Western Railroad Discussion > UP reopens hump at Hinkle Oregon...

... well sort of.  On a road trip, drove by UP's formerly busy Hinkle Yard at Hermiston Oregon last Friday and Sunday, and was surprised to see switch jobs working on the hump.  However, it had to be one of the most absurd things I had ever seen, they were flat switching cars over the hump; pushing and pulling cars in and out of the bowl tracks.  I can't imagine how this is more efficient then using gravity to roll cars down a hill into the bowl tracks!?!?  One really has to wonder about the intellect that is running the UP...  I don't know if this is a new thing UP is doing there since they moved the Canadian traffic switching back down there from Spokane (see Funnelfan's thread a week or two ago) or if they have been switching like this all along since the intelligent way of using a hump was stopped last year.

Also interesting, and very sad, was that it looked like the relatively new and modern diesel shop there is now totally shut down - literally no vehicles parked in the parking lot and UP is using the tracks to get into the shop building for stored locomotives.

They still manually switch over the old hump in Ft Worth.  So none of the Hinkle operation is surprising.

They're doing the same thing in pine bluff so idk whats the difference between the two

Posted from Android

CSX switches over the Hump at Cumberland, MD everyday....

I wouldnt be surprised if this is all another lawyer inspired thing.    "Cars rolling on their own, thats too dangerous".    We kicked cars and did drops for 100 years, then 20 years ago, lawyers decided their was too much liability exposure in kicking cars.

And the well, imho, dumbest thing ive seen so far, are those "brakewheel sticks".  So u can operate a brakewheel without having to climb on the car ladder. 
I guess its a good idea when youre in snow and ice...  But how did we make it thru the last 100 years without them?

I used to see some guys on our UP local here using them, but not recently. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/20 13:11 by pdt.

I love my brake stick.  

Guess the retarders are expensive to maintain  , and they may egads require a Human

sixaxlecentury Wrote:
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> I love my brake stick.  

those of us who HAVE tied down coal trains in the powder river loved them too...........

66

goneon66 Wrote:
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> sixaxlecentury Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I love my brake stick.  
>
> those of us who HAVE tied down coal trains in the
> powder river loved them too...........
>
> 66

Yep, brake sticks are one of the few safety items the company has spent money on that actually helps the employees. They are extremely popular.

portlander Wrote:
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> goneon66 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > sixaxlecentury Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > I love my brake stick.  
> >
> > those of us who HAVE tied down coal trains in
> the
> > powder river loved them too...........
> >
> > 66
>
> Yep, brake sticks are one of the few safety items
> the company has spent money on that actually helps
> the employees. They are extremely popular.

All true.  Brake sticks are a great tool for making the task easier on the body and safer for the trainman.  BSB

The older you get, the more you like your brake stick.

Less pin-pulls and re-coupling of hoses. That’s were the inefficiency of humps is not offset by the volume of cars humped.

Posted from iPhone

irhoghead Wrote:
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> The older you get, the more you like your brake
> stick.

I have to agree, brake sticks are an improvement over climbing on and off cars, whether in 110 degree heat or freezing ice and snow...

BrokenRail Wrote:
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> Less pin-pulls and re-coupling of hoses. That’s
> were the inefficiency of humps is not offset by
> the volume of cars humped.

That could only be true if the cars being sorted were already essentially in block order with only minimal switching needed.  However, most of the time its 1, 2 or 3 cars going over together into one track followed by more cars into another because the cars are so mixed up.  Where are the cars being unmixed and pre-sorted now?  It has to happen somewhere.

BrokenRail Wrote:
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> Less pin-pulls and re-coupling of hoses. That’s
> were the inefficiency of humps is not offset by
> the volume of cars humped.
>
> Posted from iPhone

To add to this, trimming is more efficient too, since there are less couplings to make in the bowl tracks. All of that being said, I doubt if much of it plays a factor in the financial decision to close a hump.

Wait until traffic picks back up!@

I observed CN switching over the hump in a similar manner at the former Detroit, Toledo & Ironton's Flat Rock Yard south of Detroit in 2001 (I could be incorrect, but CN may have actually implemented this prior to the "Hunterization" of the CN network, or perhaps this was one of the first non-IC projects he did on CN...Can anyone confirm if and when the hump crest was lowered, retarders removed, and switch panel installed for conductor at Flat Rock?). I have no idea how they switch today.

abyler Wrote:
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>
> That could only be true if the cars being sorted
> were already essentially in block order with only
> minimal switching needed.  However, most of the
> time its 1, 2 or 3 cars going over together into
> one track followed by more cars into another
> because the cars are so mixed up.  Where are the
> cars being unmixed and pre-sorted now?  It has to
> happen somewhere.

You beat me to it. It's like the claim that CTC increases capacity even after ripping out track.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
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> abyler Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> >
> > That could only be true if the cars being
> sorted
> > were already essentially in block order with
> only
> > minimal switching needed.  However, most of
> the
> > time its 1, 2 or 3 cars going over together
> into
> > one track followed by more cars into another
> > because the cars are so mixed up.  Where are
> the
> > cars being unmixed and pre-sorted now?  It has
> to
> > happen somewhere.
>
> You beat me to it. It's like the claim that CTC
> increases capacity even after ripping out track.

A trend I have noticed at large industrial plants is the railroads demanding that the customer pre-block and sort outbound cars for up to four destinations and build sufficient tracks to make this happen.  So at least part of it is making the customers do their work, just like they try to make the customers purchase the cars and do their own switching and spotting.

I suppose that the sorting could also be getting done at the initial regional gathering yards.  Frankly, they should be pre-sorting cars if the railroads are ever to have a prayer of getting into the lucrative short haul business the truckers monopolize.  If the local yards are able to significantly pre-block cars (and by that I mean make a half dozen or more outbound blocks, instead of one or two), that can only happen because their cars coming inbound are already much more sorted out for the local trains originating in the yard.  Would be nice if the divisional hump yard had enough tracks to build blocks representing each local operating on the division, so that when a larger block is dropped off at a regional yard, it is already sorted out into sub-blocks for each local train, and the local crew just needs to put the cars in order for their own train switching plan for the day.

abyler Wrote:
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.  Would be nice if the divisional
> hump yard had enough tracks to build blocks
> representing each local operating on the division,
> so that when a larger block is dropped off at a
> regional yard, it is already sorted out into
> sub-blocks for each local train, and the local
> crew just needs to put the cars in order for their
> own train switching plan for the day.

That's how it works in Roseville. To a lesser extent now with PSR of course.

The reason for the comment above about less pin pulls and air couplings is because cars do arrive in blocks. A prime example for us is the mnpfr. I carries a lot of traffic for Oakland. So it 30 of the 50 cars set out are for Oakland, it makes sense that there will be chunks of Oakland cars. On the hump, while humping, loads have to be released in cuts of two or less. With flat switching (hard to call it that when being shoved over a hump), the switch crew will shove in that cut of 20 cars.