Railroaders' Nostalgia > Unbelievable Drop / Switching Cars

While working as an engineer on the Santa Fe's Salina, Kansas road switcher in about 1974 I witnessed a feat that was out of this world. It was a Saturday morning and we had performed a couple of switching moves and then went to pull about 22 cars off the MoPac transfer track. The train crew consisted of Eddie Viar, Charley McNally (now deceased), and Tony Schmidt. All were in their mid 30's, very agile and in great physical shape. It was about 1500 to 2000 feet between the transfer switch and the switch to the west yard lead. In our job briefing (before that term was ever coined) they informed me we were going to drop the cars down the west lead and they would put me up the main line. OK, we had done this before so no big deal. We make the drop, I get in the clear on the main line and stop after they have lined the switch for the lead.

Here comes the unbelievable part. One of the guys pulls the pin behind about 6 cars and boards the 7th car applying the hand brake to create a gap between the head 6 cars and the remainder of the cut, then releases the hand brake. Another guy is lining the switch on the lead for another yard track behind that 1st group of cars. The 3rd guy has pulled the pin behind the 14th car before boarding the 15th car and applying the hand brake momentary to create another gap. When that gap reaches the lead the switch is lined for yet another yard track.

They lined the lead switch for the main and all got on the locomotive and said, let's go tie up. (We'd only been on duty for an hour of so). I said, well don't we have to go switch out those cars we just pulled from the MoPac? They said "what do you think we've been doing? Everything is switched.

One drop, cars in 3 different tracks. That was a great crew I was working with.

A few months earlier while working the evening Salina road switcher we had made a drop of some cars. After, when the conductor was on the engine he asked me just how I handled the engines when he was requesting slack while making a drop. I told him I would go from throttle 8 to 4, then back to 8 while at the very same time fully applying the independent brakes momentary and releasing them. I quizzed him as to the reason he was asking me about this. He said I would always give him just enough slack to allow the pin to be pulled but not too much causing the car(s) to slow down. He said some of the other engineers would slow the movement down so much when making a drop the cars would fail to roll into the clear. I just kept on doing what I'd been doing.

I have seen some engineers leave the throttle in 8, flip the generator field switch off momentary, then back on along with applying and releasing the independent brakes which would accomplish the desired results but I remember my mechanical instructor telling us "not to do that". I forget what damage it was suppose to cause.

I know the dropping of cars is very much a No-No today but am wondering just how some of you older engineers did it in the yesteryears and/or what exciting experiences you've had in doing it.

Before getting away from the topic of dropping cars I was working as a brakeman on the Santa Fe's Plains Division at Alva, Ok. We had a car on the west end of our locomotives and it needed to be on the east end for spotting to an industry. The auxiliary tracks were such that a real simple dutch drop would have accomplished the procedure and elevation of the tracks would have been in our favor. But I couldn't talk the conductor into doing it. So we spent about 2 hours doing it his way verses 10 minutes my way. I realize he was the boss.

Mark Cole
Temple, Tx

I used the way you were told not to. Run eight, drop the GF with a little independent than close the GF and get away.
Aggravating with some engines that loaded slow like GE's. Frist generation EMDs and pre Dash-2s worked best!

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, Or

Everyday, especially at work, I tell myself I was born overy half a century to late.

Thank you sir for posting this, I wish I could have lived and railoaded back when it was still real railroading and not just a investigation bureau that also happens to occasionally move freight.

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DG .
Unknown, US

I can vouch for Mark's story. I participated in a lot less complicated triple drop one day at Salina which involved 5 or 6 hoppers to be spotted at an elevator right in the area of the yard office/freight building. The elevator in question had side-by-side tracks for overhead loading. I believe it has been closed/out of business for a few years now. The triple drop I was in on involved 3 cuts going into the tracks in a 1-2-1 fashion. It was the one and only time in 32 years I ever took part in a drop like that.

This 3-way drop was engineered by Harold Wells, again with Eddie Viar, I think... it may have been Jerry Douchou. (I'm not sure I spelled Jerry's last name correctly, but it was pronounced DOO-hoo. Of course he had the nick-name 'dog-chow'.) I think the engineer was Steve Johnson. Harold Wells was a classic old school yard conductor from an even older school. Every morning he would always sit drinking his coffee in the yard office for about 30" while studying the switch lists. And as an extra-board man replacing a regular man you had damn well better know your hand signals... ALL of them. Salina wasn't that complicated a yard, nor was it very large. But Harold would often leave his switch lists in the yard office and switch the entire day from memory. He hardly ever communicated with his fellow switchmen with anything but hand signals. If he communicated with an extra board man verbally it was about a 99.99% chance the extra board man had just F'ed up some move. Harold was poetry-in-motion and was a joy to work with, IF you kept on your toes and didn't disrupt his graceful switching...

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/15 09:05 by santafe199.

You had to use the Generator Field on GE engines on a regular Drop or Dutch Drop. If you were wide open in power(or any other notch)and reduced a notch those engines would unload and then start to load back up very slowly. You couldn't get away from the car unless you used the GF. And those old SP 6700s had a throttle that had 16 notches. You had to really contort yourself in order to watch the guy at the switch and to be able to get that throttle all the way open. With an EMD, once the man at the switch gave you a kick sign, you would just wind them up with the jam all the way on and when the units started to move I would kick off the jam and go, keeping an eye on the man at the switch. When he gave me a pin sign I would notch down a bit, hit the jam and when he gave me the highball, back to run 8 with the brakes released. When you were in the clear he would give you a stop sign. As the car rolled by you, he would back you up, line the switch and go on top of the car to shove it to a spot.

If you had all GEs in your consist, you could lose 5 to 7 minutes or more, between Arlight and Conception on the Zipper. Their wheel slip controls were terrible. In helper service you could look back and see the GE take off like a rail grinder with no notice to the engineer. I think they should have stayed making washing machines. I would take a Cadilac any day.

As far as that drop went, if there is a way that a switchmen could get an early quit, beleive me, they knew all the tricks.


Nudge

I would have like working with that crew, loved MAXIMUM efficiency (as long as it benefitted ME!) As a go home move we used to drop the entire interchange cut from the LAJ into a track at Santa Fe's Hobart yard in Los Angeles before calling it a night.
JB

One of scariest moves I help make was drooping sixteen cars of soybeans into the Santa Fe Connection at Osage City,Kansas. The Mop line rolls downhill for a mile and we cut off east of town, bottled the air, and the conductor took the engines down and lined the connection switch and derail. I was on point riding the handbrake, and the other brakeman was on the rear car to drop the air with a strap around the angle cock. I am not sure how fast we were going but I am thinking I hit the connection switch at 25 mph. I was sure that if we didn't derail going in to the connection, we would go over the Santa Fe derail and on to the mainline and on to Emporia and meet the No.16 the Lone Star someplace, which came by us while we were there. As it turned out, the crew had done a number of times before and knew just where to pull the air. Every time I go through Osage City and look down were the right of way used to be and think of my wild ride into the Santa Fe connection. Its too bad it wasn't daylight and someone had a movie camera, as a video of this would have been priceless

The only drop that stands out in my mind was one of my first. I was just promoted, and got forced assigned to a midnight switch engine at Newton's Sand Creek yard. One of the chores was to switch the rail mill, which we did. I didn't know the crew, and didn't know the job, and coming from the Topeka Shops, I'd never even been a Switchman. So, Dana the foreman told me to just stop short of the switch, he would lift the pin, and for me to just back up into the clear and wait there. I didn't even know what we were doing for sure, but soon watched the gondolas we had a hold of roll through the switch, past me, down a short grade, and disappear into the dark. Since I was only being spoon fed just enough information to do one move at a time, I didn't realize it was really a "gravity" drop we were making until it was already in progress. And, it all went well too, except for the part where someone at the rail mill had left the switch protecting the Burro cranes lined wrong, and the five loaded gondolas we dropped went right down in the low spot where the Burro's were parked, impacted and damaged them all. That must have been the noise I heard. A couple of weeks later, Me and my local chairman drove out to Newton together for the investigation, but it had already been settled when we walked into the office. The Foreman and his helpers ate all the Brownies, and I went home without.

Gotta make a few comments on your comments. In844south and spnudge both made reference to the slow loading GEs. You got me thinking. I don't recall of ever making a drop with anything other than an EMD. That's all we used on the Middle Div locals and road switchers. Earlier when working as a fireman we had Fairbank Morris units (ATSF # 3000-3011) on most of the locals which, by the way, were junk, junk, junk.

Lance, you got me wondering on the spelling of Doo Hoo's name. Had to look it up. It's Dochow. I had worked with Mr. Wells a lot also. Knew his ex wife, son and 2 daughters and his newer wife a little bit. This changing of the spouse had to do with his relocating to Salina. There's a little story about how this came about but can't share it here.

Joe B., it had always been my philosophy that the purpose of the railroads was to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, safely. In the latter years many people didn't think that way.

mopacrr, sure glad you didn't derail riding the point. There was a Temple conductor riding the point just south of here that went over a derail and the car turned over on him. We had to get a crane to lift the car up before finding his body. You mentioned going through Osage City. Do you live in that area?

Dennis, I can't believe you let the other guys eat all those Brownies without sharing with you. Good for you that you missed out.

Back to my "drop" story, as we were leaving the yard to go to the freight house to tie up the trainmaster drove up to check out the west end of the yard. I always wondered what he would have thought about that triple drop if he had showed up 5 minutes earlier. I really doubt if he would have even figured out what was going on.

Mark

At the time nothing in the rule book prohibiting a "drop" and nothing unsafe about it.
JB

3rdswitch Wrote:
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> At the time nothing in the rule book prohibiting a
> "drop" and nothing unsafe about it.

I agree with you Mr. Joe and I've made hundreds (well it seems like that many) of them and never did have any trouble. I have heard of mishaps such as only getting the switch partially thrown and derailing the dropped cars due to a short "gap" between the engines and cars. Also heard of a crew putting the engines down a short track which had to stop and then the switch wouldn't line so the dropped cars slammed against the engines. However just common sense would tell one to always test the switch before making a drop. I'm thinking there used to be a rule requiring that. Does anyone know for sure?

Mark

For sure, no. I went to work for the IC in 1958, and do not find a rule in their rule book requiring checking switch operations before making a drop.

I went to work for the NYC in 1959, and do not find such a rule in their rule book.

I went to work for the Rock when I got out of the Army in 1966, and was on the rules committee there.

The Rock rule book effective 6/2/1968 had Rule 103 (a) (5) that said "Kicking or dropping of cars will be permitted only when such movement can be made without danger to employes, equipment, or contents of cars. Know that the track is sufficiently clear, and when dropping cars, know switches and brakes are working properly and run engine on straight track when practicable.
Cars containing flammables, explosives, or other dangerous articles, must not be dripped or kicked.
Cars must not be dropped through spring or remote control switches.

I do not think anyone thought dropping cars was unsafe in itself. Obviously, you need the right conditions to do it. I recall only once on the TRRA when the question came up, and a crew said they thought it was not safe. I was General Superintendent and I went to the site with an Assistant Terminal Superintendent and we made the drop and asked the crew what their problem was.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/15 16:23 by CCDeWeese.

CCDeWeese Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The Rock rule book effective 6/2/1968 had Rule 103
> (a) (5) that said "Kicking or dropping of cars
> will be permitted only when such movement can be
> made without danger to employes, equipment, or
> contents of cars. Know that the track is
> sufficiently clear, and when dropping cars, know
> switches and brakes are working properly and run
> engine on straight track when practicable.
> Cars containing flammables, explosives, or other
> dangerous articles, must not be dripped or kicked.
>
> Cars must not be dropped through spring or remote
> control switches.

I was not referring to any rule prohibiting the practice. I was thinking of the Rule 103 (a) (5) which you provided. One needed to know the SWITCHES and BRAKES are working properly and the track is sufficiently clear. I realize it doesn't say "test the switch" but how else would one know if it was working properly? The last mishap I posted above could have been prevented if the crew had followed Rule 103. Thanks for quoting that rule for us.

A fellow just told me about his experience while riding a mixed train in Mexico twenty years ago. At one point, the crew made a drop...with an occupied passenger car. Ole'!

-E.O.

To keep the guilty parties from being named I won't say the railroad, but we still do a drops everyday, needless to say not a class one.

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When I worked for a nameless regional railroad in the California central valley, we dropped cars everyday. On one job it was not uncommon to drop 15 to 20 cars at a time since the nearest run around was almost useless. Tank cars are the worst to drop, I've seen a cut or two literally slosh their way across the switch 10 feet at a time. Non-hazard of course. I never dropped cars with a helper either, got the pin and switch myself every time. I didn't trust anybody else not to throw the points under the power.

While not as impressive as sorting cars as they are dropped, as in Kskidin's first example, I used to watch the switch engine that switched the spurs at Cudahy (between Old Town and Morena) in San Diego do a "dutch" drop almost every day while I worked on the dock at the Sears warehouse. The spurs were all trailing point going west (north) and there was no runaround. When they were finished with their work, they'd spot the engine near the warehouse and shut it down to go into the Sears employee cafeteria for coffee and doughnuts.

After that, they'd take the cut of 20 or so pickups (usually all empties) out on the mainline with the engine on the west end, and shove them back down the mainline east towards San Diego. Then they'd get 'em moving west (slightly uphill), cut off the engine, stop just past the switch and reverse, and duck out of the way on the lead to the spurs before the cars rolled by at 15 MPH or so. Finally, they'd go get the cut and head back to town with the engine leading. I never saw them even come close to botching the move. Practice makes perfect.

Usually the switch engine was RS1 2394, which loaded up quickly (with a big puff of smoke), though crews told me they didn't like it for switching because the steam boiler had been removed and the truck under the short hood tended to pick up and slide under hard braking. Years later, I went to work with a friend who was hostling in San Berdoo, and he opened the door to the space inside the short hood, and it was full of brake shoes that had been piled up almost to head height for ballast.

D F W

I'm not a railroader but I remember seeing "drops"/flying switches done several times by the C&Os Pole Job in Columbus. If they had a car going to Cordage Papers they would often do a drop instead of running around the train and shoving the entire train to Cordage. Cordage was about a quarter mile north of where the drop would be excuted. The drop consisted of the engine getting a running start and then dropping the car thru a crossover and allowing it to roll with a brakeman northward on the industrial track toward Cordage. Before starting the drop, the crossover switches were aligned. The switch on the industrial track was aligned toward the mainline and the switch on the main was aligned for the main. A man was stationed at the switch on the mainline. The loco and car would back down the mainline and then get a running start toward the crossover. The car would be cut off and the engine would head up the mainline. After the engine cleared the switch the switchman promptly aligned the switch toward the siding. The car would then roll thru the crossover and up the industrial track toward Cordage. The brakeman riding the car would apply the brakes after the car had cleared the crossover. Usually the car rolled to a stop about halfway between Cordage and the crossover. The engine would then be switched thru the crossover and coupled to the car. The car was then shoved to and spotted at Cordage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/15 11:47 by Phil.

I watched three sets of grain hoppers spotted to three separate elevators in Moscow, Ks using this same method. Seems as though the cars were in groups of 5 to 7. The rear set went north of the main to an elevator and two other sets went to two elevators on the south side of the main. The was on the Santa Fe's line from Dodge City, Ks to Boise City, Ok.

When I worked for a certain southern CA short line, we had an engineer who used the generator field to kick cars with our Alco S-6's. He would pull the throttle all the way out, and wait for the turbo to catch up. As the stack started to clear, he would lift the GF breaker and then engine would "jump forward". I was always amazed that the generator didn't flash over, but such was the robust nature of GE Electrical Equipment. In a damper climate or an engine where the insulation in the generator was starting to flake or break down, the results would have been catastrophic to the Main Generator, which is why railroads prohibited it.