Western Railroad Discussion > Emeryville Car Knockers lore

ShastaLake Wrote:

>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?
>and yes it
>was done in Emeryville yard. We did it all the time.


OK so how did you old heads accomplish this move? Below is
a link to some earlyer discussion on this topic

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

I think I have a pretty good idea of how the throwing of the switches was accomplished but the part that I still am wondering about is how you got the three different strings all rolling down the hill. It must have looked like what it looks like when you go and see a hump yard now days.

Lets say you number the cars 1 to 15 with the first car being next to the engine.

I think the first step might have been to kick cars 11 to 15 up the hill, just hard enough that they would roll up the hill for a while, and then roll back down.

Next uncouple cars 6 to 10 while they are not moving. They will also slowly start to roll down the hill.

But before this can happen head down the hill with cars 1 to 5 and then uncouple them from the engine and have the engine accelerate ahead of them.

Is that the first step and now all I have to do is figure out the possitions of the switchmen as they line the switches to get all these cars and the engine each on their respective tracks?