Western Railroad Discussion > The great GCOR rulebook secrets

Or, How incredibly paranoid do you have to be, to think that having the GCOR rules available to the public,
will help terrorists?

"No, Akbar, we don't want to blow up that train. Look, diverging approach medium. No good.
We need a train getting a diverging approach diverging signal."

or

"We cannot attack train here, it's Other Than Main Track."

REALLY? I don't think so.

I knew the Govt could take any situation, and extrapolate it to the ridiculous, so I guess I shouldn;t be surprised that
certain RR's can do it too. Just for example, right after 9/11, you couldn't take a pencil sharpener on an airplane.
OK, who out there is capable of lethally attacking me with a pencil sharpener. You know, one of those little plastic things.

I don;t know if I should laugh or cry. It's so pathetic.
I guess the persons making this grave decision, should acquire ANY knowledge about terrorists and terrorism.
Like, for instance, they want to kill a lot of people at one time. There is as much chance of a train derailing from
terrorism, as there is from kids throwing a refrigerator on the tracks, or slack action.
If terrorists want to go after a train, it will be the NY subway system.

Hate to upset the apple cart, but I know what procedure XH is. I also passed the GCOR practice rules exam, without ever studying for it. OK, so I'm a NORAC person, and I could figure it out. Maybe that's cheating.

But really (LOL)
A system of signals over a length of track is called
A) Block Signal System
B) Absolute Block
C) Approach Restricting
D) Yard Limits

But as for the paranoia..."All we have to fear is fear itself." As true today as it was in 1933.

Sorry, I just had to get my 2 cents out there, cause I think this whole GCOR thing is SO stupid.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/13 22:25 by pdt.

Awhile back, Trains mag reported a drunken (obviously) hijack attempt by some bozo in a large Midwest railyard who climbed on a switcher and told the crew, "Take me to Los Angeles". When the crew called the Yardmaster and said "they were being hijacked" the response was laughter until they finally convinced someone that it was real (the guy had a gun) and would someone - PLEASE - do something? The cops were called and that was that. but... The writer went on to say what if the hijacker posing as an FRA Inspector and "it a test and the RR Brass were in the loop so can the chatter and let's roll".

Makes ya wonder...

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> But as for the paranoia...All we have to fear is
> fear itself. As true today as it was in 1942.
>
May have passed the GCOR test w/o studying but you might want to hit the books before taking a history exam.....that line's from FDR's first inaugural address delivered March 4, 1933.....<G>

I stand corrected. I thought it was from after Pearl Harbor. History was my worst subject.

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I stand corrected. I thought it was from after
> Pearl Harbor. History was my worst subject.

No, that was something about infamy...shoulda studied a little harder.. ;)

It is pretty sad that the posters here are not particularly knowledgable of the history of the 20th century. America’s highpoint.

The general public is just as ignorant...as seen on Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" and his "Battle of the Jaywalking Allstars" segments...

Glen Beck's were even funnier when just before the last election, three out of four people couldn't identify
the current Vice President. Intersection of sad, funny and tragic.

We are explicitly advised in our Code of Conduct not to share things like line-up info with "foamers" etc.; well, it doesn't say foamers per se, I think it's "RR Associations";)

I'm confused about this post. What happened to spur this rant? Did someone take your GCOR away? Was it removed from a web site?

I feel like I missed something here.

Posted from iPhone

Same here. WTF is the OP ranting about?

Well, there's the GCOR and then's there the encyclopedia of fine print that the individual railroads
hand out as supplements, special orders, local orders and on and on and on.

rehunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, there's the GCOR and then's there the
> encyclopedia of fine print that the individual
> railroads
> hand out as supplements, special orders, local
> orders and on and on and on.


I wondered about this myself, since there are several editions of the rulebook online, the latest I found easily from 2010. On the other hand I can see a myriad of reasons why a railroad would not want all its nitty-gritty detailed operating details and rules available to everybody and anybody -- the competition more than highly-unlikely terrorists!

I went to several web sites looking for the GCOR rules, and the sites were missing or blank.
I seemed to remember a post a while back about how UP (most likely) trying to get GCOR info
off the internet, as it was a (paranoid) security issue.

I was particularly looking for dwarf signal indications. With Norac, Dwarf and high signal indications
are different. Also, If my memory serves me correctly, there are no dwarf automatics. They are all controlled signals.
Maybe there are some dwarf distant signals somewhere...

At any rate, if someone has the URL to a site with the GCOR rules, please post, or send my a PM.

thx

Not sure what the debate is over, sixth edition is the current edition, many union locals have links to it on line, there a number of places it can be found.

http://www.utu1904.com/files/Download/GCOR_6th_ed.pdf

Just print a copy of the GCOR from the above link. That way we can avoid the future indecipherable rants.

Posted from iPhone

>I was particularly looking for dwarf signal indications. With Norac, Dwarf and high signal indications
are different. Also, If my memory serves me correctly, there are no dwarf automatics. They are all controlled signals.
Maybe there are some dwarf distant signals somewhere...

Signal indications aren't in the GCOR; they're in each railroad's special instructions.