think that is what a railroader does, well then you are very much uninformed.

The constant struggles with management were common because "managers" were "not railroaders". Managers came from college - where everything was learned and rehearsed from a book with a "test on Friday". Managers are "by the book" because they have to be. :hey: They have to report to their superiors about why a job did not get done. Besides - the FRA is always poking around too. Railroaders learned "on the job" - as it should be. No book can teach that.

Railroaders learned from the actions and instructions of their peers. Yes, the "book of rules" was thrown in for good reading, but it's not how the work got done. If the rules were followed to the letter - work would not get done. I am not saying that rules should be exempt - they are needed. But it takes a certain person to "read between the lines" and get it done - SAFELY!

I''ll explain: When I worked for the railroad (Conrail), there were 2 groups of railroaders - the "workers" and the "riders". The "workers" respected their job and it showed every day. They "ensured" the job got done. Whereas the "riders" showed up for the paycheck and nothing else. I'll explain about the "worker" because he deserves it - the "rider", well.....you can figure it out.

The "worker" has 1 basic rule to "live by", that is: expect equipment to move on any track, in any direction, at any time. The railroad is a dangerous place to work and you need to have your head in the game at all times. The worker WAS NOT a person who "laughed at a rule book". The "worker" "knew the rule book" and combined that with knowledge and common sense and GOT THE WORK DONE! A worker knew how to get 13 hours of work done in 12 hours. They did not cheat nor speed nor run. They used the knowledge of the railroad to get the work done. All this talk of cuts, bleed, kick etc...was how he got it done. Kicking a car to a track was faster than putting it in with a locomotive. Bleeding off a car to drop into a siding saved him time so that he would not have to do it on the return trip - when he maybe running behind.

As for the rule book - well, you see, every rule in a rule book was - as they say - written in blood. For every rule written, someone was either hurt or killed doing something. So a rule was written to say "you can't do this or that". But, a railroader looks at it a bit different. A railroader says "yes, that should not have been done.......that way, but, if you do it this way...". He is always thinking ahead instead relying on the rules to dictate his job. This way makes the difference between getting in and going home or dieing on the road and deadheading in. The former allows more family time while the later can put you in a motel or less rest.

That's the difference between a rider and a worker. A worker "wants" to get it done whereas the rider "will wait for the track department to show up so they can sweep the snow from the switch". Ah...the good old days.

For the record...I considered myself a worker - I hate leaving a mess for the next guy to clean up. The Golden Rule applies to railroads as well. "Leave not a mess for the next crew to fix if ye would not like a mess left for your crew".

thanks for the memories guys...

[NJ Devils Fan]

For the record: The NYS&W GP-18's were the BEST unit I ever used in yard operations. They each had a "fast start" switch on the control stand that was perfect for "kicking" cars in the yard. I ALWAYS preferred EMD over GE units. EMD units were always "ready to go" while it seems GE units took "forever to load".

Coming out of Little Ferry, NJ with NYS&W SLN-5 one Friday evening, we had 4 GE B-40's as power on this train. (this was back when we leased most of the B40 fleet from CSX) Once we hit Butler, NJ and started to climb the Sparta grade - all 4 B40's lost traction in the curves west of Butler. There we were, stalled on the hill with all of the crossings in Butler blocked. I had 16,000 HP folks and not one of them would bite into the sand we laid on the rail. The dispatcher could not belive it either - he "informed me that I had sufficient horsepower" and I should not have stalled. HMMMMM how about that.

A switch crew - WS-3 - was working at Passiac Jct, and was sent to give us a "shove" to get over the top. What did they have for power? Yep, good 'ol 1800 - a GP-18. And as soon as she coupled on and got our brake test done, it was ready to go. Those 1800 horses dug right in and gave us enough momemtum to get ny 4 GE units to dig in as well. In no time we had the train up to 30 MPH. We had the "pusher" cut off at Sparta Jct - they had work there later anyway, and we were on our way. No problems the reast of the way -even at Gulf Summit.

Once the GE lost traction - it was hard to get it back. Not so with a EMD. I love that EMD power!

[dave1905]

Gary, that is not a simple question to answer. we allowed 8 minutes for the cars to charge before we did a brake test. 1-8 cars completely drained should charge in this time, then allow a minute per car for more then 8.
You could kick a car by either "bottling " the air, which means close both angle cocks without the brakes applied, or by bleeding the system completely. Some plants where cars are spotted will bleed the air so they can move the car with other means. It is when they are bled that it takes so long to charge. All cars are drained in the yards for humping and many when flat switching, thus the ground lines are used to charge the train lines in newly made trains waiting for crews and motive power. This saves time so the crew can couple into the train, pump off the brakes and do their brake test before leaving the yard. 100 per cent of the brakes have to work before leaving a terminal. There are different tests required for switching operations out and about.
Charlie

On many roads "bottling the air" is against the rules because with modern air brakes, bottling the air can inadvertantly cause all the brakes to release on a cut of cars. On modern air brakes if the pressure in the line is a certain amount above the reservior pressure the valve will think the brakes are released. If you set the brakes and then turn the angle cock on the detached portion it can set up a pressure wave in the train line. If one of the brake valves thinks the pressure wave is an increase in brake line presure it dumps air from the reservoirs into the train line to speed up the charging. That increases the pressure causing the next car to do the same. End result all the cars release the brakes and the bottle portion rolls off.

[Brakie]

"bottling the air" was a rule infraction when I worked on the railroad.If we took that risk -and we did at times-we would set 2-3 handbrakes.

As far as needing air before crossing a public street ..At one time we didn't have to do that in yard switching where a public street or road cross the yard lead.Nothing like backing traffic up as you switch cars a cut of cars that could be 30-40 cars.

We would kick cars with a GP7/9 while flat switching with no problems..

Watch this old girl strut her stuff as she kick cars.

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[Brakie]

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.

I tell students all the time while we dink around at 2mph while they preceede the move "Wheels are round, feet are flat. Why are you walking??" You can't get ran over by your train if you're safely riding the end of the cut.

For me it was second nature to swing on and off cars as we was switching.Heck,I even closed and locked a switch and ran to catch the caboose.Of course there was times when we had to walk ahead of our train when switching a industry..There was 2 reasons to do that-first there may be close clearances and secondly to insure there was nothing sitting to close to the track.