Western Railroad Discussion > Three man switch crews

I am strongly looking at doing a student internship this summer on a local short line. I have been out there watching these short line guys work and they really hustle, a lot faster it seems than most of the class one switchmen I have seen.

So here is my question, I am trying to make a list of switching moves and other things that can be done faster with a three man crew, even considering that the third man on the crew is totally green and never worked on a railroad before.

I am afraid that the way it could end up working is for example me, I guess I would be the brakemen, would walk back with the conductor, and he would stand there and watch while I hooked up the air hose, a lot slower than he could do it himself. So what I am looking for is ways that a switching crew with more than two people on it can do things faster, or make moves that can't even be done with just one person?

For those interested in this subject I have been searching old posts.

Here is a great one, about all the new hires and its impact on the safety of switch crews.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1130202,1130460#msg-1130460

Here is a great discussion of when they had five and six man crews

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1063247,1063247#msg-1063247

Below is a great discussion of "drop moves"

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,890324,890447#msg-890447

Also this discussion continued with more talk about shastalake's question
about gravity tripple drops on another newer thread.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1170790

I did a similar thing with a shortline near me, and the role I found myself in was something similar to a switch tender. Typically, when there were only two people, the conductor would be constantly hopping on and off the train as they were going back and forth into a switching siding. By having me stand at the switch to throw it back and forth, the conductor could stay with the stationary cars on the switch siding and the main track, and just walk back and forth between the two cuts.

He could use the time that I was directing the train to a stop clear of switch, lining and sending the train back towards him to make sure the knuckle on the car he was going to hook was open, that everything was lined up well and all was good to go. He would sometimes make quick notes on the paperwork while I was in charge of the train, also saving time.

On our train, having me as a third person saved a lot of time and effort on the part of the conductor because he did not have to travel back to the switch with the rest of the train.

-B

A drop cannot possibly be done with less than 3, and if the handbrake is on the wrong end of the last car cut a 4th is required.

There is a difference between a three man crew and an experienced three man crew. Having grown up working on bigger crews the functions of each are dictated by the experience of each member and the type of job being done. I suspect that if you have little or no experience you will be relegated to "just throw the switch every time a move goes by". Some of the more experienced crews can work wonders but all members carry their weight. Until the foreman or conductor feels comfortable with you and your abilities your just going to be there learning.

MTMEngineer Wrote:
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> A drop cannot possibly be done with less than 3,
> and if the handbrake is on the wrong end of the
> last car cut a 4th is required.

Hummm....You can make a drop with just one person, it all depends on where you make the drop.

Try this one....You have a three member crew and you need to send your 15 cars into three different tracks, the cars are all blocked. The head five go to track 1, the next five go to track 2 and the last five go to track 3...You are dropping them on a down hill grade into the yard, the conductor gives the sign for a pin, then the engine pulls away, how was this switching move made?

Topper, you can not answer this, and yes it was done in Emeryville yard. We did it all the time.

Gosh, how will they learn after we are gone :)

When I was a swichman in SF, one of the old timers told me about watching /one/ old timer (when "my old timers" were youngsters) drop two stage icers with a steam engine through a hand-throw puzzle switch (double slip switch) in the Sheds at 4th and Berry.

Emeryville was one of the few places where it was possible to double drop. The most a** puckering drop was a caboose on the yard lead at Milpitas with 2 8900s (SD45s, didn't work). Not so worrisome was 11 loads of propane uphill at Avon, which we used to do rather regularly. Then there was Castleman who used to triple cut on the 50 lead at West Oak all the time.

Never did a jackass drop, although I've been in plenty of roll-bys.

I don't think it's really that you can't do stuff with one or 2 less people, it's that it takes longer. You keep adding a minute or 5 here and there, pretty soon you're talking some time.

I don't think it's really that you can't do stuff with one or 2 less people, it's that it takes longer. You keep adding a minute or 5 here and there, pretty soon you're talking some time.

hobojaks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am strongly looking at doing a student
> internship this summer on a local short line. I
> have been out there watching these short line guys
> work and they really hustle, a lot faster it seems
> than most of the class one switchmen I have seen.


One more thing, the speed the person is moving at has absolutely nothing to do with the amount or quality of the work being done.

James1 Wrote:
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> hobojaks Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I am strongly looking at doing a student
> > internship this summer on a local short line.
> I
> > have been out there watching these short line
> guys
> > work and they really hustle, a lot faster it
> seems
> > than most of the class one switchmen I have
> seen.
>
>
> One more thing, the speed the person is moving at
> has absolutely nothing to do with the amount or
> quality of the work being done.


AMEN! The art of switching is in learning to be in the right place at the right time.

Here is a good account of how switching used to be done back in the old days.

I took it from this article
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1063247,1063247#msg-1063247

Switch crews:

At Colton we had a total of 5 guys on every job, 6 if you count the VETO fireman's job on the afternoon shift in front of the yard office commonly called the "Yard Side" job. There was an engineer, pin puller, switch foreman, which was usually the highest guy in seniority, a short field man, and usually, the guy with little or no seniority, the long field man.

The foreman's job is obvious. After receiving the list from the yardmaster, we, as a crew, would write down on on the back of an IBM card how many cars went to what track. Such as, 3 cars to 11, 2 to 3, 3 to 19, and so on. When kicking cars he gave the engineer the kick sign and told him when to stop. He was the boss of the job. A good foreman could make it easy on everybody if he could stop the cut so he wouldn't have to saw a switch before he kicked the cars again.

The pin puller was just that. He pulled the pins on the cuts of cars as we were kicking them into their proper tracks. He also herded the engine around like when there was a track to be pulled, he would couple the engine on to the cut of cars.

The short field man had, in my opinion, the best job on the crew. All he had to do was to line the switches while we were kicking the cars and be sure that the cars went into the correct track. He might have to do a little walking to line a switch or two but that's nothing.

The long field man was the guy with no seniority (me). His job in the Colton yard was to also make sure that the switches were properly lined like the short field guy but to a lesser extent. Basically his job was to make sure that the cars that were coming his way didn't go all of the way to the other end of the yard and out on the lead. He would catch a car as it was traveling down the lead, get on the correct side of the car to get ready to apply the hand brake (the short field man would give him a signal with his lantern at night so the he knew which side of the car to get on), let the car down 10 or 12 cars into the track before setting the hand brake. He might have to do this 3 to 5 times for each cut of cars but by looking at his list that he wrote on the back of the IBM card, he knew how many cars were going into each track. After he got the first few cars with hand brakes on them for each track to prevent the cars from going out the east end of the yard (and that has happened) he could pretty much kick back (no pun intended) and watch as the crew switched out the rest of the cut. Usually he would also line a few switches for the short field man but only if he liked him. If he didn't, oh, well. That was the job of the short field guy. But mostly we all worked as a team as it should be.