Eastern Railroad Discussion > In lieu of a "Flying Switch"...

On Sunday 10/19/14, CP Binghamton to Montreal road local 253 had to deposit a car load of South Dakota soybeans at the Malcolm & Walker feed mill in Afton, NY. As you might guess, 253 must place the car at the mill unload spot on a spur behind the silo via two facing point switches off the single track main. The power, including an idling D&H heritage GP38-2 and a dead-in-tow SD90 (what other kind is there?), pulls away from the train at the north end of the Afton controlled siding and drops the soybean car on the run-around siding ahead of the mill siding switch.

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After proceeding down the run-around siding back to the main, the power set led by conductor on D&H 7304 heads toward the siding switch to finish spotting the soybean load in the mill complex. The complete maneuver took about 40 minutes but part of that time might have been a several minute timer wait before the hand throw switch off the CTC main could be opened(?).

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Neat series!
-Alex

Not like it used to be, watched a UP crew take an hour and 15 minutes to pick up one tank car yesterday in a simple ( not these days ) situation. Used to watch drops like this all the time to a facing point spur, no run around available.

So they ran around the car, and it only took 40 minutes for a 15 min switch.

Drops are a lost art. Used to do them all the time. But now, OMG, working without air...the world might come to an end.

Believe me- we would still do drops if the lawyers would stop running the railroad and let the railroaders actually railroad...
But, they will fire us for such a brazen display of the now-lost "art" of railroading... So instead we take all day doing what used to take 15 min...

There are so many good ways to switch cars that are perfectly safe that we can't do any longer.

Joe

Many, many years ago I can recall watching the Reading RR Camelback locomotives "fly switches" around the old Fern Rock and Tabor RR stations.
In those days there were several commercial sidings one of which was a coal trestle between Fern Rock and Tabor stations on the east side of the tracks and often they would "fly' a coal car or two into the siding then come back later and place them over the trestle for unloading.

This was back in the late 1930's and early forties. Love those memories.

Jim

DrLoco Wrote:
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> Believe me- we would still do drops if the lawyers
> would stop running the railroad and let the
> railroaders actually railroad...
> But, they will fire us for such a brazen display
> of the now-lost "art" of railroading... So instead
> we take all day doing what used to take 15 min...

Lawyers have ruined this country.....

Using hand signals is also becoming a lost art.

Frontrunner Wrote:
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> Using hand signals is also becoming a lost art.


hiring conductors with common sense is a lost art

DrLoco Wrote:
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> Believe me- we would still do drops if the lawyers
> would stop running the railroad and let the
> railroaders actually railroad...
> But, they will fire us for such a brazen display
> of the now-lost "art" of railroading... So instead
> we take all day doing what used to take 15 min...


On the OPR we make drops several times a week with a 2-man crew...only way to get the work done with one unit and no runaround!

Dick Samuels
Oregon Pacific Railroad

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it doesn't look like a drop was made. Car to be spotted was cut off in the runaround, above the industry switch. Power then ran around the car and spotted it.

Frontrunner Wrote:
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> Using hand signals is also becoming a lost art.


I saw this idiot on the UP give a backup hand signal every time he wanted the train to move,regardless of direction.
They were switching, so I think the engineer just kinda figured it out.

Agreed. I don't see a dutch drop here either with the power on the spur/siding. Looks like a simple runaround move to my eyes.

PDT: remember that we were all idiots when we started railroading. The Company [all of us] are responsible for training the rookies. The means of so doing have changed, but not the need.

JGFuller Wrote:
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> Maybe I'm missing something here,

In the title..."In lieu of"


> but it doesn't
> look like a drop was made. Car to be spotted was
> cut off in the runaround, above the industry
> switch. Power then ran around the car and spotted
> it.

Kind of editorial about the state of railroading in the 21st Century.

TAW

JGFuller Wrote:
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> PDT: remember that we were all idiots when we
> started railroading. The Company are responsible
> for training the rookies. The means of so doing
> have changed, but not the need.

rookies = FNGs = F*^°%n New Guys

Posted from Android

JGFuller Wrote:
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> PDT: remember that we were all idiots when we
> started railroading. The Company are responsible
> for training the rookies. The means of so doing
> have changed, but not the need.

I seem to remember watching and listening to the guys who had been around forever. And by the time u got to conductor,
you had a lot of experience. Of course, we now have FNG's who are hired straight to conductor or engineer.

I also very much remember learning that there was a big difference between what they told u in school, and the real world.
Especially when it came to time and duty and pay.

Haha

True story, altho I think one must be a Condr for a while before taking promotion to Engr.

The situation certainly places a lot of training responsibility on people who themselves have less experience than in the past. But to simply dismiss rookies as FNGs accomplishes nothing. They must be taught, so as to become Old Heads. And it is particularly the responsibility of those Old Heads that remain, to mentor the rookies. It's enlightened self-interest. The better the rookies are trained, the less likely they are to hurt an Old Head.